Opposition: Captain John Underhill

One of the greatest compliments a Settler on the American frontier could receive was that of an Indian Fighter.  One of the first of such men, who had a reputation in at least three colonies for his skills in two Indian Wars was John Underhill (1597-1672).

John was born in England to a gentry family.  His grandfather was Keeper of the Wardrobe to Queen Elizabeth I and his father performed a similar function for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.  At some point, the father was involved in the Essex Revolt and fled to the Netherlands with his family.  John grew up in the Netherlands along with the Puritan exiles who would later form the nucleus of the Pilgrim Fathers.  He saw military service in the army of the Prince of Orange and married a Dutch woman.  Some time prior to 1630, he immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony, where his military experience would come in handy.  He rose to prominence in colonial affairs, becoming a Selectman for Boston and later being sent to arrest Roger Williams, whom the Puritans considered a heretic.  Williams had already fled to Connecticut. 

Underhill led the Massachusetts militia fighting the Pequot War (1636-1638).  It was Underhill who, along with other militia leaders, was responsible for the fire at the Pequot village near present-day Mystic that would become known as the Mystic Massacre.  Over 400 Pequot men, women and children perished in the fire.  Underhill later published an account of his actions during the Pequot War.  By 1640, he was under investigation by Puritan authorities for supporting minister John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson.  Underhill was among those banished from Massachusetts Bay and fled first to New Hampshire.  Later, when his military services were needed once again, the banishment order was lifted.  John, meantime, decided to hedge his bets and leased land for a tobacco plantation in New Netherlands, though that never came to fruition.

He had moved to Connecticut when, in 1643, he was hired by Willem Klieft, Director of the New Netherlands colony, to lead colonists and militia from Massachusetts against the Lenape and Wappinger.  In one engagement, his men killed 400-700 Lenape.  Underhill moved to New Netherlands and continued to lead troops against the Natives throughout Klieft's War (1643-45).  He once again rose to prominence, becoming a Selectman in what is now Flushing, when he developed a quarrel with Klieft's successor, Peter Stuyvesant.  He circulated a petition calling for Stuyvesant's overthrow as a tyrant.  Not surprisingly, Stuyvesant had Underhill thrown into prison.  Upon his release, Underhill learned of a Dutch plan to attack English settlements in Connecticut and returned there.  Authorities in Connecticut hired Underhill to meet the Dutch advance and authorized him to attack what is now Hartford.  Stuyvesant knew what Underhill was capable of and knew that he wouldn't stop at Hartford, but would attack New Amsterdam itself.  Stuyvesant ordered a wall built at what is now Wall Street. 

New Netherlands and Connecticut settled their differences in 1654 and Underhill decided he'd had enough of war.  He settled in Oyster Bay, hoping that was out of reach of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Netherlands, and any Natives bent on revenge.  He later served as a representative of Oyster Bay, and as an advisor to a local band of Lenape who conveyed 150 acres to him.  Underhill would clash with Stuyvesant again, when he banned Quakers from settling in New Netherlands.  The ban was ultimately lifted.  Underhill died in 1672 and was buried in what is now Locust Grove, New York.  His tomb still stands in a burial ground named after his family and his descendants survive to this day. 

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.