Willem Kieft

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For the Dutch footballer named Willem (Wim) Kieft, see Wim Kieft

New Netherland series
Exploration
Fortifications:
Fort Amsterdam Fort Nassau (North) Fort Orange Fort Nassau (South) Fort Goede Hoop De Wal	Fort Casimir Fort Altena Fort Wilhelmus Fort Beversreede Fort Nya Korsholm De Rondout
Settlements:
Noten Eylandt New Amsterdam Rensselaerswyck New Haarlem Noortwyck Beverwyck Wiltwyck Bergen Pavonia Vriessendael Achter Col Vlissingen Oude Dorpe	Colen Donck Greenwich Heemstede Rustdorp Gravesende Breuckelen New Amersfoort Midwout New Utrecht Boswyck Swaanendael New Amstel Nieuw Dorp
The Patroon System Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions
Directors of New Netherland: Cornelius Jacobsen Mey (1620-25) Willem Verhulst (1625-26) Peter Minuit (1626-32) Sebastiaen Jansen Krol(1632-33) Wouter van Twiller (1633-38) Willem Kieft (1638-47) Peter Stuyvesant (1647-64)
People of New Netherland New Netherlander Twelve Men Eight Men Nine Men
Flushing Remonstrance

Willem Kieft (September 1597, Amsterdam - September 1647) was a Dutch merchant and director-general of New Netherland (of which New Amsterdam, later New York City, was the primary settlement), from 1638 until 1647. He formed the council of twelve men, the first representative body in New Netherland, but ignored its advice. Kieft attempted to tax and eventually drive out the Native Americans. He ordered attacks Pavonia and Corlears Hook on February 25, 1643 in a massacre (129 Dutch soldiers killed 120 Indians, including women and children), followed by retaliations resulting in what would become known as Kieft's War (1643-1645). The war took a huge toll on both sides. Kieft was fired, and perished in a shipwreck nears Swansea on his way back to the Netherlands. His archive was also lost, so his exact role cannot be established.^[1][2]

References

Additional Reading

• William Elliot Griffis The Story of New Netherland. The Dutch In America. (Chapter IX. Cambridge: The Riverside Press. 1909)
• Allen Johnson, Ed. Dutch and English on the Hudson (Chapter IV. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1919)
• Jaap Jacobs (2005), New Netherland: A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN90 04 12906 5.