The Island at the Center of the World Part 3

The university's botanical garden was also a (literal) seedbed of innovation. From it came advances in chemistry and botany, and it was here that, through crossbreeding, the Dutch frenzy for tulips began.*6 And in the wake of Galileo the observatory was booked up by scholars scouring the night sky for sunspots and evidence to support or refute the theory of planets revolving around the sun. And in the wake of Galileo the observatory was booked up by scholars scouring the night sky for sunspots and evidence to support or refute the theory of planets revolving around the sun.

Van der Donck steeped in this intellectual ferment for three years. In law, just as in science, a revolution was taking place. The very concept of a nation was being redefined. In the aftermath of the Reformation, the medieval notion of a state as existing under the umbrella of Christendom, with its laws ultimately pointing back to the Church, had collapsed, and the modern concept of a state as an independent political ent.i.ty was coming into being. The dominant legal figure of the age, who did more than anyone to set the parameters by which nations interact to this day, was the Dutch jurist Hugo de Groot, known to history as Hugo Grotius. Grotius is considered the father of international law. (As an indication of his prominence in history, a bas-relief portrait of him adorns the U.S. House of Representatives chamber, alongside those of Moses, Hammurabi, and Thomas Jefferson.) Of his two major works, Mare Liberum Mare Liberum created the principle of international waters, which were to be open to all nations, while created the principle of international waters, which were to be open to all nations, while De Jure Belli ac Pacis, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, written in the midst of a century of unprecedented warfare, laid down principles on which war was justified, and how it ought to be conducted. written in the midst of a century of unprecedented warfare, laid down principles on which war was justified, and how it ought to be conducted.

Grotius dominated the way law was taught at Leiden, especially among the younger, more practical-minded scholars. Judging from his later actions, Van der Donck must have avoided the "antiquarian law" favored by the older generation of purely theoretical teachers, which confined itself to examination of ancient Roman texts, and instead concentrated on what was called "elegant law," which applied the reasoning of ancient authorities to practical courtroom situations. In this regard he would have been a disciple of Grotius. Grotius's work was also broadly influential because it helped to establish the framework by which the great European powers conducted their affairs-including how England and the Dutch Republic, in their increasingly bitter rivalry over North America and other territories, conducted themselves.

Beyond this, Van der Donck would have been drawn to Grotius because he, like Descartes, based his arguments not on biblical citations but "natural law," the idea that right and wrong could be determined by applying human reason-or, as Grotius put it, that an act could be judged "from its conformity or non-conformity with rational nature itself." Traditionally, American history has shown the principles of democratic government coming out of the Enlightenment era of the eighteenth century, with origins in the writings of John Locke in the late seventeenth century. But in recent decades historians have uncovered the early modern roots of those democratic impulses. Some of Grotius's followers, building on his statement of natural law, applied the same kind of radical verve to their writings as would the generation responsible for the American Revolution. One of those disciples-Piet van der Cun, a.k.a. Cunaeus-taught a radical form of Grotius's political thought in his own career at Leiden, and a collection of young idealists formed around him and perpetuated it. Cunaeus's ideas-that a republican form of government was morally superior to a monarchy, and that enterprises like the West India Company enriched a wealthy few to the detriment of both the state and ordinary people-were in the air during Van der Donck's days at Leiden, and helped mold his generation.

For three years Van der Donck studied at Leiden alongside an international contingent of scholars, took part in debating circles organized by the law professors, maybe joined with his colleagues in complaining, as students will, about the food in the dining hall (smoked fish, hashed meat with cabbage, cheese, bread and b.u.t.ter, and beer). In taverns in the evenings, with smoke curling from long clay pipes and Rhenish wine flowing from pewter pitchers, the young men might have applied their debating skills to the all-consuming Galileo-versus-Aristotle and Arminius-versus-Gomarus questions. Then he emerged, in 1641, a "jurist," an authority on Roman-Dutch law.

What to do next? He was a man of law. He came from a family of renown. He was a graduate of the top university in the country, and the economy was so robust it was practically exploding. Many possibilities must have been open to him-back home in Breda, in Amsterdam, at The Hague, the center of legal and political power in the nation. Instead he opted to leave the country. And not just leave, but to go nowhere, headlong into the wilderness. His country was experiencing one of the greatest flowerings of art and science and one of the most profound economic booms of any nation in any period in history. Its streets were safe, its houses snug, its offices bustling. The cuisine was surely nothing to marvel at, but the beer was fresh and excellent; pipe tobacco was sold in every conceivable grade and form; even the boxes to store it were available in an infinity of materials and styles. Homes were decked out with rugs from Turkey, Chinese porcelain, and Delft tiles; dollhouse makers were in demand, not for child's play but by proud home owners who wanted them to create mini-replicas of their dwellings. It was one of the first societies on earth in which ordinary town-dwelling citizens had developed a worldly sophistication. English travelers were amazed to find that not just the wealthy but ordinary bakers and shopkeepers decorated the walls of their homes with paintings; an obvious sign of their outward-looking nature, the Dutch of this time were the first (as shown in Vermeer's interiors) to decorate their homes with maps. The Dutch at the beginning of the century were also among the first to separate their homes into public areas (downstairs) and private living s.p.a.ce (upstairs). A German visiting a Dutch home was astounded that "it is not permissible to ascend the stairs or set foot in a room without first removing one's shoes." It was the Dutch of this era who invented the idea of the home as a personal, intimate s.p.a.ce; one might say they invented coziness.

All of this had happened roughly within the span of Van der Donck's life. Fueled by its global trade, the Netherlands had become a very comfortable place. It was unthinkable that anyone with good prospects would want to leave. It's not beyond reason to suppose Van der Donck took his inspiration from Descartes. The intellectual celebrity would have made a natural model for the young man. He lived in and around Leiden through Van der Donck's time there, and, for all his personal reserve, was a polarizing presence; some professors at the university became his disciples while others bitterly opposed his "natural philosophy." He had a ruddy attractiveness-dark wavy hair, curling moustache, penetrating eyes-and was a man of action as well as intellect: he had volunteered as a soldier under Maurits, son of William the Silent, and strutted the town with a sword as part of his regular dress. His Discourse, Discourse, which Van der Donck would likely have read while at Leiden, was remarkably chatty and autobiographical for a philosophical work, and a young man of restless and individualistic spirit would have been drawn to the pa.s.sage near the front in which Descartes, in talking about his own setting-forth, declared that "as soon as my age permitted me to pa.s.s from under the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself, or of the great book of the world." which Van der Donck would likely have read while at Leiden, was remarkably chatty and autobiographical for a philosophical work, and a young man of restless and individualistic spirit would have been drawn to the pa.s.sage near the front in which Descartes, in talking about his own setting-forth, declared that "as soon as my age permitted me to pa.s.s from under the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself, or of the great book of the world."

