The Story of Manhattan | Page 9

come here."
This was not war. It was murder. A cruel, treacherous act, which the
greater number of colonists condemned and the record of which is a
dark stain on the memory of William Kieft.
After this, all the Indians within the border of New Netherland
combined. Colonists were shot as they worked in the fields. Cattle were
driven away. Houses were robbed and burned. Women and children
were dragged into captivity. The war raged fiercely for three years. By
this time Indians and colonists were worn out. Then the war ended. But
scarcely a hundred men were left on the Island of Manhattan. The
country was a waste.
A strong fence had been built across the island, to keep what cattle

remained within bounds. This fence marked the extreme limit of the
settlement of New Amsterdam. The fence in time gave place to a wall,
and when in still later years the wall was demolished and a street laid
out where it had been, the thoroughfare was called Wall Street, and
remains so to this day.
While the entire province was in a very bad way, and the people
suffering on every side, Governor Kieft sent to the West India
Company in Holland his version of the war. He showed himself to be
all in the right, and proved, to his own satisfaction, that the province
was in a fairly good condition; though during all the years he had been
Governor he had not once left the settlement on the Island of
Manhattan to look after other parts.
Certain of the colonists also sent a report to Holland. Theirs being
much nearer the truth, carried such weight with it, that the West India
Company decided on the immediate recall of Governor Kieft, who had
done so much injury to the colony, and had shown himself to be utterly
incapable of governing.
Kieft returned to Holland in a ship that was packed from stem to stern
with the finest of furs. The ship was wrecked at sea. Kieft was drowned,
and the furs were lost.
In the same ship was Everardus Bogardus (the minister who had
married Annetje Jans), who was on his way to Holland on a mission
relating to his church. The people of New Amsterdam mourned for
their minister, but there was little sorrow felt for the Governor who had
plunged the colony in war by his obstinate and cruel temper.
[Illustration: Smoking the Pipe of Peace.]
CHAPTER VI
PETER STUYVESANT, the LAST of the DUTCH GOVERNORS
It was a gay day for the little colony of New Amsterdam, that May
morning in the year 1647, when a one-legged man landed at the lower

part of the island, and stumped his way up the path that led to the fort.
Not only everyone that lived in the town gathered there, but everyone
on the island, and many from more distant parts. There were Indians,
too, who walked sedately, their quiet serenity in strange contrast to the
colonists, who yelled and shouted for joy, and clapped their hands at
every salute from the guns. And when the fort was reached (it was only
a few steps from the river-bank) the man with the wooden leg turned to
those who followed him. The guns were silent, and the people stood
still.
"I shall govern you," said he, "as a father does his children."
Then there were more shouts, and more booming of cannon, and the
name of Peter Stuyvesant was on every tongue. For the man with a
wooden leg was Peter Stuyvesant, the new Governor appointed by the
West India Company, and not one of those who shouted that day had an
idea that he was to be the last of the Dutch governors.
Stuyvesant had long been in the employ of the West India Company,
and his leg had been shot off in a battle while he was in their service.
He was a stern man, with a bad temper, and seemed to have made it a
point in life never to yield to anyone in anything. He ruled in the way
he thought best, and he let it always be understood that he did not care
much for the advice of others. He did what he could for the people to
make their life as happy as possible. Of course he had orders from the
West India Company that he was bound to obey, and these orders did
not always please the people. But his rule was just, and he was the most
satisfactory of all the Dutch governors.
Stuyvesant's first work was to put the city in better condition. He did
this by having the vacant lots about the fort either built upon or cleared.
The hog-pens which had been in front of the houses were taken