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Updated: May 8, 2025
The Dutch colonies were threatened with immediate and entire depopulation. Kieft himself was terrified in view of the frightful storm he had raised. He was compelled to enlist every able-bodied man as a soldier. There was an end to all traffic, to all agriculture, to all the arts of industry. Even the plantation of the humane DeVrees did not escape the undiscriminating wrath of the savages.
Daybreak scarcely ended the furious slaughter. Mangled victims, seeking safety in the thickets, were driven into the river. Parents, rushing to save their children whom the soldiers had thrown into the stream, were driven back into the waters and drowned before the eyes of their unrelenting murderers." "I sat up that night," writes DeVrees, "by the kitchen fire at the Director's.
This universal panic pervaded the Dutch settlements. The wildest stories were circulated at the firesides of the lonely settlers. Anxiety and terror pervaded all the defenceless hamlets. DeVrees, rambling one day with his gun upon his shoulder, met an Indian "who was very drunk." Coming up to the patroon, the Indian patted him upon the shoulder, in token of friendship, saying,
He sent to this innocent, unsuspecting tribe, a party of seventy well armed men, many of them unprincipled desperadoes. They fell upon the peaceful Indians, brutally killed several, destroyed their crops, and perpetrated all sorts of outrages. The Indians never forget a wrong. The spirit of revenge burned in their bosoms. There was a thriving plantation belonging to DeVrees on Staten Island.
At length, encouraged by DeVrees and accompanied by him, the chiefs ventured to fort Amsterdam. They explained to Kieft the occurrence, and proposed the expiatory offering to appease the widow's grief. Kieft was inexorable. Nothing but the blood of the criminal would satisfy him.
A combination of the Indians against the colonists might prove an awful calamity. Thus, for a time, the war which was evidently approaching was averted. Approaching Hostilities. Noble Remonstrance. Massacre of the Natives. The War Storm. Noble conduct of DeVrees. The Humiliation of Kieft. Wide-Spread Desolation. The Reign of Terror. State of Affairs at Fort Nassau. The Massacre at Stamford.
But they hastened to an interview with DeVrees, in whom they had confidence, and expressed a readiness to make atonement for the crime, in accordance with the custom of their tribe, by paying a large sum to the widow of the murdered man.
DeVrees, finding his house full of fugitive savages, on their retreat to Pavonia, at the mouth of the river, paddled down in a canoe through the floating ice to fort Amsterdam, to confer with Director Kieft upon the emergency.
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