Had Van der Donck wanted to go into overseas trade, the logical route was via the offices of the East or West India Company. But they were too regimented for his nature. As in any large corporation, promotions came slowly and steadily. Van der Donck wanted something more toothsome and wild. Perhaps through his parents, or possibly through one of the pamphlets that served as precursors to newspapers, he had learned of a New World colony-in-the-making, a raw, virgin place that was in need of help. It wasn't the West India Company's New Netherland settlement that attracted him, but the colony-within-a-colony at its northern reaches, the private fiefdom of Amsterdam diamond merchant Kiliaen van Rensselaer. He made an inquiry.

His timing was excellent. Van Rensselaer had steadily enlarged his colony in the eleven years since its founding, buying tracts from the Mahicans; it now covered several hundred thousand acres along both sides of the Hudson River, encircling the West India Company's upriver base of Fort Orange. While the company's own colony centered around Manhattan was floundering, the patroon-a micromanager of the first order-had tended his settlement with great care. He had sent farmers, carpenters, smiths, wheelwrights, and bricklayers, as well as livestock, seed, and bare root trees and vines; from his base in Amsterdam (Van Rensselaer would never live to see his domain), he gave voluminous instructions for clearing forest and planting crops. Houses went up and roads were laid. Van Rensselaer was able to write in January 1641 that "In general, the affairs of the colony are all right, G.o.d be praised," but there was a problem, which stemmed from his success. He had a genuine settlement on his hands now, and it needed a government. While technically his colony was within the boundaries of New Netherland, Van Rensselaer considered it a semi-independent ent.i.ty. That meant he had to provide his own law and order. Thefts and runaways (farmers who signed on for a specific period of years, and then fled) were on the rise.

When Van der Donck wrote to Van Rensselaer, asking to be considered for a place in the colony, the merchant must have been pleased. Getting experienced workers of any kind to cross the ocean and take up a new life in his colony was difficult: he was forced to pay substantially more than they would make in the Netherlands, and even then he complained about the quality of person he was able to attract. In the mind of a middle-cla.s.s businessman who had clawed his way up, Van der Donck's credentials, as a Leiden University jurist, would have s.h.i.+mmered. There was no lawyer in the entire colony of New Netherland; the only university-educated man was the minister in New Amsterdam. It was simply too difficult to interest such people in the posting. Van Rensselaer fired off a letter to one of the minor shareholders in his colony, who happened to live in Leiden: "When convenient please have inquiry made through Mr de laet or some one else regarding a young man, called vander donck, from the barony of breda, who has studied law at Leyden and is desirous of attempting something connected with farming in our colony; and if there are no serious charges against his character, as one can not always get the best to go thither, we might employ him also in some other capacity."

Once the two met, Van Rensselaer knew how he would employ the young man. He needed someone who could roam the wilds of his untamed land and hunt down outlaws, and also someone with a legal mind, who could administer justice and settle disputes between colonists. He offered Van der Donck the job of schout, schout, a Dutch t.i.tle that combined the duties of sheriff and public prosecutor. It was a difficult posting, but the young man's credentials would give him stature not only among the colonists on his patroons.h.i.+p but among the tough lot in New Amsterdam as well. a Dutch t.i.tle that combined the duties of sheriff and public prosecutor. It was a difficult posting, but the young man's credentials would give him stature not only among the colonists on his patroons.h.i.+p but among the tough lot in New Amsterdam as well.

To a young man whose education had come more from books than the real world, it must have seemed like a utopian adventure: to march into a raw land and create a system of justice, to be the lawbringer for a whole new community. Van der Donck accepted, and in May 1641 he boarded Den Eyckenboom Den Eyckenboom ("The Oak Tree"), bound for the New World. In his pocket was a thick sheaf of instructions from Van Rensselaer, but however detailed they were, they couldn't begin to cover all that lay ahead. ("The Oak Tree"), bound for the New World. In his pocket was a thick sheaf of instructions from Van Rensselaer, but however detailed they were, they couldn't begin to cover all that lay ahead.

IT IS EASIER today to imagine the harbor into which the s.h.i.+p sailed ten long weeks later than it has been at nearly any intervening time period. For more than two centuries it would be the gateway to America and a commercial hub linking North America with Europe, a traffic-choked intersection in which, through the eras, frigates, schooners, steams.h.i.+ps, container vessels, and pleasure yachts would belly past one another in their pa.s.sage into and out of the array of piers that radiated from Manhattan's sh.o.r.eline like the teeth of a comb. Now there is an odd tranquillity. Sailing in the harbor today, you need only turn your back on the spiny rise of Manhattan and delete from your mind's eye the Statue of Liberty and the mute hulks on Ellis Island and Governor's Island to envision it as it once was. With the water surface rippling nicely and the sails overhead snapping and coughing as they labor, urban noise recedes. For minutes at a time you are alone out here-time to take in the undulate geography of the place, its spread of islands and, as Van der Donck would later describe, its "many and different sea havens." today to imagine the harbor into which the s.h.i.+p sailed ten long weeks later than it has been at nearly any intervening time period. For more than two centuries it would be the gateway to America and a commercial hub linking North America with Europe, a traffic-choked intersection in which, through the eras, frigates, schooners, steams.h.i.+ps, container vessels, and pleasure yachts would belly past one another in their pa.s.sage into and out of the array of piers that radiated from Manhattan's sh.o.r.eline like the teeth of a comb. Now there is an odd tranquillity. Sailing in the harbor today, you need only turn your back on the spiny rise of Manhattan and delete from your mind's eye the Statue of Liberty and the mute hulks on Ellis Island and Governor's Island to envision it as it once was. With the water surface rippling nicely and the sails overhead snapping and coughing as they labor, urban noise recedes. For minutes at a time you are alone out here-time to take in the undulate geography of the place, its spread of islands and, as Van der Donck would later describe, its "many and different sea havens."

We can only imagine how inviting its idyllic shelter would have been after long weeks at the mercy of the open ocean. In its breadth and depth the harbor struck Van der Donck, as it had his countrymen, as a kind of New World version of the IJ, the great island sea fronting Amsterdam, whose lanes, throughout the century, bristled with a forest of masts. These Dutch were a people who knew waterways as others knew the forest or the mountains. To them, land that was inaccessible by water was useless. Conversely, rich land that was cut by navigable rivers and incised by a commodious bay was the ultimate object. This bay was one of the things that had attracted them here; they felt the latent energy in it; they smelled its potential, how it might become a copy of their great home base across the ocean. For now it remained what it had been for millennia: a sculpted wilderness of salt.w.a.ter, wind, and land. The English would call it New York Harbor. To the Dutch it was too elemental even to require that much of a name. As Van der Donck later noted with his scholar's Latin, "it is named quasi per excellentiam, quasi per excellentiam, 'The Bay.'" 'The Bay.'"

