Kieft's War
Kieft's War, also known as the
Wappinger War, was a conflict between
Dutch settlers and
Native Americans in the colony of
New Netherland from 1643 to 1645. The war is named for
Willem Kieft, who was the director general of New Netherland at the time.
Appointed director general by the
Dutch West India Company, Willem Kieft arrived in New Netherland in 1639 with the task of increasing profits from the port at
Pavonia. His first solution to the problem was to tax the
Lenape Indians living in the region, with claims that the money would buy them protection from rival tribes. Tensions mounted between the natives and the Dutch settlers, eventually leading to violence.
Some of Kieft's
Council of twelve men convinced him to attack the Indians at Pavonia, which he ordered on
February 25 1643. The initial strike was a massacre, in which 129 Dutch soldiers killed 120 Indians, including women and children. Historians differ on whether or not the massacre was Kieft's idea
, but all sources agree that he thanked and rewarded the soldiers for their deeds. The attacks united the tribes in the surrounding areas to an extent not seen before among the Lenape; up until that point, the so-called tribes were loosely affiliated communities under various
sachems In Autumn of 1643, a force of 1,500 natives invaded New Netherland, famously killing dissident preacher
Anne Hutchinson. In retaliation that Winter, 500
Wecquaesgeeks were killed by Dutch forces.
For the next two years the united tribes harrassed settlers all across New Netherland, killing sporadically and suddenly. The sparse forces were helpless to stop the attacks, but the natives were kept too spread out to mount more effective strikes. A truce was finally agreed to by the last of the eleven united tribes in August of 1645.
The resulting attacks by the natives caused many Dutch settlers to return to Europe, shaking confidence in the Dutch West India Company's ability to control their territory in the New World. Kieft was recalled to the Netherlands to answer for his conduct in 1647, but he died in a
shipwreck near
Swansea before his version of events could be told. His successor was
Peter Stuyvesant, who ran New Netherland until it was ceded to the British.
The war was extremely bloody in proportion to the population at the time: more than 1,600 natives were killed in Kieft's War at a time when the European population of New Amsterdam was only 250.
A relative peace lasted until the early hostilities of the
Esopus Wars began in the 1650s.
