During the time that this region was first colonized by the Dutch West India Company, European colonizers and the numerous bands of Munsee Lunaape (Lenape) engaged in numerous trade and protective alliances. Unfortunately, greed, mistrust, and a general misunderstanding of geopolitical customs on both sides made any attempt at lasting peace impossible.
When Willem Kieft arrived as New Netherland’s Director in 1638, the New England colonies were nearing the end of their two-year war of extermination against the Pequots and their allies. Several New England colonies, along with their Narragansett and Mohegan allies, succeeded in destroying the Pequot nation. The men, women, and children who were not killed in warfare were slaughtered in near-genocidal attacks on their villages. The few who survived these massacres were captured, shipped to the Caribbean, and sold into slavery. The collapse of the Pequot nation created a power vacuum, which was soon filled by the Narragansetts along Long Island Sound. The powerful Narragansetts forced local Munsee Lunaape tribes on Long Island to pay tributary protection. The Dutch saw the valuable wampum-producing area of Long Island as part of their territory, and conflicts arose.
Kieft learned that traditional European customs of signifying power through land occupation were not respected by the Delaware or Iroquois. The local Munsee Lunaape relied on a method of paying tribute for a protective alliance. Smaller tribes regularly paid a “tax” of wampum, food, or other specified goods to the more powerful group in exchange for an agreement to act as one against outsiders (Iroquois, English, French) encroaching on their territory. Kieft quickly capitalized on this and sought to establish New Netherland as the sole protectorate in the region. In early 1640, Kieft demanded a tribute of wampum, furs, and food from every local band of Munsee Lunaape.
Despite Kieft’s demand, the Hackensacks, Canarsees, Wecquaesgeeks, Tappans, and Raritans continued to pay tributary protective alliances to each other and surrounding tribes. This created uneasiness in Kieft and the Dutch around New Amsterdam, since such a large alliance could easily overrun the small Dutch farms and villages. Later that year, the local Raritan band of Munsee Lunaape showed their disdain for Kieft’s demand for furs and other items by handing over a bounty of worthless squirrel pelts, thus mocking the Dutch for thinking that they could control the area.
Kieft seized on the Raritan’s insult by blaming them for the theft of some livestock from a Staten Island plantation. Kieft demanded reparations for the stolen animals and asked for payment in wampum, furs, and food, exactly the same items that would constitute a tributary alliance. The Raritans refused and Kieft’s soldiers attacked, killing several men in the skirmish. The Dutch also captured the Sachem’s brother and tortured him in an attempt to force the Raritans into a protective alliance.
Kieft’s plan did not work; the following spring, Raritans attacked (or were blamed by the Dutch for attacking) the Staten Island farm of David de Vries, burning barns and killing several tenant farmers. The Dutch offered rewards for the Raritans involved in the Staten Island attack. Several small Munsee Lunaape bands on Long Island and western Connecticut allied with New Netherland, harassing a few small Raritan villages. The Dutch also succeeded in keeping alliances with the powerful Mahicans and the Iroquois Mohawks surrounding the Dutch at Fort Orange (Albany).
In 1643, Kieft’s war erupted in full when a young Wecquaesgeek man killed a Dutch trader to avenge the murder of his uncle decades earlier. The Wecquaesgeeks, occupying the area of northern Manhattan and Westchester, refused to give up the man to Dutch authorities, but they did “pay” for his death in the form of a tribute to New Netherland. The Mahicans, who were allied with the Dutch, chose to harass some northern Wecquaesgeek villages to force their compliance with New Netherland’s demands. This caused the Wecquaesgeeks to seek refuge from the invading Mahicans by moving closer to the New Amsterdam fortifications.
Although the Wecquaesgeeks believed that they had settled their differences with the Dutch by paying tribute, Kieft used this as an opportunity to make a show of force to the Munsee Lunaape who hadn’t allied themselves with New Netherland. Kieft ruthlessly attacked the Wecquaesgeek refugees in Pavonia (Jersey City) and Corlear’s Hook (the Lower East Side of Manhattan), burning the villages and murdering hundreds of men, women, and children.
Kieft thought that this show of force would cause the Munsee Lunaape bands to pay tribute to the Dutch. Instead, it caused several local tribes to cut ties with New Netherland and attack a number of Dutch settlements on Long Island. Kieft retaliated, sending soldiers to Long Island and up the Connecticut River to destroy their villages.
By 1645, after years of fighting, most Munsee Lunaape bands in the region had grown tired of death and warfare and began paying tribute to the Dutch. Through viciousness and near genocidal attacks, Willem Kieft had succeeded in making New Netherland the primary power in the region.
The Peach Tree War was entirely misnamed. First, it wasn’t a war, as much as it was an occupation of New Amsterdam and a few surrounding Dutch villages by the Susquehannok nation. Second, the Dutch believed that the so-called “war” began after a young Wappinger woman named Tachiniki was ruthlessly shot and killed by a local Dutch farmer for picking a peach from his orchard. The actual “war” was a reprisal by the Susquehannoks of Maryland/Delaware against Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch for taking control of the colony of New Sweden.
In the spring of 1638, Peter Minuit, a former Director of New Netherland, landed a group of Swedish settlers on the south bank of the Delaware River and claimed the land as New Sweden. Both the English to the south and the Dutch to the north claimed this land, but neither colony was able to negotiate a treaty with the powerful Susquehannoks of the region, leaving the Delaware River valley unoccupied and undefended. Minuit and New Sweden negotiated with the Susquehannok, paying tribute to them as a protectorate and trading partner, and his small colony was allowed to settle on their land.