The s.h.i.+p dropped its anchor some hundreds of yards before the southern sh.o.r.e of Manhattan, with its clutch of gabled houses, its windmill, and the walls of its fort cl.u.s.tered along it. The pa.s.sengers staggered down into a waiting boat and were rowed ash.o.r.e.

Van der Donck didn't record his first impression of New Amsterdam, and while by any ordinary measure the look of the place could not have been one to inspire confidence, there had been a decisive change for the better in the affairs of the town and the colony in the past year. History's simplistic reading of the Dutch colony centered around Manhattan-that it was an inconsequential gathering of n.o.bodies until the English eventually took over and began to make a thriving settlement of it-is based on the record of the West India Company. The West India Company ran the place, and the West India Company never succeeded in making it financially viable; ergo, New Amsterdam never really took flight. But that logic overlooks a crucial turn of events. In 1640 the company gave up its monopoly on trade in the region, which had kept the place from developing in any areas except piracy and smuggling, and declared New Netherland a free trading zone. In this new free-market territory, New Amsterdam would be the "staple port," the hub through which traders' and merchants' s.h.i.+ps would pa.s.s, where they would pay duties and be cleared for travel. The effect was electric. Small-scale entrepreneurs in Amsterdam who were willing to brave the hazards of the ocean voyage now had, in Manhattan, a hub to exploit-a base around which the circle of Atlantic trade could turn. Gillis Verbrugge formed a partners.h.i.+p with his son, Seth, and launched the first of what would be twenty-seven trading voyages to Manhattan. The business would make Seth a wealthy man, able to support his wife, herself the daughter of a successful businessman, in style. Dirck de Wolff set up a company that s.h.i.+pped manufactured goods to the colonists on Manhattan and brought back furs and tobacco; his profits from this and other international trading ventures bought him an elegant Amsterdam townhouse on the exclusive Herengracht, or Gentleman's Ca.n.a.l, and a vast country estate in the polders near Haarlem.

On Manhattan, meanwhile, that small change would have far-reaching results. It gave rise, within the s.p.a.ce of a few years, to an intensively active merchant cla.s.s-people who wanted to buy, sell, grow, spend. Convinced now that there was a future here, they began putting down roots. What's more, the Manhattan merchants defied categorization. The tailor also brewed beer; the baker doubled as a s.h.i.+p's captain. Joris Rapalje, who by the time Van der Donck arrived at Manhattan had been in the colony for eighteen years, worked for the West India Company but also did stints of entrepreneurs.h.i.+p, selling grain on behalf of farmers at Van Rensselaer's colony, and owned and operated a tavern. The looseness of Manhattan society had its disadvantages, but it also made for greater social mobility than in Europe.

Everyone in New Amsterdam had shares in one s.h.i.+pment of cargo or another. "Everyone here is a trader," one resident remarked in 1650, and it was true, and unprecedented-as was the opportunity for advancement. Govert Loockermans had arrived in Manhattan seven years before Van der Donck, as a sixteen-year-old cook's mate on a West India Company vessel, desperate to get ahead. As soon as the West India Company monopoly ended, he left and signed on as agent for the Verbrugges, overseeing s.h.i.+ps and cargo. Over the next few years he would learn to speak English as well as several Indian languages, buy a farm on the East River, and begin leasing s.h.i.+ps and moving cargo around New Netherland and the Atlantic, several times being accused of smuggling. He had a fairly sharp mean streak: in an altercation with Raritan Indians, he became infamous when he, in the words of a witness, "tortured the chief's brother in his private parts with a piece of split wood." He would die, thirty-eight years after his youthful footfall, in the new city of New York, the wealthiest merchant in the colony, owner of one of its finest homes (which would later become the home of the pirate William Kidd and is today the site of a nondescript office building, 7 Hanover Square), one of the richest men in the New World, and one of the purest exemplars of the kind of freeform upward mobility that American culture would inherit from its forgotten colony.

In New Amsterdam itself, the opening of trade was already showing results as Van der Donck arrived. Dozens of lots were leased or bought in the months after the monopoly gave way. Houses were being built, and there was a rise in the level of creature comforts in those houses. When tobacco farmer Jacque de Vernuis died unexpectedly in October 1640, shortly after signing a ten-year lease and leaving behind a Dutch wife, Hester Simons, the inventory of his property included a gray riding coat, a riding cap, s.h.i.+rts, cravats, coifs, stockings and handkerchiefs, pewter dishes, silverware, iron pots, copper kettles, pine chests, curtains, pillows and pillow cases, blankets, three hogs, a fis.h.i.+ng rod, a pair of tongs, and "one bra.s.s skimmer." A humble enough collection, but worlds beyond the hardscrabble days of even a few years before.

On arrival, then, leather boots splas.h.i.+ng in the East River shallows where the sloop unloaded pa.s.sengers (it would be years before a proper pier was constructed), Adriaen van der Donck would have taken a turn through a chaotic, energetic, rough town that was very much in transition. There were perhaps four hundred inhabitants, and it was already one of the most multicultural places on earth; in five years' time a visiting Jesuit priest would report that eighteen languages were spoken in its few dusty lanes. In the summer of 1641 the fort was tumbledown, but there were new houses, some of wood and stone, some of brick, with steep roofs and step gables. From the sh.o.r.e a newcomer would cross over the new Brewer's Bridge spanning the grandly named Heere Gracht (again modeling their New World base on Amsterdam, the residents felt the town needed a "gentleman's ca.n.a.l"-in reality it was a stinking ditch), walk past the five stone houses that formed the shopping district, by the bakery and the midwife's house, and skirt the simple wooden church on Pearl Street ("a mean barn" David de Vries called it), with the minister's house and stable behind. The lanes of the town were riotous with free-ranging pigs and chickens, the farming principle of the period being that one's animals roamed for food, and property was fenced to keep them out, not in.

It was high summer; a Dutchman, unused to the humidity, would work up a sweat as he took in the town. Logic and custom would have him stopping at at least one of the several taverns cl.u.s.tered on the half dozen principle streets-perhaps in the company of Cornelis Melyn, a wealthy Flemish farmer who had made the voyage with him, and who would become instrumental in involving Van der Donck in Manhattan politics. Continuing on his way, Van der Donck might have paused to chat with a German carpenter named Juriaen, who at that moment was building a house for Frenchman Philip Geraerdy, or to observe the English carpenters John Hobson and John Morris, who were fulfilling their contract with Isaac de Forest for "a dwelling house, 30 feet long and 18 feet wide, with 2 4-light windows and 2 3-light windows, 4 beams with brackets and 2 free beams, one part.i.tion and one pa.s.sage way tight inside and outside and the entire house tight all around."

