Kieft's War (1643–1645), also known as the Wappinger War, was a conflict between the colonial province of New Netherland and the Wappinger and

Lenape The Lenape (, , ; ), also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. The Lenape's historica ...

Indians in what is now New York and New Jersey. It is named for Director-General of New Netherland

Willem Kieft Willem Kieft, also ''Wilhelm Kieft'', (September 1597 – September 27, 1647) was a Dutch merchant and the Director of New Netherland (of which New Amsterdam was the capital) from 1638 to 1647. Life and career Willem Kieft was appointed ...

, who had ordered an attack without the approval of his advisory council and against the wishes of the colonists.Walter Giersbach, ''Governor Kieft's Personal War''
, (published online, 26 Aug 2006) Dutch colonists attacked Lenape camps and massacred the inhabitants, which encouraged unification among the regional Algonquian tribes against the Dutch and precipitated waves of attacks on both sides. This was one of the earliest conflicts between settlers and Indians in the region. The

Dutch West India Company The Dutch West India Company () was a Dutch chartered company that was founded in 1621 and went defunct in 1792. Among its founders were Reynier Pauw, Willem Usselincx (1567–1647), and Jessé de Forest (1576–1624). On 3 June 1621, it was gra ...

was displeased with Kieft and recalled him, but he died in a shipwreck while returning to the Netherlands; Peter Stuyvesant succeeded him in New Netherland. Numerous Dutch settlers returned to the Netherlands because of the continuing threat from the Algonquians, and growth slowed in the colony.

Background

The

appointed Kieft as a director without evident experience or qualifications for the job; he might have been established through family political connections. He arrived in New Netherland in April 1638. The

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of M ...

Plymouth Colony Plymouth Colony (sometimes spelled Plimouth) was the first permanent English colony in New England from 1620 and the third permanent English colony in America, after Newfoundland and the Jamestown Colony. It was settled by the passengers on t ...

Saybrook Colony The Saybrook Colony was a short-lived English colony established in New England in 1635 at the mouth of the Connecticut River in what is today Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Saybrook was founded by a group of Puritan noblemen as a potential politic ...

, Mohegan Indians, and Narragansett Indians had defeated the Dutch-allied Pequot tribe during the

Pequot War The Pequot War was an armed conflict that took place in 1636 and ended in 1638 in New England, between the Pequot nation and an alliance of the colonists from the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies and their allies from the Na ...

(1636–1638), which eased the way for the English to take over the northern reaches of New Netherland along the

Connecticut River The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges into Long Isl ...

. Peter Minuit had been director-general of New Netherland. Still, he left two weeks before Kieft's arrival to establish

New Sweden New Sweden () was a colony of the Swedish Empire between 1638 and 1655 along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in what is now Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Established during the Thirty Years' War when Sweden was a g ...

in the poorly developed southern reaches of the colony along the

Delaware Valley The Philadelphia metropolitan area, also known as Greater Philadelphia and informally called the Delaware Valley, the Philadelphia tri-state area, and locally and colloquially Philly–Jersey–Delaware, is a major metropolitan area in the Nor ...

. New Netherland had begun to flourish along the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

. The Dutch West India Company ran the settlement chiefly for trading, with the director-general exercising unchecked corporate authority backed by soldiers.

New Amsterdam New Amsterdam (, ) was a 17th-century Dutch Empire, Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''Factory (trading post), fac ...

and the other settlements of the Hudson Valley had developed beyond company towns into a growing colony. In 1640, the Company surrendered its trade monopoly on the colony and declared New Netherland a free-trade zone, and Kieft was suddenly governor of a booming economy.

Skirmishing

Kieft's first plan to reduce costs was to solicit tribute payments from the tribes living in the region. Long-time colonists warned him against this course, but he pursued it, nonetheless. Tribal chiefs rejected the idea. Pigs were stolen from the farm of David Pietersz. de Vries, so Kieft sent soldiers to raid a Raritan village on

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

, killing several people. The Raritan band retaliated by burning down de Vries' farmhouse and killing four of his employees, so Kieft offered bounty payments to rival tribes for the heads of Raritans. Colonists later determined that de Vries' pigs had been stolen by other colonists. In August 1641, a Weckquaesgeek Indian killed Claes Swits, an elderly Swiss immigrant who ran a public house frequented by settlers and Indians alike in Turtle Bay, Manhattan. Another incident occurred at Achter Kol along the banks of the Hackensack River. Settlers and some Hackensacks had been drinking alcohol at a trading post when a conflict arose over a missing coat which ended in the death of the post's foreman.Ruttenber,E.M., ''Indian Tribes of Hudson's River'', (Hope Farm Press, 3rd ed, 2001) The colonists resisted Kieft's Indian initiatives, so he tried to use the Swits incident to build popular support for war. He created the Council of Twelve Men to advise him, and it was the first popularly elected body in the New Netherlands colony. The council was alarmed about the consequences of Kieft's proposed crusade, as they had lived in peace with the Indians for nearly two decades, and they rejected his proposal to massacre the Weckquaesgeek village if the villagers refused to produce the Swits murderer. The Indians were far more numerous than the colonists and could easily take reprisals against their lives and property. They also supplied the furs and pelts that were the economic lifeblood of the colony. The council sought to dissuade Kieft from war, and they began to advise him on other matters, using the new Council to carry the interests of colonists to the corporate rulers. They called for establishing a permanent representative body to manage local affairs, and Kieft responded by dissolving the council and issuing a decree forbidding them to meet or assemble. Kieft sent a punitive expedition to attack the village of the Indian who had murdered Swits, but the militia got lost. He then accepted the peace offerings of Weckquaesgeek elders. He then launched an attack on camps of refugee Weckquaesgeek and Tappan on February 23, 1643, two weeks after dissolving the council. Mahican and Mohawk Indians in the north had driven them south the year before, armed with guns traded by French and English colonists, and the Tappans sought protection by the Dutch. Kieft refused aid despite the company's previous guarantees to the tribes to provide it. The refugees made camp at Communipaw in

