The Dutch Among the Natives: American Indian-Dutch Relations, 1609–1664

"Thereupon the savages handed to the English a bag with wampum and promised [them] the land of the Esopus." Report of English intrigues among the Esopus Indians, August 27, 1664.

"I cannot refrain from informing you of our present condition, viz.: that we are now brought under the government of the King of England." Rev. Samuel Drisius to the Classis of Amsterdam, September 15, 1664.

"In discharge of my duty I cannot but repeat over againe the importance of employing merchant shipps with a great proportion of merchandize suitable to the trade with the Natives." Richard Nicolls to the Secretary of State, October 1664.

On May 15, 1664, the Esopus Indians and the Dutch concluded a treaty of peace ending once and for all their wars in the lower Hudson Valley. On September 6, 1664, Petrus Stuyvesant transferred the colony of New Netherland to Richard Nicolls, commander of English forces and governor-designate of what would become the colony of New York. Within days, Mohawk, Oneida, and Onondaga headmen met with Colonel George Cartwright, acting on behalf of Nicolls, at Fort Albany, the renamed Fort Orange. There, the transition from the Dutch to the English administration took place. Importantly, assurances were given the Indians that the fur trade and access to trade goods would continue as before. In addition, offences committed by any "English Dutch or Indian (under the proteccôn of the English)" would receive "due satisfaccôn" on all accounts and for all parties. Although no other Indians were present that day, Cartwright extended the "Articles of Agreement and Peace" to include the Wappinger and Esopus Indians--the Munsees--and "all below the Manhattans." With the end of the Dutch administration of New Netherland, Native people prepared themselves to deal with another European partner, but also an adversary, while in the future loomed the destructive French and Indian War, the Revolution, and finally, migration from the region.