If he needed evidence that there was new life pulsing through the hardscrabble community, Van der Donck need only have watched the s.h.i.+p he had sailed on being unloaded of its cargo, for which various residents had put in orders from Amsterdam and which they were no doubt now at the waterfront ready to receive. For Tonis Jansen the sailmaker, the crew unloaded one bale of French canvas, two bales of sail cloth, one keg containing 200 pounds of sail yarn. Hendric Jansen, locksmith, got his order of "4 chauldrons of smith's coal, 30 bars of square iron, 60 bars of flat Swedish iron, 150 pieces of hard iron." The commissary in the West India Company's store signed off on receipt of his goods, which included casks of brandy, sack, and French wine, oil, dried beef and pork, "30 tuns of fine salt," a case of stationery, 290 pounds of candles, and "2 large crates containing 50 winnowing baskets." No sooner had the s.h.i.+p put into port than Arent Corssen Stam, a merchant of Haarlem, signed a contract with Gelain Cornelissen, skipper of Den Eyckenboom, Den Eyckenboom, "immediately to deliver the aforesaid s.h.i.+p ready for sailing, tight, well caulked and provided with anchors, ropes, tackle, sails, running and standing rigging, victuals and other necessaries thereto belonging, and to arm said s.h.i.+p with six cannon and other ammunition in proportion." He was to deliver a new load of cargo to the English colony of Virginia, there receive another load (probably tobacco), and "sail with the first favorable wind which G.o.d shall grant from Virginia direct to London and deliver the s.h.i.+p's cargo to those to whom it shall be consigned." "immediately to deliver the aforesaid s.h.i.+p ready for sailing, tight, well caulked and provided with anchors, ropes, tackle, sails, running and standing rigging, victuals and other necessaries thereto belonging, and to arm said s.h.i.+p with six cannon and other ammunition in proportion." He was to deliver a new load of cargo to the English colony of Virginia, there receive another load (probably tobacco), and "sail with the first favorable wind which G.o.d shall grant from Virginia direct to London and deliver the s.h.i.+p's cargo to those to whom it shall be consigned."

Finally, into the fort Van der Donck would have walked, past the latticework guardhouse, and to the director-general's brick house. Here he pulled out a letter of introduction and placed it before Willem Kieft, who had replaced Van Twiller three years before as the West India Company's head of the colony. It was a brief, formal meeting. Then Van der Donck was off again, headed north, one hundred and fifty miles upriver, to the remote settlement that was to be his new home.

There were maybe a hundred residents in the colony of Rensselaerswyck at the time. The few homes, barns, and other signs of human habitation were dwarfed by the staggering expanses of wilderness: the smoking, brooding mountains to the north, the stands of high pine trees, the broad river, and the endless sky. Van der Donck met a man about his own age named Arent van Curler, a nephew of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, who had been in the colony for three years and was its manager. Then he made for the small wooded island just off the western sh.o.r.e of the river and close to Fort Orange, which had been partially cleared for farms. He had decided to make one of these his home. Soon after, a surreal version of the cla.s.sic Wild West scenario played out when, rested and ready for work, high on the thrill of adventure and still buzzing from the foreignness of it all, Van der Donck emerged from his rough, thatch-roofed dwelling into the bright August morning, and, wearing "a silver-plated rapier with baldric and a black hat with plume," the badges of his office, exhibited himself for the farmers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and bakers of his domain, as well as for the a.s.sorted Mohawks, Mahicans, and West India Company soldiers. As he strode purposefully up the road that ran along the river, past the palisades of Fort Orange and by the fields and workshops of the colony, the residents must have gaped. Here before them in one trim, gallant, and beplumed package was the cutting-edge quintessence of European education, circa 1640, the product of a legal system centuries old, tempered by modern notions that in one form or another, compliments of Galileo, Descartes, and Grotius, placed man at the center of things. Here was one of the Republic's best and brightest. They had a lawman.

Chapter 6.

THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD.

By an odd twist of fate, the tragedy that would engulf the Manhattan-based colony of New Netherland, crippling it and ensuring that it would eventually lose its struggle against its English neighbors, was also the event that brought its residents together and preserved the colony's legacy for future centuries. Fate further arranged it that the nightmare would descend in the same month that Adriaen van der Donck, the man who would lead the political struggle that would preserve that legacy, arrived to seek his fortune in the New World.

The disaster came just when things were looking most hopeful for the residents of New Amsterdam and their comrades scattered across the several hundred miles of North Atlantic coast that comprised the province. With trade thrown open, new residents were pouring in, a merchant elite was forming, families were intermarrying, putting down roots. It began with what seemed a random, minor event.

Everyone on Manhattan knew Claes Swits. He was a garrulous old man, a wheelwright by trade, who had made the voyage to the New World with his wife and two grown sons. Before boarding their s.h.i.+p, they had put up at the Amsterdam inn of Peter de Winter, the same establishment where Griet Reyniers had worked as barmaid and prost.i.tute before setting her sights on Manhattan. The inn was a favorite haunt of travelers from Germany; as Swits's surname suggests, he had probably originally come from Switzerland. Like everyone else on Manhattan, he became engaged in several different occupations once he arrived. He leased a two-hundred-acre plantation, called Otterspoor, covering much of what would become Harlem, on which he grew grain and milked cows (as rent he agreed to pay the owner, Jacob van Curler, annually, two hundred pounds of b.u.t.ter and "the just half of all the grain with which G.o.d shall bless the field"). Soon after-perhaps finding that the work was too much for a man of his years-he took on a partner. Even then, Claes didn't spend much time on the farm; he was too old, or maybe he just hungered for human contact. He bought a small piece of property on the Wickquasgeck trail, at about what is today Forty-seventh Street and Second Avenue, built a house there, and set up as a jack-of-all-trades. The trail-which diverged from what would become Broadway at about Twenty-third Street and ran up the east side, before reconnecting with it in the north of the island-was alive with traffic now: Indians of the Wickquasgeck tribe's several villages, as well as members of other tribes from farther north and across the river on Long Island, streaming to and from New Amsterdam; Europeans and Africans moving along it as their farms reached up Manhattan. The territory of New Netherland remained vast and wild, but the island at its center was rapidly succ.u.mbing to settlement. There was a place here on its east side, the old man figured, for a traveler's rest.