Jersey City Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

and lower Manhattan.

Pavonia Massacre

Colonists from New Netherland descended on the camps at Pavonia on February 25, 1643, and killed 120 Indians, including women and children. De Vries described the events in his journal:

Infants were torn from their mother's breasts and hacked to pieces in the presence of their parents, and pieces thrown into the fire and in the water, and other sucklings, being bound to small boards, were cut, stuck, and pierced, and miserably massacred in a manner to move a heart of stone. Some were thrown into the river, and when the fathers and mothers endeavored to save them, the soldiers would not let them come on land but made both parents and children drown.

About 40 were killed in a similar attack the same night in the Massacre at Corlears Hook. Historians differ on whether Kieft had planned such a massacre or a more contained raid, but all sources agree that he rewarded the soldiers for their deeds. The attacks united the

Algonquian peoples The Algonquians are one of the most populous and widespread North American indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous American groups, consisting of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages. They historically were prominent along the East ...

in the surrounding areas against the Dutch.

Two years of war

The Dutch began to greatly further arm the Mohawk in 1643 as their allies. In late 1643, a force of 1,500 Indians invaded New Netherland and killed many, including Anne Hutchinson, a chief figure in the Antinomian Controversy which ruptured the

years earlier. The Indians destroyed villages and farms, the work of two decades of settlement, and Dutch forces killed 500 Weckquaesgeek Indians that winter in retaliation. New Amsterdam became crowded with destitute refugees, and the colonists increasingly resisted Kieft's rule. They flouted paying new taxes that he ordered, and many people began to leave by ship. Kieft hired Captain John Underhill, who recruited militia on Long Island to go against the Indians there and in Connecticut. His forces killed more than 1,000 Indians, including 500 to 700 in the Pound Ridge Massacre. The colonists wrote letters to the directors of the Dutch West India Company and the Dutch Republic requesting intervention, but they produced no result. Many then banded together to formally petition for the removal of Kieft, writing: "We sit here among thousands of wild and barbarian people, in whom neither consolation nor mercy can be found; we left our dear fatherland, and if God the Lord were not our comfort we would perish in our misery." For the next two years, the united tribes harassed settlers throughout New Netherland. The sparse colonial forces were helpless to stop the attacks, but the Indians were too spread out to mount more effective strikes. The two sides finally agreed to a truce when the last of the 69 united tribes joined in August 1645.

Outcome

Willem Kieft smoking Peace Pipe with Algonquian Chief after Wappinger War 1645

The outcome is regarded as favourable to the Dutch since the colony's safety was eventually assured, and the siege of

was lifted, after a great offense which devasted the Indians. However, the Indian attacks caused many settlers to return to Europe, The Dutch West India Company blamed Kieft for the war, and the dead settlers. They recalled Kieft to the Netherlands in 1647 to answer for his conduct,{{cite web , url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/4060/ , title = Journal of New Netherland 1647. Written in the Years 1641, 1642, 1643, 1644, 1645, and 1646 , website =

World Digital Library The World Digital Library (WDL) is an international digital library operated by UNESCO and the United States Library of Congress. The WDL has stated that its mission is to promote international and intercultural understanding, expand the volume ...

, date = 1641–1647 , access-date = 2013-08-01 but he died in a shipwreck near

Swansea Swansea ( ; ) is a coastal City status in the United Kingdom, city and the List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, second-largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of ...

, Wales. The company named Peter Stuyvesant as his successor, and he managed New Netherland until it was ceded to the English.

References

Wappinger Conflicts in 1643 Conflicts in 1644 Conflicts in 1645 Wars involving the Dutch Republic Colonial American and Indian wars Military history of the Thirteen Colonies New Netherland Pre-statehood history of New Jersey Massacres of Native Americans 1643 in the Dutch Empire 1644 in the Dutch Empire 1645 in the Dutch Empire 1643 in the Thirteen Colonies 1644 in the Thirteen Colonies 1645 in the Thirteen Colonies Battles involving Native American people