This Master Minuit agreed upon, and at the time when, as I have said, we were in the greatest turmoil because of the savages, he came over from Sweden to the South River, not more than an hundred and thirty miles from our town of New Amsterdam, and began building a fort.
This news plunged me into a state of most painful excitement, for I burned to see the good man once more, and to beg that he take me into his service; but Master Kieft had given orders that no person be allowed to leave New Amsterdam, save with his permission. Therefore how could I, in charge of the Company's storehouse, expect to be allowed to go among those who were considered enemies to the Dutch, for speedily had our Director declared war against these Swedish people led by Master Minuit?
Perhaps it is enough if I say that Master Kieft did not drive Master Minuit away, and that the latter continued to build up a trading post for the Swedish people until it became a stronghold in this New World.
THE REVENGE OF THE SAVAGES
While he was striving against the Swedes, word was brought Master Kieft that some hogs, which had been turned out in the forest on Staten Island, were no longer to be found there, and our sharp-nosed Director immediately made up his mind, without any proof whatsoever, that the savages who called themselves Raritans, had stolen them.
Making no inquiry into the matter, he sent out a company of soldiers who surrounded the unfortunate Indians in their village, and slaughtered them as if they had been wild beasts, killing men, women, and children, after which everything in the way of property was either destroyed or carried away.
The embers of the Raritan village had hardly more than grown cold, when it was discovered that some of our own people had taken the hogs from Staten Island, thus showing that the terrible murders had been committed without any cause whatsoever, save Master Kieft's own suspicious, evil imaginings.
