202 NEW YORK STATE MUSEU^[ 



big with the white men and at a later date. Their ethnology has 

 been more fully described elsewhere.^ 



As Hudson journeyed northward up the river which now bears 

 his name, he had many experiences with the natives, some friendly, 

 others warlike. On the return trip he tried to kidnap two young 

 warriors from an Indian village, but both of his intended victims 

 escaped and jeered at their would-be kidnaper, and one of them 

 shortly returned at the head of a band of his friends in a swarm 

 of canoes. As they were not allowed to board the " Half Moon " 

 which was well under way, they fell behind and sent a storm of 

 arrows in her direction. Six musket shots from the ship killed 

 two or three of the warriors, and discouraged the rest, who re- 

 treated to a point of land whence they returned to the attack, 

 but a cannon shot killing two of them drove the rest to the forest. 

 Still undaunted, another war canoe set out, manned by nine or ten 

 men, which was promptly sunk by a cannon shot, and a volley from 

 the' muskets of the sailors destroyed three or four more, and the 

 unequal battle being terminated in triumph, the victors set their 

 sails for home. This entire scene is supposed to have taken place 

 at Inwood and about the mouth of Spuyten Duyvil creek. At the 

 former place especially, traces of Indian settlements are still to be 

 found. Thus ended the first chapter of the dealings of the Man- 

 hattan with the whites, a fitting prelude to the scenes soon to be 

 enacted. 



During the next four years white men were more frequently 

 soen on Manhattan island and by 1613 the Dutch were firmly estab- 

 lished at Fort Amsterdam. As they progressed up the Hudson river 

 the new-comers soon learned that all the Algonkins in the vicinity 

 were in deadly terror of the Five Nations of the Iroquois, especially 

 the most eastern tribe, the Kanienga, or as the River Indians termed 

 them, '' Maquas or Bears, (a name probably suggested by one of 

 the most powerful of their three clans, and from which our word 

 Mohawk is derived). 



These ferocious warriors had contracted through a deadly hatred 

 of the French the mistaken policy of Champlain at whose hands 

 they had suffered defeat some nine years before near what is now 

 Ticonderoga, and they hailed the advent of the Dutch with delight, 

 perceiving at once that here lay their opportunity to obtain the fire- 

 arms they needed to triumph over their neighbors and enable them 

 to be revenged upon the French. 



^ Skinner. The Lenape Indians of Staten Island. Anthropological Papers, 

 V. Ill, p. 3. 



