Settlers versus Natives: Kieft's War, 1643-45

The Dutch had an early presence in North America, in what is now New York and parts of Connecticut, but it wouldn't last beyond a few decades.  This War is one of the reasons things went terribly wrong for the Dutch and it all stemmed from their misunderstanding of and high-handed treatment of the local Native tribes.

This war is sometimes capped the Wappinger War, but its more direct victims were the Lenape or Delaware.  When the Dutch first arrived in North America, they had found the Delaware, Wappinger and the Pequot people to be ready allies, eager to trade beaver pelts for luxury items that became necessities in Native families.  The Pequot War (1636-38) between Settlers what is now Massachusetts, eliminated the Pequot as a power in the region.  English settlers allied with the Mohegan and Narragansett and began encroaching on Dutch territory in search of pelts and land.  Meanwhile, maintaining and supplying the colony from home had become costly.  The one thing they had going for them was the beaver trade, which was booming.  Willem Kieft, appointed Director of New Netherland in 1638, had no prior experience heading a colony or dealing with Natives.  His objective was to cut the costs of running the colony to maximize profit.

Among his first moves were to totally alienate his trading partners.  He had a plan to make the colony pay for itself by demanding tribute from the Wappinger, Delaware and other tribes.  This tribute was to take the form of food stuffs given to the colony from the Natives' own supplies.  The Sachems of the tribes involved objected, pointing out that they needed this food to sustain their own families, too.  A Settler, David de Vries, soon came to Kieft complaining that some pigs had been stolen from his farm.  Kieft accused members of the Raritan, a tribe living on what is now Staten Island.  He demanded that the Raritan produce the thieves for punishment.  In fact, another Dutch settler had stolen the pigs and the Raritan were innocent.  This alternative didn't occur to Kieft and he continued to threaten the Raritan, hoping to get results.

Then, in 1641, a Wappinger Native killed Claus Swits, an elderly Swiss colonist who ran a tavern in what is now Turtle Bay, Manhattan.  There are various reports of the Native's motive, mostly having to do with vengeance for Swits or others having killed the man's relatives in an earlier ambush.  Then, other Settlers became engaged in a brawl with Hackensack Natives over a lost or stolen coat and Kieft was fed up.  He had his pretext for war on the surrounding tribes and he was quick to exploit it.  In doing so, he was at odds with his own people.  The Settlers of the colony realized that, surrounded as they were by so many Natives, with hostile English not far away, a war with the local tribes was the last thing they needed.  Kieft created a Council of Twelve, whom he hoped would give him the mandate for war.  They vetoed the idea instead.  Kieft dissolved the Council and ordered an attack on villages of Wappinger and Tappan Natives in 1643.

In an incident known as the Pavonia Massacre, 120 Dutch Settlers killed over 120 Native men, women and children.  The various tribes, all Algonquian-speaking, rallied in anger.  A force of 1500 warriors invaded New Netherlands.  One of their victims was Anne Hutchinson, who had fled Puritan Massachusetts and hoped to settle in peace with her family.   As Kieft tried to rally Dutch settlers to fight the threat, many of them responded by fleeing the colony.  Kieft hired English mercenary John Underhill, who killed over 500-700 Natives in the Pound Ridge Massacre.  The Native tribes were ready to send in more warriors.  Alarmed, the remaining Settlers in New Netherlands petitioned the Dutch West Indies Company and authorities in Holland to remove Willem Kieft. 

While the Company and Dutch authorities back at home dithered in their response, the Settlers in New Netherland had a full-fledge Native revolt on their hands.  Attacks followed each other back and forth.  The English in Massachusetts and Connecticut saw a chance to exploit a weakness and began encroaching more on Dutch territory, often inciting the violence among rival tribes.  Finally, in 1647, Dutch authorities recalled Willem Kieft, who died in a shipwreck on his way back to Holland to explain his conduct.  Peter Stuyvesant was sent as Director to replace Kieft.  He did manage to pacify the local tribes and put New Netherlands back in order, but the stage was set for further war.  Ultimately, unable to bear the expense of supplying and defending their North American colonies, the Dutch would sell out to the English, but that's another post.