CHAPTER V

WILLIAM KIEFT and the WAR with the INDIANS


A dreary winter came and went, and just as the first signs of spring
showed in the fields that closed about the fort, a ship sailed up the
bay, bringing a stranger to the province.

This was William Kieft, the new Governor of New Netherland.

He was a blustering man, who became very angry when anyone disagreed
with him, and who very soon was known as "William the Testy." He made no
effort to make the Indians his friends, and the result was that much of
his rule of ten years was a term of bloody warfare.

The affairs of the Company had been sadly neglected by Governor Van
Twiller, and Governor Kieft, in a nervous, testy, energetic fashion set
about remedying them. The fort was almost in ruins from neglect. The
church was in little better condition. The mills were so out of repair
that even if the wind could have reached them they could not have been
made to do their work properly. There were smugglers who carried away
furs without even a thought of the koopman, who was waiting to record
the duties which should have been paid on them. There were those who
defied all law and order, and sold guns and powder and liquor to the
Indians, regardless of the fact that the penalty for doing so was death.
For guns and liquor had been found to be dangerous things to put in