His house on Deutel Bay*7 became a popular gathering spot, where people could cl.u.s.ter before a homey fire of an evening, drink and sing, curse and argue, maybe step out into the semi-wilderness night and gaze at the moonlight on the C-shaped bay. It was here that Nan Beech, wife of the Englishman Thomas Beech, had "fumbled at the front of the breeches of most all of those who were present," touching off a skirmish. On another occasion, Ulrich Lupoldt, a West India company official, while drinking at Claes's house, got into a shouting match with Jan Evertsen Bout, who lived across the North River, over rumors that Bout was having his way with a certain "black wench." Claes seems to have been close friends with or related by marriage to young Harmen Myndersz van den Bogaert, who had made the journey into Mohawk country in the winter of 1634 to renegotiate fur prices; Van den Bogaert frequented the man's tavern-home, and underwrote his loans. became a popular gathering spot, where people could cl.u.s.ter before a homey fire of an evening, drink and sing, curse and argue, maybe step out into the semi-wilderness night and gaze at the moonlight on the C-shaped bay. It was here that Nan Beech, wife of the Englishman Thomas Beech, had "fumbled at the front of the breeches of most all of those who were present," touching off a skirmish. On another occasion, Ulrich Lupoldt, a West India company official, while drinking at Claes's house, got into a shouting match with Jan Evertsen Bout, who lived across the North River, over rumors that Bout was having his way with a certain "black wench." Claes seems to have been close friends with or related by marriage to young Harmen Myndersz van den Bogaert, who had made the journey into Mohawk country in the winter of 1634 to renegotiate fur prices; Van den Bogaert frequented the man's tavern-home, and underwrote his loans.

The wheelwright was, by several accounts, a harmless and well-liked old man. He knew many Indians by name. It wouldn't have surprised him in the least, one day in August of 1641, precisely as Adriaen van der Donck was settling into his duties as schout schout of Rensselaerswyck, to find a twenty-seven-year-old Wickquasgeck Indian at his door with a few furs slung over his shoulder, who said he was interested in trading them for some duffel cloth. Claes knew the young man: he lived in a village to the northeast of the island, and had worked for a time for Claes's son. The wheelwright invited him in out of the August sun, gave him something to eat and drink. And as the old man bent over the chest in which he kept his goods for trade, the young Wickquasgeck-who is unnamed in the records, which is unfortunate since he was at the center of what would become a major event in the life of the colony-in a seemingly unpremeditated act, reached for an ax that Claes Swits had leaning against the wall, raised it high, and cut off the old man's head. Then he left. of Rensselaerswyck, to find a twenty-seven-year-old Wickquasgeck Indian at his door with a few furs slung over his shoulder, who said he was interested in trading them for some duffel cloth. Claes knew the young man: he lived in a village to the northeast of the island, and had worked for a time for Claes's son. The wheelwright invited him in out of the August sun, gave him something to eat and drink. And as the old man bent over the chest in which he kept his goods for trade, the young Wickquasgeck-who is unnamed in the records, which is unfortunate since he was at the center of what would become a major event in the life of the colony-in a seemingly unpremeditated act, reached for an ax that Claes Swits had leaning against the wall, raised it high, and cut off the old man's head. Then he left.

As random as the murder was, there was an inevitability to it. The Indian had no quarrel with Swits. But fifteen years before, in 1626, around the time that Peter Minuit had purchased the island, a small group of Wickquasgeck Indians who had ventured south to trade furs were set upon by some Europeans, robbed, and murdered-all except a twelve-year-old boy, who had escaped. For fifteen years he had nursed his revenge, as the Europeans increased in numbers and spread out slowly over the island, and then it erupted, perhaps surprising even him.

The murder on the Wickquasgeck road was thus an element in the clockwork regularity of movement that governs culture clashes: an event triggers another, across s.p.a.ce and time, which leads to greater, bloodier reprisals. The killing of Claes Swits echoed. It echoed, first and most consequentially, in the brain of Willem Kieft. Sweltering in his office in Fort Amsterdam, where he had recently greeted Van der Donck and wished well in his new position up north, the forty-four-year-old director of the colony reacted to the grim news with something like exhilaration. It was an odd reaction, but he was an odd man. He had been born and raised in Amsterdam, the son of a merchant and a politician's daughter. He had excellent family connections-Rembrandt featured his cousin, Willem van Ruytenburch, in The Night Watch The Night Watch (that's him, right of center, in the das.h.i.+ng yellow ensemble and holding his scabbard). But Kieft was something of a black sheep. He had pursued a business opportunity in France, and had failed at it so decisively, with such financial loss to its backers, that a picture of him was tacked over the gallows in the town of La Roch.e.l.le, and he was forced to flee. Fantastically enough, he then wound up somewhere in the Ottoman Empire, given the task of ransoming Christians who had been taken prisoner by the Sultan. But, according to a pamphlet published in Antwerp attacking his administration, Kieft turned it into a for-profit venture by buying the release only of those captives who had the smallest price on their heads, leaving the others to languish in Turkish jails, and keeping the balance of the money. (that's him, right of center, in the das.h.i.+ng yellow ensemble and holding his scabbard). But Kieft was something of a black sheep. He had pursued a business opportunity in France, and had failed at it so decisively, with such financial loss to its backers, that a picture of him was tacked over the gallows in the town of La Roch.e.l.le, and he was forced to flee. Fantastically enough, he then wound up somewhere in the Ottoman Empire, given the task of ransoming Christians who had been taken prisoner by the Sultan. But, according to a pamphlet published in Antwerp attacking his administration, Kieft turned it into a for-profit venture by buying the release only of those captives who had the smallest price on their heads, leaving the others to languish in Turkish jails, and keeping the balance of the money.

Perhaps it was this cleverness that recommended him to the directors of the West India Company as the right man to replace the hapless Wouter Van Twiller. More likely, it was family connections. He had arrived in 1638, when the province was in disorder, determined to exert the iron authority he believed was necessary to turn the settlement around-never mind that it began turning itself around shortly after his arrival, thanks to the advent of free trade. In fact, his whole problem-the problem of all the colony's directors throughout its lifetime-was the impossibility of the situation. Dutch global expansion during its century of empire was built around not settlement colonies but outposts, which explains why, even though the empire extended as far afield as India, Taiwan, and Java, the Dutch language is not spread around the globe the way English is. The English as overlords either planted settlements or, as in India, imposed elements of their own culture on a society. The Dutch preferred to set up military-trading posts at strategic spots and let the locals bring trade goods to them. The trading companies did not see themselves in the business of establis.h.i.+ng permanent colonies.

