toward the deep woods close by. "Go there for safety, but do not 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.