Thus whatever course might be suggested by fairness respecting the ultimate English attitude toward Westchester, that was only one local issue among others of very similar nature; and with so much at stake, the policy of self-interest required a studied resistance to the Dutch claims in general, even if that involved violation of the spirit of an agreement made in inchoate conditions which, though in a sense morally binding, had never been legally perfected. Finally, there was no conceivable risk for the English in any proceedings they chose to take, however arbitrary or unscrupulous; for in the event of an armed conflict over the boundary difficulty, the powerful New England colonies could easily crush the weak and meager Dutch settlements. It is not known to what extent, if any, the settlers at Wrestchester suffered from the great and widespread Indian massacre of 1055, which occurred before they had submitted themselves to the Dutch government and consequently before their affairs became matters

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

of record at New Amsterdam. On the 15th of September of that year sixty-four canoes of savages -- -k Mohicans, Pachamis, with others from Esopus, Hackingsack, Tappaan, Stamford, and Onkeway, as far east as Connecticut, estimated by some to amount to nineteen of whom were armed," hundred in number, from five to eight hundred --landed suddenly, before daybreak, at Fort Amsterdam. They came to avenge the recent killing of a squaw by the Dutch for steal" Stuyvesant, with most of the armed force of the seting peaches. tlement, was absent at the time upon an expedition to subdue the Swedes on the Delaware. A reign of terror followed, lasting for three days, during which, says O'Callaghan, " the Dutch lost one hundred people, one hundred and fifty were taken into captivity, and more than three hundred persons, besides, were deprived of house, home, clothes, and food." The Westchester people were probably spared on this occasion.