But New Netherland refused to remain a trading post. It was unique among the way stations of the Dutch empire in that it insisted on becoming a place. place. By some estimates it had, by its end, attracted more settlers from the Dutch Republic than all of the other Dutch outposts combined. Its population wasn't wholly comprised of soldiers and company employees, but ordinary settlers as well, who liked what they found and were hoping to stay. It had streets and buildings, but beyond that, by the 1640s it had developed a style, a way of getting by, which certainly had something to do with the company that ran it but had more to do with the likes of Claes Swits, Govert Loockermans, Joris Rapalje, Catalina Trico, Griet Reyniers, and Anthony "The Turk" van Salee-people who operated around the company, not within it. By some estimates it had, by its end, attracted more settlers from the Dutch Republic than all of the other Dutch outposts combined. Its population wasn't wholly comprised of soldiers and company employees, but ordinary settlers as well, who liked what they found and were hoping to stay. It had streets and buildings, but beyond that, by the 1640s it had developed a style, a way of getting by, which certainly had something to do with the company that ran it but had more to do with the likes of Claes Swits, Govert Loockermans, Joris Rapalje, Catalina Trico, Griet Reyniers, and Anthony "The Turk" van Salee-people who operated around the company, not within it.

The place had a life of its own. And with that came, naturally, a need for political structure. As it was, there was no judicial system; or rather, the system was Kieft. There was no body of case law; he settled disputes however he chose. There was no appeal. Kieft and the other directors of the colony weren't given a mandate to oversee the establishment of a political and legal system; instead, the company s.h.i.+pped them off with a single tool: military dictators.h.i.+p. It was an effective tool in the sorts of situations in which they found themselves in outposts like Batavia and Maca.s.sar, but a hindrance in what was fast becoming a full-fledged society.

But they were very slow to understand the distinction, slow to comprehend that the situation on Manhattan Island was fundamentally different from that on other exotic outposts. None of the series of West India Company employees who headed the New Netherland operation ever truly did comprehend it-except the last of them, and by the time he did it was far too late for the Dutch.

Kieft never understood it at all. He was not a politician. He arrived with a directive to turn around a failing corporate venture, and he was armed with one arrow in his quiver: total fiat, the power of life and death. Those within his jurisdiction were not const.i.tuents but subjects, serfs. It was an accepted business model in the seventeenth century. In most situations in which the East and West India Companies found themselves, it worked.

Kieft did make an initial try at satisfying the natural need among his populace to feel that they were in some way involved in the company's decision making. He appointed a council of advisors to a.s.sist him. The council consisted of two members. One was Johannes la Montagne, a benign Walloon medical doctor who was well liked and no threat to anyone, including Kieft; as a bonus, he was in debt to the company and so unlikely to go against it. The other councilor was Kieft himself. Kieft further decided that, as director, he would have two votes on the council, and La Montagne would have one vote. Decisions were made by majority rule. Thus Kieft's nod to representative government.

The next order of business was to deal with an immediate outside threat, which came from one of Kieft's predecessors. Peter Minuit, with his Swedish settlement force, had anch.o.r.ed at his chosen spot on a tributary of what the Dutch called the South River in the middle of March 1638, or about two weeks before Kieft stepped ash.o.r.e on Manhattan. Minuit had calculated the placement of his colony with great deftness. He knew the area (today the Delaware River and lands astride it, encompa.s.sing parts of Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) well, and, more to the point, he had an exquisite appreciation of the claims of the Dutch and English in that part of the continent. He knew that the English still held to their right-of-first-discovery claim, by which, in their eyes, the entire coastline-indeed, the entire continent-was theirs. Practically speaking, however, the English colony of Virginia was well to the south, and thus Minuit hoped to avoid detection by them until his settlement had established itself.

As to the Dutch, while the South River territory fell under their claim by means of Hudson's voyage, Minuit knew that the West India Company had been spotty in following up on the claim by buying lands along the South River from the Indian tribes that occupied them. He knew what had been purchased and what had not; specifically, the Dutch had bought t.i.tle to lands along the eastern sh.o.r.e of the South River (i.e., New Jersey) but not the western sh.o.r.e. Immediately upon landing, then, Minuit gathered the tribal chiefs of the area, held a conclave in the cabin of his flag s.h.i.+p, the Kalmar Nyckel, Kalmar Nyckel, and got them to make their marks on a deed. The point was not, of course, to satisfy tribal notions of land owners.h.i.+p, nor did the Swedish government care much about executing legal transactions with natives. Minuit had his eyes on the Dutch; he wanted to forestall any legal arguments they might make by employing their own system of property transfer. Using the skills he had learned in the service of the Dutch, he purchased the land on the west side of the river, below the branching river the Dutch named the Schuylkill-i.e., the future states of Delaware and Maryland and the corner of Pennsylvania that would become Philadelphia-on behalf of the twelve-year-old Queen Christina of Sweden. and got them to make their marks on a deed. The point was not, of course, to satisfy tribal notions of land owners.h.i.+p, nor did the Swedish government care much about executing legal transactions with natives. Minuit had his eyes on the Dutch; he wanted to forestall any legal arguments they might make by employing their own system of property transfer. Using the skills he had learned in the service of the Dutch, he purchased the land on the west side of the river, below the branching river the Dutch named the Schuylkill-i.e., the future states of Delaware and Maryland and the corner of Pennsylvania that would become Philadelphia-on behalf of the twelve-year-old Queen Christina of Sweden.

A month later, soldiers at the lone Dutch outpost on the South River spotted Minuit's s.h.i.+p and sent a report to Manhattan, which must have infuriated Kieft. This was a military and diplomatic challenge to Dutch sovereignty by a nation that was supposed to be an ally. And Minuit's role at the center of it must have particularly roiled him. Kieft wasted no time, but sent a communique aimed directly at the man who had once held his job. In May, a Dutch vessel sailed down the coast, between the capes that to this day preserve the names-Henlopen and May-given them in the Dutch period, into the bay, up the South River, into the tributary called the Minquas Kill, and made anchor before the rocky outcrop behind which Minuit's men were sweating in the spring air, digging out the perimeter of their fort. A soldier disembarked and handed a letter to the leader of New Sweden: I, Willem Kieft, Director-General of New-Netherland, residing on the Island of the Manhattes and in Fort Amsterdam, under the authority of their High Mightinesses the Lords States-General of the United Netherlands and the Incorporated West-India Company, Chamber at Amsterdam, make known to you Peter Minuit, who style yourself Commander in the service of Her Royal Majesty of Sweden, that the whole Southriver of New-Netherland has been many years in our possession and secured by us above and below by forts and sealed with our blood, which even happened during your administration of New-Netherland and is well known to you. Now, as you intrude between our forts and begin to build a fort there to our disadvantage and prejudice, which shall never be suffered by us and we are very certain, that her Royal Majesty of Sweden has not given you any order to build fortresses on our rivers or along our coasts, Therefore, in case you proceed with the erection of fortifications and cultivation of the soil and trade in peltries or in any wise attempt to do us injury, We do hereby protest against all damages, expenses and losses, together with all mishaps, bloodsheds and disturbances, which may arise in future time therefrom and that we shall maintain our jurisdiction in such manner, as we shall deem most expedient.

