CHAPTER III
THE INDIANS AND THE EARLY SETTLERS
The Dutch Policy toward the Indians. Puritan and Dutch Policy Contrasted. Long Island Indians: Their Relations with the Whites. Kieft's Attacks on Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook. Uprising on Long Island. Overtures for Peace. Mission to Rockaway of De Vries and Olfertsen. Restoration of Friendly Relations.
These numerous settlements had not been accomplished without the encountering of Indian difficulties. In general the Dutch policy toward the Indians was business-like and reasonable, contrasting favorably with policies prevailing elsewhere among American new-comers. The Dutch were not so social as the French, but their attitude was more fraternal than that usually observed among the English colonists. Douglass Campbell, who is to be regarded as a strong partisan of the Dutch as opposed to the Puritan system, but whose exhaustive studies both of the Puritan and of the Dutch people gave him an unusual grasp of the situation, thus contrasts the policy of the two peoples:—
"Why the Puritans were involved in ceaseless wars can be read in every line of their history. As they could not make of the Indian a red Puritan, he was a spiritual outcast, whom it was their duty to exterminate. Three years after the landing of the Mayflower Miles Standish and seven of his companions murdered three native chiefs in cold blood. It was this event which led the devout John Robinson to say, 'How happy a thing it would have been if you had converted some before you killed any.' In 1637 the white settlers of Connecticut put a red captive to death by dragging him limb from limb by ropes fastened to his arms and legs. Bancroft tells us that the Puritans bought the Indians' land, except that of the Pequots. Look at their laws and see. In 1633 Massachusetts passed a statute in relation to land titles. It confirmed to the Indians the little patches around their wigwams on which they raised their corn, but declared that the rest belonged to the whites on the authority of the first chapter of Genesis 'and the invitation of the Indians.' But murder and robbery of their land all pale before the crowning infamy which drove the red man to despair. Above all things he prized personal liberty; slavery to him was a thousand fold worse than death. And yet to this fate the settlers consigned thousands of the natives, sending them to the West Indies to work on the sugar plantations. Among these victims was the little grandson of the good king Massasoit, who had welcomed the Pilgrims and been their life-long friend. Look at the records of Massachusetts, and there you will find statute after statute offering bounties for Indian scalps, the prices fixed being from twenty-five to one hundred pounds for males, from twenty to sixty for women, and from ten to twenty for children under ten years of age. These same statutes provided that females and children taken prisoners should belong to the captors, 'to be sold out of the province.' I mention these facts in no invidious spirit, but in justice to the red man, who has been called treacherous and cruel. He resented such conduct; and can you wonder at it? He had no redress except by arms, and he has written the story of his vengeance all over the face of New England. What could the Indians think of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the white man's God? What was true of the New England colonies was true of the southern colonies as well. The course pursued by Penn can hardly be taken as a criterion, for he dealt with the Delaware Indians, who had been conquered by the Iroquois, deprived of the use of arms, and forced to accept the opprobrious epithet of 'women;' and Penn, in purchasing their lands, only followed out the example which had been set by the Dutch.
"Turn now to New York, and see what the Indian was under different conditions. The upper Hudson and the valley of the Mohawk were first settled by the Dutch. They simply treated the Indian as a man. Tolerant in religion, they respected his rude faith; truthful among themselves, to him they never broke their word; honest in all their dealings with him, they kept good faith. They suffered from no thefts, because they took nothing except by purchase. Their land titles were respected, because for every tract they had an Indian deed. They were scourged by no massacres, save from the enemy across the border, because they committed no robbery or murder. This was the whole secret of their policy. It is easy to belittle it, as historians have done, by saying that upon no other conditions could they have lived among the natives. Of course it was politic, but the world has discovered that honesty is the best policy, without concluding that it is any the less a Christian virtue. These early settlers in New York were traders, offshoots from what was the greatest commercial nation of the world. They made no pretense of doing missionary work. They were simply in pursuit of gain. But they had learned that the only permanent success in life rests on honesty and justice. This is the lesson that commerce teaches, and because it does so it has been the civilizer of the world. After the English conquest in 1664 the same policy was continued, thanks to the presence of the Dutch, who still formed the majority of the population. The Six Nations then placed their lands under protection of the crown and were recognized as appendant to New York. The burden thus cast upon the province was very heavy. For more than a century New York kept their alliance by heavy subsidies and by contributions of men and money for their defense against the French."11
The Indian policy of the Dutch has, indeed, been credited with a most important influence upon American history. But sagacious as it may have been as a broad plan of action, there was no way of obviating the difficulties arising from local and individual blunders. Considering the number of special provocations to revolt, it is remarkable that Indian troubles were not more frequent and more serious, and that the storm did not break sooner and more fiercely than it did. Prime remarks that the conduct of the Long Island Indians toward the whites is "without a parallel in the history of the country."
"The Indians on Long Island," says Silas Wood, "seem to have been less troublesome to the whites than those north of the Sound. … [They] sometimes committed depredations on the property of the whites. … It does not appear that they ever formed any combination against the first settlers, or materially interrupted the progress of their improvements. … The security of the whites must be ascribed to the means they employed to preserve peace with the Indians."
When the storm of Indian anger and revenge broke over New England in 1643, New Netherland did not escape a similar if not equally terrible visitation. If the settlers in New Amsterdam began to experience anxiety, something like a panic seized upon the settlers of outlying regions. The Long Island settlers were perhaps less ill at ease than others at an equal distance from the Fort, so friendly had been their relations with the Indians; but individual offenses of the settlers and individual offenses by the Indians produced a strained relation in certain quarters, and when the excuse came the hot-heads among the Long Island settlers made trouble.
At New Amsterdam the trouble began when the Mohawks descended upon the river tribes in retaliation for local offenses, and the river Indians flocked to the vicinity of the Fort for protection. At "Corlaer's Bouwery," on Manhattan Island, a group of Long Island Indians, under the chief, Nainde Nummerius, had encamped. An ill-advised appeal to Kieft resulted in an impulsive decision on the part of the Governor, who, in spite of wiser counsel, sent out two secret expeditions on the night of February 25, 1643, one against the refugees at Pavonia, the other against the encampment at Corlaer's Hook. The attacks were merciless. Eighty Indians were slaughtered at Pavonia, and forty at the Hook.
This unfortunate blunder resulted in acts which still further excited the anger of the Indians. Long Island settlers asked Kieft for permission to attack the Marechawieck tribe; but Kieft, possibly because he had already begun to realize the influence of the outrage he had committed, denied permission on the ground that the Long Island red men had given no sufficient cause for offensive action. Nevertheless, the Governor did not deny to the Long Island settlers any retaliatory steps that might at any time seem necessary. Shortly after this communication, two wagon-loads of corn in charge of a party of Indians were seized, and when the Indians resisted the act of plundering, three of them were killed.
If the massacre on Manhattan Island had caused among the Long Island Indians a general resentment against the white men, the murders on the Island itself made their hostility specific and local; and it is not surprising that many of the Long Island tribes joined hands with the river Indians. The tragedies which followed belong to the annals