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Updated: June 15, 2025
The origin of our city will be buried in eternal oblivion, and even the names and achievements of Wouter Van Twiller, William Kieft, and Peter Stuyvesant be enveloped in doubt and fiction, like those of Romulus and Remus, of Charlemagne, King Arthur, Rinaldo, and Godfrey of Boulogne.
The letter was inclosed in another written to Montmagny by the Dutch Governor, Kieft, which is also before me, together with a MS. account, written from hearsay, by Father Buteux, and a letter of De Quen, cited above. Thus died Isaac Jogues, one of the purest examples of Roman Catholic virtue which this Western continent has seen.
The affairs of the confederacy were managed by an annual council of delegates held at Boston, which Kieft denominated the Delphos of this truly classic league. The very first meeting gave evidence of hostility to the New Nederlanders, who were charged, in their dealings with the Indians, with carrying on a traffic in "guns, powther, and shott a trade damnable and injurious to the colonists."
As soon as peace was made with the Mohawks, an officer and a few men were sent to the mountain, in the region of the Kaatskill, under the guidance of an Indian, to search for the precious mineral. They brought back a bucketful of ore, which, being submitted to the crucible, proved as productive as the first. William Kieft now thought the discovery certain.
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.
The settlers, in disregard of advice, were living in scattered situations over a large territory, and they were all in danger, and defenseless, even if New Amsterdam itself could escape. Kieft was heartily cursed by all impartially; he was compelled to make overtures for peace, and a pow-wow was held in Rockaway woods, in the spring of 1643.
Kieft welcomed these blood-stained men with "shaking of hands and congratulations." The tidings of this outrage spread far and wide among the Indian tribes in the valley of the Hudson and on the Long Island shore. Private enterprise, relying upon the protection of Kieft, had sent out a foraging expedition upon Long Island. Kieft assumed that he saw signs of hostility there.
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.
The most glorious hero that ever desolated nations might have mouldered into oblivion among the rubbish of his own monument, did not some historian take him into favor, and benevolently transmit his name to posterity; and much as the valiant William Kieft worried, and bustled, and turmoiled, while he had the destinies of a whole colony in his hand, I question seriously whether he will not be obliged to this authentic history for all his future celebrity.
The days of the Dutch ascendency in New York are inextricably associated with this ludicrous narrative. It is impossible not to think of the forefathers of New Amsterdam as Knickerbocker describes them. The Wouter Van Twiller, the Wilhemus Kieft, the Peter Stuyvesant, who are familiarly and popularly known, are not themselves, but the figures drawn by Diedrich Knickerbocker.
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