Since the notice did not overtly promise a military attack, Minuit ignored it: from the beginning he had staked the venture on his belief that New Netherland would have too few soldiers to cover its territory. He finished the construction of Fort Christina, then, leaving the fort garrisoned by twenty-five men, sailed off, full of hope and dash, for Stockholm, where he intended to put together the next expedition for the New World. This one would be comprised not of soldiers but of colonists. By now Minuit's plan had expanded. He intended to gather not only Swedish Adams and Eves but also refugees from his native Rhine region whom he believed would leap at the opportunity to escape two decades of war and start a new life on new soil. Having worked so hard and diligently in his first effort as colonizer, only to see it taken away from him, had sharpened his ambition, refined it. He wasn't out for adventure any longer. He was a utopian now: he wanted to build a new society.

But Minuit never made it back to Europe. His dream died when he died, in August of 1638, in a hurricane in the Caribbean, where he had sailed to obtain a s.h.i.+pment of tobacco for resale in Europe. Minuit's determination and seventeenth-century-style frontier spirit would, however, have a second legacy in addition to that of Manhattan Island. The little garrison he had left behind at Fort Christina would serve as the base for what, over the course of the next seventeen years, would become a sizable Swedish colony, extending a hundred miles up the Delaware River valley and encompa.s.sing the future cities of Philadelphia and Trenton. Out of Minuit's efforts to exploit this rich, wild valley-and, eventually, the Dutch determination to expel the intruding colony-the queer, little-known sidebar to history called New Sweden would make surprising contributions to history.

As Minuit had guessed, Willem Kieft opted for the time being not to mount a serious challenge to the Swedes on his southern flank. For one thing, he had a financial crisis on his hands. The opening of trade resulted in an instantaneous boost for the people of New Netherland, but the West India Company didn't benefit. As the directors in Amsterdam saw it, they had given up the monopoly that might ensure them eventual profits, yet were saddled with administering the colony and protecting its inhabitants. The various agreements they had made with the Indians in their territory required the company to protect them, too, in the case of attack by an enemy tribe. The merchant princes put pressure on their in-country director to find a way out of this quandary.

Kieft tried. First he tackled the blossoming currency crisis. Florins, doubloons, pennies, pieces of eight, sch.e.l.lings, reals, stooters, daelders, oortjes, Brabant stuivers, Carolus guilders, and Flemish pounds all rattled in the tills of New Amsterdam's taverns and jangled in the purses of townspeople: the sort of currency chaos that accompanies a highly laissez-faire, free-trade economy. And coins weren't even the main means of transacting business. Pelts were offered for everything from a gla.s.s of French brandy to a town lot. But the major currency, the most common thing dropped into the plate when it came time for contributions during Sunday church service, was sewant. Wampum, as it is now more commonly known, was a much more widely used currency among the East Coast Indians than is generally realized today. For tribes from different linguistic groups, it formed a kind of universal language, a way to cap joint rituals, to seal treaties, pay homage to dignitaries. The very first Dutch traders to follow in Henry Hudson's wake seized on this medium of exchange and expanded it. They learned which variety of polished beads was most highly prized-that of a purple clamsh.e.l.l that came from the easternmost sh.o.r.es of Long Island-and not only adopted it in their dealings with Indians but became wampum speculators among tribes. With the sudden increase in freelance trade on Manhattan had come a flood of low-grade sewant, and Kieft understood that the accompanying confusion was causing financial havoc. Therefore, on one of the regular Thursday "council sessions" in which he and Dr. La Montagne sat, he issued a directive: Whereas at present very bad seawan is in circulation here and payments are made in nothing but dirty, unpolished stuff that is brought here from other regions where it is worth 50 percent less than here, and the good, polished seawan, ordinarily called Manhattan seawan, is exported and wholly disappears, which tends to the decided ruin and destruction of this country; therefore, in order to provide against this in time, we do hereby for the public good, interdict and forbid all persons, of whatever state, quality or condition they may be, during the coming month of May to receive or give out in payment any unpolished seawan except at the rate of five for one stiver, that is to say, strung, and thereafter six beads for one stiver. Whoever shall be found to have acted contrary thereto shall provisionally forfeit the seawan paid out by him and ten guilders to the poor, the same applying to the receiver as well as to the giver. The price of the well polished seawan shall remain as before, to wit, four beads for one stiver, provided it be strung.

Next, Kieft turned his attention to the Indian question. The company did indeed, at considerable expense, supply Fort Amsterdam, Fort Orange, and Fort Na.s.sau on the South River with soldiers, who were there to protect the company's interests and servants, and who were obliged by the land treaties entered into with Indian tribes to offer protection to them as well. Since the company couldn't back out of this arrangement, Kieft hit on what he thought quite a clever notion: to ask the Indians to pay taxes for the service rendered. The idea was too rich to be denied. Thursday came around, and Kieft opened the council meeting with his directive: Whereas the Company is put to great expense both in building fortifications and in supporting soldiers and sailors, we have therefore resolved to demand from the Indians who dwell around here and whom heretofore we have protected against their enemies, some contributions in the form of skins, maize and seawan, and if there be any nation which is not in a friendly way disposed to make such contribution it shall be urged to do so in the most suitable manner.

The residents who had been on the scene long enough to know the tribal groups in the region of New Amsterdam-the Tappans, the Hackinsacks, the Wickquasgecks, the Raritans-reacted with alarm, telling Kieft this was more or less exactly what not to do. The Indians, these residents knew, were far from simple in their understanding of the real estate transactions they had made with the Europeans. The armful of goods mentioned in each t.i.tle transfer was not, in their eyes, an outright purchase price, but a token that represented the arrangement to which they were agreeing. That arrangement had them sharing the land with the "purchaser," and at the same time entering into a defensive alliance.

