The Wappinger War...

In February 1643, several hundred American Wiechquaeskeck natives flee from their attacking neighbors, the Mahican (or Mohicans) and sought refuge in Pavonia, now Jersey City, in the Dutch colony of Nieuw Nederland (New Netherlands) in North America ...:



There has been a new "General Director" (Governor) in office since 1638, Willem Kieft from the "Dutch West India Company" (WIC) ...:



Kieft is not necessarily tender - and in addition, members of the now fled tribe had destroyed an "punitive expedition" (read: submission campaign) of the Dutch some time before and killed 80 Dutch.

Now the "General Director" sees an opportunity to take revenge - and on February 25, 1643, he ordered his soldiers kill all 120 fled indigenous people!



And that's not all: with the severed heads of some of those killed, the Dutch then play football in Fort New Amsterdam (now in the middle of New York)!







If the high gentleman "General Director" believed that he had pacified the situation with the "Massacre of Pavonia" (under this name the murder campaign went down in history!), he has miscalculated!

Instead, the Dutch have a full blown war on their backs, the so-called "Wappinger War", which will last a full two years.

Because after the massacre, the tribes of the indigenous people, the Hackensack, Haverstraw, Munsee, Navasink, Raritan, Tappan, Wecquaesgeek, Sintsink, Kitchawank, Nochpeem, Siwanoy, Tankiteke, Wappinger, Canarsee, Manhattan, Rockaway, Matapinecock, allied after the massacre , Secatoag and Merrick against the Dutch!

Only two tribes, the Mohawk and Mahican (Mohegan / Mohicans) remain loyal to the Dutch.

The situation for Kieft and his people is desperate!



All in all, he can only muster 250 soldiers, who together face more than 1,500 armed indigenous people!

The Dutch all expect it to be either killed or - if they're lucky! - to have to give up their colony.

However, "General Manager" Kieft saves the situation: he first closes with the Mohawk and Mahican in Fort Orange ...



... a friendship and support contract (which also provides for mercenary services for the indigenous people) ...



... then he turns to the English who are sitting there in their neighboring colony Connecticut.

In desperation, Kieft offers the English colonists 25,000 guilders for their help in suppressing the uprising.

And the English help!

They send their most skilled and brutal Indian fighter, Captain John Underhill ...



... who had previously earned "merits" in Connecticut in the suppression of an anti-British uprising by the Pequot.

Underhill put together a force of 120 English volunteers and Mohegan scouts and went on the offensive in 1644:

The English and Mohegan were soon feared for their brutal toughness and after a short time the tide turned in favor of the Dutch!



The combined Dutch-English force initially turned against the Raritan on Staten Island, but they were able to flee to New Jersey. The Tappan and Hackensack also manage to escape, but the Wappinger and Metoac find no protection and suffer a heavy defeat ...:




This so-called "Wapping War" (sometimes also called "Governor Kief War") is almost forgotten today - completely wrongly, by the way, because it was one of the bloodiest and cruelest wars of extermination against the indigenous people.

The Wappingers alone have over 1,600 tribesmen dead!

To the credit of the Dutch, however, it must be added that the "general directors" fired Kieft as soon as details of his "leadership" and the war became known at home.

He was replaced in 1647 by the far more suitable Petrus Stuyvesant,who can slowly calm the situation down again ...:



Nevertheless, the years of "Nieuw Nederland" are numbered, because the Dutch colony will be taken over by England without a fight during one of the many Dutch-British wars in 1664 after Governor Stuyvesant surrendered in order to save human lifes ...:



In honor of the Duke of York, their future king, the British will name their new colony "New York" ...

Still some Dutch influence in and around New York. Stuyvesant probably the best known name to come from that period. Didn't know he only had one leg!

Phil

He lost his right leg by a connonball in 1643 during a failed attack on St. Martin, which was then occupied by Spain.

Since then he has been wearing a wooden prosthesis. This earned him the nickname "Peg Leg Pete" or "Old Silver Nails" (because of the silver nails with which the wooden leg was shod)...:



In Germany they set up the somewhat questionable "monument" for him to name a brand of cigarettes after him...:



Somehow goes well with the missing leg ...


Cheers