Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam

by John S. C. Abbott

A sudden onslaught was then made by both parties pouring, like an inundation, through the unfinished works into the fort. The savages, taken by Surprise, and many of them without their arms, were thrown into a panic. Many of them rushed out of the fort, leaving their guns in the houses behind. The Dutch followed close upon their heels, shooting them, and with keen sabres cutting them down. Just beyond the fort there was a creek. The terrified Indians precipitated themselves into it, and by wading and swimming forced their way across. Here they attempted to rally and opened fire upon the pursuing Dutch. The fire was returned with so much vigor that the Indians were driven with loss from their position. The assailants soon crossed the creek, and the discomfited Indians, in hopeless rout, fled wildly into the trackless wilderness.

In the impetuous assault the chief of the tribe, Papoquanchen, was slain, and fourteen of his warriors with four Indian women and three children Twenty-two Christian prisoners were recovered, and fourteen Indians were taken captive. The Dutch lost but three killed and six were wounded. The houses were all plundered by the victors. There was found in them eighty guns, and "bearskins, deerskins, blankets, elk hides and peltries sufficient to load a shallop." Forty rolls of wampum and twenty pounds of powder were also taken. The colonists loaded themselves with such plunder as they could carry. The rest was destroyed.

The return of the victors with the rescued Christian captives, gave great joy at Esopus. We regret to record that, on the march home, there was one of the Indian prisoners, an old man, who refused to go any farther. Captain Crygier had him led a few steps out of the path and shot. In unfeeling terms the captain writes, "We carried him a little aside and then gave him his last meal."

The remainder of the month of September was employed in sending out small scouting parties, and in protecting the farmers while gathering their harvests. Though the Esopus Indians were pretty thoroughly crushed by these disasters which had befallen them, they showed no sign of submission. It was estimated that not more than twenty-eight warriors, with fourteen women and a few children survived. And these were without homes and almost in a state of starvation. Still it was decided to fit out a third expedition against them to effect their utter overthrow.

It was thought most probable that the dispersed Indians would rally again within the fort at Mamakating, which had been captured and sacked but not as yet destroyed. It was perhaps left as a lure to draw the Indians to that point where they could be surrounded and annihilated.

A strong well-armed party of one hundred and sixty-four soldiers set out on this expedition. Forty six of these were friendly Indians from a tribe called Marespincks, whose home was on Long Island. The soldiers were familiar with the route which they had so recently traversed. A weary but rapid march of twenty hours brought them to the scene of their recent victory. Not an Indian was there. All was silence and awful desolation. Even the colonists were appalled by the spectacle which opened before them. The Indians were so thoroughly panic stricken that they had not ventured back even to bury their dead. The decaying corpses lay scattered around, many of them half consumed by vultures and wolves. The birds and beasts, with wild cries, were devouring their prey. Parties were sent out to scour the woods. But no signs of the savages could be found. In fact the Esopus tribe was no more. It was afterwards ascertained that the wretched remnant had fled south and were finally blended and lost among the Minnisincks and other southern tribes.

The fort was so strong that it required not a little labor to destroy it. It was necessary to cut down or dig up the palisades, which were composed of trunks of trees twenty feet long and eighteen inches in diameter. Several cornfields were found in the vicinity wherever an opening in the forest and fertile soil invited the labor of the indolent Indian. Two days were occupied in cutting down the corn, already beautiful in its golden ripeness, and in casting the treasure into the creek. The palisades were then piled around the dwellings and in a few hours nothing remained of the once imposing fortress but smoking embers.

This Indian fort or castle, it is said, stood on the banks of what is now called the Shawangunk kill, in the town of the same name, at the southwestern extremity of Ulster county. It seems as though it were the doom of armies on the march, ever to encounter floods of rain. Scarcely had the troops commenced their return ere the windows of heaven seemed to be opened and the fountains of the great deep to be broken up.

At ten o'clock on the morning of the 5th of October, 1664, the march was commenced. The rain came on like that of Noah's deluge. The short afternoon passed away as, threading ravines and climbing mountains, they breasted the flood and the gale. The drenched host was soon enveloped in the gloom of a long, dark, stormy night. Weary and shelterless, the only couch they could find was the dripping sod, the only canopy, the weeping skies. The weeping skies! yes, nature seemed to weep and mourn over the crimes of a lost race,—over man's inhumanity to man. It was not until the evening of the next day, the rain still continuing, that these weary soldiers reached their home at Esopus.