assassins of Smits and Van Voorst, and thus these murders
remain unavenged. The national character of the Dutch must
suffer. God has now delivered our enemies into our hands.
Let us attack them. We offer our services, and urge that
united parties of soldiers and civilians assail them at
several points."

These views were in entire harmony with the wishes of the sanguinary
Kieft. He was delighted with the prospect of a war in which victory
seemed easy and certain. Disregarding the remonstrances of DeVrees,
and of the Christian minister Bogardus, he made efficient preparation
for the slaughter of the helpless savages.

He sent his secretary and a military officer across the river to
reconnoitre the position of the Indians. There were two bands of these
trembling fugitives, one at Pavonia, on the Jersey side of the river,
and one at Corlaer's Hook, on the Island of Manhattan, just above fort
Amsterdam. Secretly, at midnight of the 25th of February, 1643, the
armed bands advanced against their unsuspecting victims. They were
sleeping in fancied security when the murderous assault commenced.

"The noise of muskets," writes Brodhead, "mingled with the
shrieks of the terrified Indians. Neither age nor sex were
spared. Warrior and squaw, sachem and child, mother and
babe, were alike massacred. Daybreak scarcely ended the
furious slaughter. Mangled victims, seeking safety in the
thickets, were driven into the river. Parents, rushing to
save their children whom the soldiers had thrown into the
stream, were driven back into the waters and drowned before
the eyes of their unrelenting murderers."

"I sat up that night," writes DeVrees,

"by the kitchen fire at the Director's. About midnight,
hearing loud shrieks, I ran up to the ramparts of the fort.
Looking towards Pavonia, I saw nothing but shooting, and
heard nothing but the shrieks of Indians murdered in their
sleep."

With the dawn of the morning the victorious Dutch returned from their
scene of slaughter, bearing with them about thirty prisoners, and the
_heads_ instead of the _scalps_ of many warriors. Kieft welcomed these
blood-stained men with "shaking of hands and congratulations." The
tidings of this outrage spread far and wide among the Indian tribes in
the valley of the Hudson and on the Long Island shore.

Private enterprise, relying upon the protection of Kieft, ha