Pavonia Massacre, New Netherland

Pavonia was a seventeenth-century Dutch settlement on the west bank of the North (Hudson) River, part of the colonial province of New Netherland, in what is now Hudson County, New Jersey. The area was first explored by Robert Juet, first mate to Henry Hudson, during a 1609 voyage, and a Dutch trading post was established at Communipaw by 1617. The land was inhabited by Algonquian-speaking peoples known collectively as the Lenni Lenape, including bands later called the Hackensack. In 1630, Michael Pauw, a director of the Dutch West India Company, obtained a patroonship over the region; deeds dated July and November 1630 record the purchase of the land from three Lenape individuals in exchange for goods including wampum, cloth, kettles, and guns. Pauw also directed the importation of 50 enslaved Africans from Pernambuco to work the Pavonia plantation.

Relations between Dutch settlers and the Lenape grew tense over the following decade due to disputes over trade, land, and cultural misunderstanding. Willem Kieft, who arrived in 1639 as Director of New Netherland, attempted to levy tribute on native groups, provoking resentment. A series of violent incidents followed, including the killing of a Dutch wheelwright, Claes Swits, by a Weckquaesgeek man, and the shooting of a Dutch settler at Achter Kol.

In February 1643, native refugees who had fled raids by the Mahican took shelter among Dutch settlers at Pavonia, whom they regarded as allies. Kieft, overriding the advice of a council of Twelve Men, ordered an attack on this encampment. On the night of February 25, 1643, roughly 129 Dutch soldiers killed approximately 120 Native Americans at Communipaw, within Pavonia, including women and children; a smaller, similar attack occurred the same night at Corlear's Hook in Manhattan. This event is known as the Pavonia Massacre, and Native Americans reportedly referred to it as "The Slaughter of the Innocents." Historians differ on whether the massacre was solely Kieft's decision.

The attack united surrounding Algonquian peoples against the Dutch to an unprecedented degree. On October 1, 1643, allied native forces retaliated by attacking and largely burning the Pavonia homesteads, killing settlers and forcing survivors to flee to New Amsterdam; Pavonia was evacuated. The resulting conflict, known as Kieft's War, continued for roughly two years, with native raids across New Netherland, until a truce was brokered in August 1645, partly through the Hackensack sachem Oratam. More than 1,600 Native Americans were reported killed during the war, at a time when the European population of New Amsterdam was only about 250. Kieft was recalled to the Netherlands in 1647 to answer for his conduct but died in a shipwreck before facing an accounting of events. A further, separate conflict, the 1655 Peach War, later killed 50 settlers in the same region and led to more than a hundred hostages being taken.