REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I9II 203 



The Dutch, on the other hand, soon recognized that the Five 

 Nations would be a powerful ally in case war broke out among the 

 Indians about Fort Amsterdam, and so in 1618, in the Tawasentha 

 valley, the famous offensive and defensive alliance between the 

 Dutch and the Iroquois was formed, an alliance kept up at a later 

 date by the English, and which resulted in the downfall of France 

 in the New World, through the untiring agency of this resolute group 

 of American savages, but it was an evil day for the Manhattan when 

 the treaty was made with their most powerful and deadly enemies. 



In 1626 the entire island of Manhattan, about 22,000 acres in all, 

 was purchased by Peter Minuet, then governor, for 60 guilders 

 worth of trinkets. Twenty-four dollars is the amount which is 

 usually rendered as the equivalent of this sum, but as the value of 

 gold was then five times greater than at present, it amounted to 

 some one hundred and twenty dollars, a liberal sum compared with 

 many Indian purchases of those days. However, according to the 

 old accounts, the Indians considered the island as being divided into 

 two parts, the upper half above the Harlem creek remaining unsold. 



From the first the dealings of the ^Manhattan and the Dutch seem 

 to have been fraught with treachery and violence on both sides. 

 While Minuet himself appears to have been open minded and just, 

 his subjects were not all of the same calibre, and the seeds of war 

 were sown daily in the bosoms of the Indians. 



In 1626, the same year that the purchase of Manhattan island took 

 place, a Weckquaesgeck Indian from the vicinity of Yonkers, accom- 

 panied by his nephew, who was only a small boy was bearing his 

 furs to the fort to trade when they were waylaid . and robbed by 

 some servants of Minuet himself. The Weckquaesgeck was mur- 

 dered before the eyes of the child, who escaped bearing with him a 

 m.emory of violence which, according to Indian ideas, could only be 

 erased by blood. 



Continual aggressions by the Dutch caused endless friction with 

 the savages. Lands were fraudulently acquired, cattle belonging to 

 the whites trespassed on the Indians' corn fields unchecked, and 

 when the natives took the law in their own hands and slew them, 

 reprisals were in order. So affairs went from bad to worse, intoler- 

 ance and discord growing on either side. 



During: the misadministration of Governor Kieft, that worthv 

 decided to tax the Indians to compensate for what he considered 

 their constant misdemeanors and to establish a firm hold over them, 

 and he went so far as to send an armed sloop to the Tappan to 



