38 The Story of The Bronx 



gouernor of the manatas as our gouernor and obay all his 

 magastrates and laws that ar mad acordin to god so long as we 

 hue in his Juri diction. " 



One of the primary causes of Stuyvesant's action against 

 the Oostdorp colonists lay in the fact that, in 1655, an Indian 

 war broke out, and that the New Engianders were suspected 

 of being the instigators, or, at least, in a conspiracy with the 

 Indians to injure the Dutch and to deprive them of their land. 

 In addition, they were in communication with the Connecticut 

 colony and gave Stuyvesant so much trouble that the Directors 

 ordered their removal. Later, in 1664, Van Couwenhoven re- 

 ported that an Indian sachem came to his house and stated 

 that theOostdorp settlers had promised to assist the Esopus and 

 Wappinger Indians in an insurrection against the Dutch. The 

 English were to drive the Dutch out of Long Island and New 

 Amsterdam and wanted the Indians to assist. The latter were 

 willing and promised the English land at Esopus, if success- 

 ful ; but, upon visiting Westchester for final arrangements, their 

 sachems were told that the English sachem (probably Wheeler) 

 had entered into an arrangement with Stuyvesant for a year, 

 and that no war could be started at present. The Indians 

 went away disgusted, saying: " It is better to be at peace with 

 the Dutch; the English are only fooling us." 



The insubordinate settlers sent a complaint and petition to 

 the New England authorities in August, 1664, in which they 

 recited their tribulations of 1656. They recounted the hard- 

 ships they had endured in the hold of a vessel and in the 

 dungeons of the Manhattoes, and all because they had resisted 

 the Dutch claim to their land. They also stated that, upon 

 their release, some of their number had been driven away and 

 the rest enslaved. But before that petition could be acted 



