river nearly exterminated the settlers at Manhattan. Then the massacre of the Indians by the Dutch at Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook was attended by barbarous tortures, which rivalled in cruelty and horror even the savagery of the natives. Fearful devastation and terror followed. Two Indians were so shockingly tortured by the Dutch at Manhattan that even some squaws, as they looked on, cried, “Shame!” Captain Underhill, leading the Dutch, massacred nearly seven hundred Indians near Greenwich and Stamford. It was estimated that sixteen hundred savages were killed in this war.
Three distinct and most destructive massacres and onsets by the Indians are marked in the early colonial history of Virginia. The first settlers in their almost abortive efforts, renewed in spite of overwhelming disasters and failures, to obtain a foothold on the soil, had been frequently, we may say continuously, indebted to the generosity of the natives in rescuing them from starvation. In ungrateful return they insulted and spoiled their benefactors. Stirred to self-defence and revenge by a resolute chieftain, — successor and brother to the so-called “Emperor” Powhatan, who hated the encroaching whites, — a secret conspiracy was organized among them, long and carefully planned, without knowledge or suspicion by the settlers. On the day agreed upon, in concert, the scattered dwellings of the colonists were set upon, — March 22, 1622. Laborers and loiterers and whole families were taken in the panic of surprise, and in one and the same hour three hundred and fifty whites — men, women, and children — were slaughtered. The miserable remnant took refuge within their rude and rotting fort at Jamestown, and the wonder is that the savages did not follow up their furious onset by starving and extirpating that remnant. Nor did the whites learn wisdom, caution, or humanity from this visitation of vengeance from those whom they so outraged and oppressed.
