Esopus War, the.
There had been a massacre by the Indians of Dutch settiers at Esopus (now Kingston, N. Y.) in 1655. The settlers had fled to Manhattan for security, but had been persuaded by Stuyvesant to return to their farms, where they built a compact village for mutual protection. Unfortunately, some Indians, who had been helping the Dutch in their harvests in the summer of 1658, became noisy in a drunken rout, and were fired upon by the villagers. This outrage caused fearful retaliation. The Indians desolated the farms, and murdered the people in isolated houses. The Dutch put forth their strength to oppose the barbarians, and the “Esopus War” continued until 1664 intermittingly. Some Indians, taken prisoners, were sent to Curacoa and sold as slaves. The anger of the Esopus Indians was aroused, and, in 1663, the village of Wiltwyck, as the Esopus village was called, was almost totally destroyed. Stuyvesant was there at the time, holding a conference with the Indians in the open fields, when the destructive blow fell. The houses were plundered and burned, and men, hurrying from the fields to protect their families and property, were either shot down or carried away captive. The struggle was desperate, but the white people were victorious. When the assailants were driven away, they carried off forty women and children; and in the heap of ruins which they left behind them were found the charred remains of twenty-one murdered villagers. It was the final event of violence of that war.
