as their protector, while he refused them guns or ammunition. The
savages replied that they had to their own cost shown kindness to the
Dutch when in need of food, but would not pay tribute. Kieft attacked.
Some of the Indians were killed and their crops destroyed. This roused
their revengeful passions to the utmost. The Raritan savages visited the
colony of De Vries, on Staten Island, with death and devastation. Reward
was offered for the head of anyone of the murderers. An Indian never
forgot an injury. The nephew of one of the natives who twenty years
before had been wantonly killed went to sell furs at Fort Amsterdam, and
while there revenged his uncle's murder by the slaughter of an
unoffending colonist. Spite of warlike preparations by Kieft and his
assembly in 1641-42, the tribe would not give up the culprit. The
following year another settler was knifed by a drunken Indian. Wampum
was indeed offered in atonement, while an indignant plea was urged by
the savages against the liquor traffic, which demoralized their young
men and rendered them dangerous alike to friend and foe. But
remonstrance and blood-money could not satisfy Kieft. At Pavonia and at
Corlaer's Hook [footnote: now in the New York City limits, just below
Broadway Ferry, East River] the Dutch fell venomously upon the sleeping
and unsuspecting enemy. Men, women, and children were slaughtered, none
spared. In turn the tribes along the lower Hudson, to the number of
eleven, united and desperately attacked the Dutch wherever found. Only
near the walls of Fort Amsterdam was there safety. The governor
appointed a day of fasting, which it seems was kept with effect. The
sale of liquor to the red men was at last prohibited, and peace for a
time secured.
Soon, however, the redskins along the Hudson were again up in arms. The
noted Underhill, who with Mason had been the scourge of the Pequots,
came to the fight with fifty Englishmen as allies of the Dutch. Not
waiting to be attacked, the Indians laid waste the settlements, even
threatening Fort Amsterdam itself. At a place now known as Pelham Neck,
near New Rochelle, lived the famous but unfortunate Mrs. Hutchinson, a
fugitive from the persecuting zeal of Massachusetts. Here the implacable
savages butchered her and her family in cold blood. Her little
granddaughter alone was spared, and led captive to a far-off wigwam
prison. Only at Gravesend, on Long Island, was a successful stand made,
and that by a woma
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