He was a blustering man, who became very angry when anyone disagreed with him, and who very soon was known as "William the Testy." He made no effort to make the Indians his friends, and the result was that much of his rule of ten years was a term of bloody warfare.
The affairs of the Company had been sadly neglected by Governor Van Twiller, and Governor Kieft, in a nervous, testy, energetic fashion set about remedying them. The fort was almost in ruins from neglect. The church was in little better condition. The mills were so out of repair that even if the wind could have reached them they could not have been made to do their work properly. There were smugglers who carried away furs without even a thought of the koopman, who was waiting to record the duties which should have been paid on them. There were those who defied all law and order, and sold guns and powder and liquor to the Indians, regardless of the fact that the penalty for doing so was death. For guns and liquor had been found to be dangerous things to put in savage hands.
Governor Kieft rebuilt the houses, put down all smugglers, and set matters in New Amsterdam in good working order generally. The patroon system of peopling the colony had proven a total failure. So, soon after Kieft came, the West India Company decided on another plan. They furnished free passage to anyone who promised to cultivate land in the new country. In this way there would be no patroons to act as masters. Each man would own his land, and could come and go as he saw fit. This brought many colonists.
The Bowling Green in 1840
At this time there were really only two well-defined roads on the Island of Manhattan. One stretched up through the island and led to the outlying farms and afterward became The Bowery; the second led along the water-side, and is to-day Pearl Street. Bowling Green, although it was not called Bowling Green then, was the open space in front of the fort where the people gathered on holidays. In the fourth year of Governor Kieft's rule, he conceived the idea of holding fairs in this open space, where fine cows and fat pigs could be exhibited. These fairs attracted so many visitors from distant parts of the colony, that the Governor had a large stone house built, with a roof running up steep to a peak, in regular, step-like form. This was called a tavern, and could accommodate all the visitors. In after years it became the first City Hall.
If you wish to stand where this building was, you must go to the head of Coenties Slip, in Pearl Street. On the building which is there now you will see a bronze tablet which tells all about the old Stadt Huys.
The church that Walter Van Twiller had built was little better than a barn. The minister wanted a new one. So did his congregation. Governor Kieft decided that there should be one of stone, and that it should be built inside the fort. There was a question as how to secure the money to build it. Kieft gave a small amount, as did other colonists, but there was not enough. Fortunately, just at this time, a daughter of Bogardus, the minister, was married. At the wedding, when the guests were in good humor, a subscription-list was handed out. The guests tried to outdo one another in subscribing money for the new church. Next day some of the subscribers were sorry they had agreed to give so much, but the Governor accepted no excuses and insisted on the money. It was collected, and the church was built. Close upon this time Kieft decided that he needed money for other work, and he told the Indians of the province that he expected something from them. Of course the Indians had no such money as we have in these days. They used instead beads, very handsome and made from clam-shells. These beads were arranged on strings. There were black ones and white ones, and the black were worth twice as much as the white. The Indians did not see why they should give money to the Governor. Kieft explained that it was to pay for the protection given to them by the Dutch. Then the Indians understood less than ever, for the Dutch had never done anything for them except to give them as little as they could for their valuable furs. The Indians hated Kieft, and this act of his made their hatred more bitter. A war-cloud was gathering. The Indians were well prepared for war, for they had been supplied with guns, with bullets, and with powder by those greedy Dutchmen, the smugglers, who thought more of their personal gains than of the safety of the colonists.