But while some of the European residents of the colony had surprisingly nuanced views of the natives who lived among them (an example from Van der Donck's writings: "their womenfolk have an attractive grace about them . . . and if they were instructed as our women are they would no doubt differ little from them, if at all"), Kieft was not one of these. The sum of his actions and writings shows him, in fact, as more or less set on a strategy of eventual extermination. After being rebuffed, even laughed at, by several chiefs over his demand of protection payments, he seized on a small matter-the theft of some hogs from a Dutch farm on Staten Island-as the excuse for a punitive expedition. Even without knowing the history one can almost see the chain of events unfolding from there. First there were the ironies: the thieves had apparently not been Indians at all but Dutchmen; the farm belonged to David de Vries, the trader who had tried to shame Van Twiller into behaving like a leader, who was friends with many Indians, spoke several of their dialects, and who, in dinners with Kieft at his quarters in Fort Amsterdam, tried to stop what was coming. "These savages resemble the Italians," De Vries warned, "being very revengeful."

But Kieft was inexorable. He sent a posse to the Raritan village that his information told him was the home of the thieves; several Indians were killed. On cue, then, the Raritans attacked De Vries's farm, killing four farm hands and burning down the man's house. Kieft then took his turn. He would not, he decided, be drawn into war, but rather would adopt the cla.s.sic strategy of pitting his enemies against one another. Thursday came (it happened to be the fourth of July), and he delivered his edict in council: Whereas the Indians of the Raretangh are daily exhibiting more and more hostility . . . we have therefore considered it most expedient and advisable to induce the Indians, our allies hereabout, to take up arms . . . and in order to encourage them the more we have promised them ten fathoms of seawan for each head, and if they succeed in capturing any of the Indians who have most barbarously murdered our people on Staten Island we have promised them 20 fathoms of seawan for each head.

The offer of bribery yielded fast results. Shortly after the edict was posted, an Indian named Pacham, of a tribe that had had testy relations with the Raritans, strolled past the guardhouse and into Fort Amsterdam holding aloft-with what he presumably felt was appropriate ceremony and pride-a human hand dangling from a stick. On being admitted with his trophy into Kieft's presence, he declared that it belonged to the Raritan chief who had ordered the attack on De Vries's farm.

Kieft was mollified. He felt pleased that his plan had succeeded, and vindicated in the character of leaders.h.i.+p he was providing. "All men are created equal" was a sentiment off in the future; in the seventeenth century, as in those before, the different races, religions, and genders were seen by one and all as occupying different rungs on the chain of being. To a mind like Kieft's-not especially distinguishable from that of Captain John Mason, who had led the English ma.s.sacre of the Pequots in Connecticut four years earlier, or Nathaniel Bacon, the Jamestown colony's advocate of Indian extermination-the wild peoples of the world, on whatever continent they lived, understood power, and in the face of it they would a.s.sume their naturally subordinant rank. The Raritans showed no signs of retaliating, which proved the point.

The whole business might have ended there. But then, without immediate connection to these events, though perhaps subconsciously kindled by them, the unnamed Wickquasgeck Indian chose this moment to seek vengeance for his uncle's long-ago murder. Claes Swits's old head had barely hit the floor of his Deutel Bay home before Willem Kieft was launched on a full-scale retaliation. The natives had now shown that they could never be trusted; extermination was the only solution.

Waging war requires politicking, and Kieft moved first to gain popular support for his effort against the tribes of the area by asking that the residents nominate a council of twelve men who would a.s.sist him in deciding on a course of action. He deserves some credit for bringing into being the first popularly chosen body in what would become New York State, one of the first in the New World, though he had no notion of how this move would backfire on him. The twelve a.s.sembled themselves, and chose David de Vries as their president. Also on the council was Joris Rapalje, who, with his wife, Catalina Trico, had stuck it out in the colony, moving from youth into middle age, and had recently begun to prosper. Kieft asked the a.s.sembly three questions, which, helpfully, he numbered for them: 1. Whether it is not just to punish the barbarous murder of Claes Swits committed by an Indian and, in case the Indians refuse to surrender the murderer at our request, whether it is not justifiable to ruin the entire village to which he belongs?2. In what manner the same ought to be put into effect and at what time?3. By whom it may be undertaken?

To Kieft's annoyance, the twelve did not council war. They agreed that "by all means the murderer according to the proposition of the honorable director should be punished," but insisted that "two or three times more a sloop be sent by the honorable director to make a friendly request without threats, for the surrender of the murderer . . ." The twelve councilors knew they had no power, so they tried to lay roadblocks in the path of their willful leader. In the event that all-out conflict with the tribes should be called for, they declared, in what seemed a patent stalling tactic, that the colony should first send for two hundred coats of mail from the home country. Also, since by this time Kieft was developing a reputation for, as David de Vries wrote, calling for war while "being himself protected in a good fort, out of which he had not slept a single night during all the years he had been there," the council added a gentle stipulation that in the event of any military expedition "whereas we acknowledge no other commander than the director . . . therefore . . . the honorable director shall personally lead this expedition . . ."

Kieft had made it plain that the council was to be a rubber-stamp body; he was furious at its willfulness, and decided to try again, this time communing with each representative separately, in the belief that removing the security of the group would cause the simple farmers and tradesmen to give their approval to his plan. But while sailor Jacob Waltingen said he was "ready to do whatever the director and council may order," and Jacques Bentyn, a West India Company official, gave Kieft a thoroughly satisfactory reply that "it will be best to kill the Indians so as to fill them with fear," the majority still wanted to take matters slowly and pursue a course of seeking justice for the specific wrong that was done.

To add to Kieft's annoyance, the council of twelve, having failed to give the endors.e.m.e.nt it was a.s.sembled to provide, then took it upon itself to begin advising the director on other matters. The councilors wanted certain rights for individuals, "according to the custom in Holland." They wanted a prohibition on the sale of English cattle. Most of all, they wanted themselves, or some like body, to become a permanent representative a.s.sembly, as existed in even the smallest villages in the United Provinces. Kieft responded two weeks later with a firm reply in the form of a decree: And whereas the Commonality at our request appointed and instructed these 12 men to communicate their good counsel and advice on the subject of the murder of the late Claes Cornelissen Swits, which was committed by the Indians; this being now completed by them, we do hereby thank them for the trouble they have taken, and shall, with G.o.d's help, make use of their rendered written advice in its own time. The said Twelve men shall now, henceforth hold no further meeting, as the same tends to a dangerous consequence, and to the great injury both of the country and of our authority. We therefore, hereby forbid them calling any manner of a.s.semblage or meeting, except by our express order, on pain of being punished as disobedient subjects. Done in fort Amsterdam, this eighth of February, 1642, in New Netherland.

The attempt at winning popular support for his military action having backfired, Kieft went ahead anyway, ordering West India Company soldiers to attack Indian villages. So began what became known as Kieft's War, a series of murderous attacks and counterattacks that would continue