1643.]

DEATH OF ANNE HUTCHINSON.

17

places, from which sudden onsets were made in every direction; villages were laid waste, the farmer murdered in the field, his children swept into captivity. From the shores of New Jersey to the borders of Connecticut, not a bowery was safe. It was on this occasion that Anne Hutchinson perished with her family. The Dutch colony was threatened with ruin already overwhelmed with misery. "Mine eyes," says one who was present, saw the flames at their towns, and the frights and hurries of men, women, and children, the present removal of all that could for Holland.” The assassins were compelled to desire peace.

was

In March, 1643, a convention of sixteen sachems of Long Island assembled in the woods, and the envoys from Manhattan were conducted from the wigwams of Pennawits, their great chief, to the centre of the little senate. A chief rose, holding in one hand a bundle of small sticks. "When you first arrived on our shores, you were destitute of food; we gave you our beans and our corn; we fed you with oysters and fish; and now, "" - such for our recompense, you murder our people; were the opening words of the orator. Having put down one little stick, he proceeded: "The traders whom your first ships left on our shore to traffic till their return, were cherished by us as the apple of our eye: we gave them our daughters for their wives; among those whom you have murdered were children of your own blood." He laid down another stick; and many more remained in his hand. The issue had been uncertain but for the presence of Roger Williams at Manhattan, on his way to England. His mediation gave a truce to Long Island. A month later, peace was covenanted with the Indians on Hudson River.

But harmony and confidence were not restored. The young men among the Indians would not be pacified; one had lost a father or a mother; a second owed revenge to the memory of a friend. No sufficient ransom had stifled revenge and calmed the pride of honor. "The presents we have received," said an older chief, in de

VOL. II.

2

409

spondency, "bear no proportion to our loss; the price of blood has not been paid;" and war was renewed.

The commander of the Dutch troops was John Underhill, a fugitive from New England, a veteran in Indian warfare, and one of the bravest men of his day. With a little army of one hundred and twenty men, he became the protector of the Dutch settlements. The war continued for two years. At length, the Dutch were weary of danger; the Indians tired of being hunted like beasts. The Mohawks claimed a sovereignty over the Algonquins; their ambassador appeared at Manhattan to negotiate a peace; and in front of Fort Amsterdam, the sachems of New Jersey, of the River Indians, of the Mohicans, and from Long Island, acknowledging the chiefs of the Five Nations as witnesses and arbitrators, and having around them the director and council of New Netherlands, with the whole commonalty of the Dutch, set their marks to a solemn treaty of peace. The joy of the colony broke forth into a general thanksgiving; but infamy attached to the name of Kieft, the author of the carnage; the emigrants desired to reject him as their governor; the West India company disclaimed his barbarous policy. About two years after the peace, he embarked for Europe in a large and richly-laden vessel; but the man of blood was not destined to revisit the shores of Holland. The ship in which he sailed, unable to breast the fury of elements as merciless as his own passions, was dashed in pieces on the coast of Wales, and the guilty Kieft was overwhelmed by the waves.

A better day dawned on New Netherlands, when, in May, 1647, the brave and honest Stuyvesant, recently vice-director of Curaçao, wounded in the West Indies, in the attack on St. Martin, a soldier of experience, a scholar of some learning, promoted for his services, entered on the government of the province. Sad experience dictated a milder system towards the natives; and it was resolved to govern them with lenity. The interests of New Netherlands required free trade; at first, the de

1647-1654.]

STRIFE WITH NEW ENGLAND.

19

partment of Amsterdam would not consent to a change; it had alone borne the expense of the colony, and would tolerate no interlopers. But nature is stronger than privileged companies; the monopoly could not be enforced; and export duties were substituted. Manhattan began to prosper, when its merchants obtained freedom to follow the impulses of their own enterprise; and the glorious destiny of the city was anticipated.

With so feeble a population, it was impossible to protect the eastern boundary of New Netherlands. Of what avail were protests against actual settlers? Stuyvesant was instructed to preserve the house of Good Hope at Hartford; but while he was claiming the country from Cape Cod to Cape Henlopen, there was danger that the New England men would stretch their settlements to the North River, intercept the navigation from Fort Orange, and monopolize the fur trade. The commercial corporation would not risk a war; the expense would impair its dividends. "War," they declared, cannot, in any event, be for our advantage; the New England people are too powerful for us." No issue was left but by negotiation. Stuyvesant himself, in September, 1650, repaired to Hartford, and was glad to conclude a provisional treaty, which allowed New Netherlands to extend on Long Island as far as Oyster Bay, on the main to the neighborhood of Greenwich. This intercolonial

cr

treaty was acceptable to the West India company, but was never ratified in England; its conditional approbation by the States General is the only Dutch state paper in which the government of the republic recognized the boundaries of the province on the Hudson. The West India company could never obtain a national guaranty for the integrity of their possessions.

The war between the rival republics in Europe did not extend to America. We have seen the prudence of Massachusetts restrain the colonies; in England, Roger Williams delayed an armament against New Netherlands. It is true that the West India company, dreading an attack from New England, had instructed their

But

governor "to engage the Indians in his cause. the friendship of the Narragansets for the Puritans could not be shaken. "I am poor," said Mixam, one of their sachems, "but no presents of goods, or of guns, or of powder and shot, shall draw me into a conspiracy against my friends the English." The naval successes of the Dutch inspired milder counsels; and the news of peace in Europe soon quieted every apprehension.

The Swedes remained powerful competitors for the tobacco of Virginia and the beaver of the Schuylkill. In the vicinity of the Delaware, the Swedish company was more powerful than its rival; but the whole province of New Netherlands was tenfold more populous than New Sweden. For commercial security, the Dutch, in 1651, built Fort Casimir, on the site of Newcastle, within five miles of Christiana, near the mouth of the Brandywine. To the Swedes this seemed an encroachment; jealousies ensued; and, in 1654, aided by stratagem and immediate superiority in numbers, Rising, the Swedish governor, overpowered the garrison. The aggression was fatal to the only colony which Sweden had planted. The metropolis was exhausted by a long succession of wars; the statesmen and soldiers whom Gustavus had educated, had passed from the public service; Oxenstiern, after adorning retirement by the sublime pursuits of philosophy, was no more; a youthful and licentious queen, greedy of literary distinction, and without capacity for government, had impaired the strength of the kingdom by nursing contending factions, and then capriciously abdicating the throne. Sweden had ceased to awaken fear or inspire respect; and the Dutch company fearlessly commanded Stuyvesant to "drive the Swedes from the river, or compel their submission." The order was renewed; and in September, 1655, the Dutch governor, collecting a force of more than six hundred men, sailed into the Delaware with the purpose of conquest. Resistance would have been unavailing. One fort after another surrendered: to Rising honorable terms were conceded; the colonists