In the fall of 1655, New Netherland Director General Peter Stuyvesant led a squadron of ships to the Delaware River and attacked New Sweden, reclaiming the land for New Netherland. Within days, New Sweden’s allies, the Susquehannok, retaliated. Although Dutch settlements were far from Susquehannok territory, they forged several tributary relationships with the Munsee Lunaape and were able to travel quickly towards New Amsterdam.
With Stuyvesant and his soldiers in the former New Sweden territory 150 miles south of New Amsterdam, an army of 600 warriors consisting mainly of Susquehannoks, along with some of their allies, entered the undefended city. For several hours, they looted and pillaged the small town and did the same to the Dutch village of Pavonia, along with farms in lower Westchester, Harlem, and Staten Island. A number of hostages were taken, but the Susquehannoks did not kill any of the townsfolk.
After hearing of the attack on New Amsterdam, Stuyvesant and his soldiers rushed back. He paid ransom to release those held hostage and quickly negotiated for peace with the Susquehannoks. Stuyvesant evacuated several settlements along the Hudson River, realizing that they could not be safely protected. Dutch farms and plantations on Staten Island were abandoned and New Netherland’s expansion into Native territory was curtailed for years.
In the years after their encounter with Stuyvesant, smallpox decimated the Susquehannocks. Estimated to be a nation of more than seven thousand in 1650, they numbered fewer than 300 by 1700. Their demise enabled English colonists to settle the area along the Delaware River, giving rise to the cities of Philadelphia and Wilmington.
Less than five years after the so-called Peach Tree war was resolved, Peter Stuyvesant and New Netherland found themselves in another conflict, this time with the Esopus band of Munsee Lunaape in what is now Ulster County.
The Esopus lived on the west side of the Hudson River in what is now Ulster and Greene Counties. In 1658, with lessons learned from the Susquehannock’s invasion of New Amsterdam, Director General Peter Stuyvesant and his carpenter/engineer, Frederick Philipse, built a small stockade to protect the recent Dutch settlement of Wiltwijck (Kingston) in Ulster County. A frontier settlement, Wiltwijck was the first fort on the western bank of the Hudson between Fort Orange (Albany) and Fort Amsterdam (Manhattan).
The stockade provided protection for the houses of the settlers, but their farms and grazing fields remained outside the palisade walls. The Esopus grew concerned that the farmers' livestock were grazing on Esopus cornfields, but both sides remained at peace. In the fall of 1659, in an unprovoked attack, two Esopus men were shot and killed by townsfolk just outside the fort. The Esopus, outraged by the shootings, returned the next day and destroyed the town’s fields, farms, livestock, and outbuildings that were outside the stockade. Over the next few weeks, the Esopus laid siege to the fort, eventually leaving to shelter for the winter. With the arrival of spring, Dutch soldiers who had come up river from New Amsterdam attacked several Esopus villages. The soldiers also took about a dozen Esopus hostages and sent them to the Caribbean island of Curacao, where they were sold into slavery. This act would not be forgotten by the Esopus. The first Esopus “war” came to an end by the summer as an uneasy truce was established.
After nearly three years of détente, violence erupted once again. Scholars disagree about the reasons for the second Esopus war. Some said that the Esopus never forgave the Dutch for selling into slavery the Esopus hostages taken in the first war, and that the Esopus began an unprovoked attack to gain an upper hand in destroying the fort in retaliation. Others believe that the attack occurred because the Dutch had begun to expand their presence in Esopus territory, establishing a new village (Nieuw Dorp) a few miles west of Wiltwijck in 1662. The Esopus were looking to curtail any new settlements on their land.
On the morning of June 7, 1663, the Esopus attacked the village of Nieuw Dorp. Three men were killed and eight women and 26 children were taken captive. Before word of the attack could reach Wiltwijck, another group of Esopus men peacefully infiltrated the fort, acting as vendors selling goods and wares. When word of the attack on Nieuw Dorp came, the Esopus were in position to attack. They entered houses with hatchets and firearms, killing twenty residents and taking another 45 hostages before setting fire to the fort. With nearly 80 hostages taken between the two towns, the Espous may have been waging a traditional “mourning war” to replenish losses in their own villages due to war and, more likely, disease.
Peter Stuyvesant, New Netherland’s Director General, dispatched Captain Martin Krieger to Wiltwijck to punish the Esopus for their attacks. Krieger kept a daily journal of his time in Wiltwijck that has survives and has provided detailed information on military tactics and the daily lives of the town survivors. Krieger’s forces included at least 40 Munsee Lunaape from Long Island and another seven African captives who were enslaved to the colony itself. His army used scorched earth tactics designed to starve the Esopus and drive them away from their homelands. With each attack on an Esopus village, Krieger’s men burnt their buildings and destroyed their fields and food reserves
By May of 1664, the Esopus had no choice but to sign a treaty that ceded all their land to New Netherland and returned the remaining hostages. The Dutch were given a wampum belt by the Esopus as a token of peace; the belt remains in the Ulster County Hall of Records. After the treaty was signed, the Esopus had no home. They dispersed beyond the Shawangunk mountains, finding refuge with the Mohawks or other tribes that would take them in. Four months after the defeat of the Esopus, the Dutch surrendered New Netherland to the English.
