206 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



When the Indians learned it was not the Mahican (or as they 

 had supposed, the Mohawk) but the director that they had to thank 

 for their inhospitable entertainment, eleven tribes took the war path. 

 Farmers and settlers outside the immediate walls of the fort were 

 killed on every hand, and the Dutch were terrified. 



Even Vriesendael was attacked and partially destroyed. De 

 Vries and his people were fortunately able to escape to the fortified 

 manor house where they awaited the assault, when an Indian whom 

 De Vries had managed to save from the massacre appeared and 

 told the assembled warriors that De Vries was '' a good chief " per- 

 suaded them to desist. This they did with protestations of regret 

 that they had slain his cattle and burned the houses, and though they 

 wished very much to have the copper kettle in the little brewery to 

 make arrowpoints, they left it where it was and withdrew^ regretting 

 that they had injured their friend. 



The Dutch fled to the fort for protection and were loud in their 

 complaints against Kieft, who met them defiantly at first and blamed 

 the calamity on Adriansen, one of his councillors, who promptly 

 sought to vindicate his honor by slaying the governor, an attempt in 

 which he unhappily failed. At last, according to the old documents, 

 terror reduced Kieft and his people to begging from God the mercy 

 which they had not granted the Indians that night at Corlears Hook 

 and Pavonia. 



Toward spring the savage warriors began to relent, the Long 

 Island Indians sending three men from the wigwams of their chief 

 Penhawitz to open negotiations, from whence De Vries and a man 

 named Albertson, the only settlers who were not afraid to go, 

 accompanied them back to their village. Setting out on the 4th 

 of March they arrived at Rechquaackie or Rockaway where 

 they found Penhawitz and nearly three hundred warriors at a vil- 

 lage of thirty lodges. '' Next day," says De Vries, '' we were awak- 

 ened and led by one of the Indians upwards of 400 paces from the 

 route where we found sixteen chiefs from Long Island who placed 

 tl'iemselves in a circle around us. One of them had a bundle of 

 small sticks. He was the best speaker and commenced his speech. 

 He related that when we first arrived on their shores, we were some- 

 times in want of food, they gave us their beans and corn, and let us 

 eat oysters and fish, and now for recompense we murdered their 

 people. He here laid down one little stick, this was one point of 

 accusation. The men whom in your first trips you left here to barter 

 your goods till your return, these men have been treated by us as we 

 would have done by our eye-balls. We gave them our daughters for 



