Home / Edward Manning Ruttenber (1872) / Passage

History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson's River — Passage 60

Edward Manning Ruttenber (1872) 255 words View original →

[Edward Manning Ruttenber (1872)] OF HUDSON'S RIVER. ' HI " All injustices committed by the said natives against the Netherlander, or by the Netherlanders against said natives, shall be forgiven and forgotten forever, reciprocally promising, one the other, to cause no trouble, the one to the other; but whenever the savages understand that any nation not mentioned in this treaty, may be plotting mischief against the Christians, then they will give to them a timely warning, and not admit such a nation within their own limits."1 This peace was one of necessity on the part of the Indians. The Hackinsack sachem received his presents, but complained of their insufficiency, saying that his young men would only regard them as a trifling atonement; and such they not onjy were, but they were received as the sachem had indicated. At midsummer the sachem visited Vriesendael and stated that the young men of his people were urging war; that some had lost fathers and mothers in the February massacre, and all were mourning over the memory of friends; that the presents which had been given to them were not worth the touch, and that they could be no longer pacified. At the request of De Vries, the sachem accompanied him to Fort Amsterdam, where, on repeating his complaint, Kieft replied that he should cause his young Indians who wanted war, to be shot. Kieft then offered him two hundred fathoms of wampum, but the sachem spurned the bribe, and, after promising to do his best to pacify his people, went his way.