1644 - The Kieft's War

January 18, 1644 - Bewildered, Bostonians see for the first time an "unidentified flying object" in the sky.

January, 1644 - Dutch settlers attack and destroy Wacquaesgeek forts. In retaliation, the Canarsee chief Penhawitz orders his men to respond by killing and burning farms.

January, 1644 - Captain Richard Ingle lands at St Mary's City and utters insults against the king. He is arrested for treason by Deputy Governor of Maryland Giles Brent.

No charge was laid against him by the Grand Jury but Brent handled him with brutality and kicked out Captain Thomas Cornwallis for helping Ingle to escape.

Richard Ingle (1609-1653) 

Ancestry of this sailor and tobacco trader is little known. He was certainly born in London into a Protestant family who provided for his education. He became captain of the ship Reformation ensuring the transportation of Maryland planters tobacco towards England. When began the Civil war, Ingle sided with the Puritans.

February 5, 1644 - Connecticut enacts  a law on livestock branding for the first time in the American history.

February 25 1644 - Some African slaves who worked in New Amsterdam during more than 18 years serving the Dutch West India Company get a parole system, with the consent of Governor Willem Kieft.

These included Big Manuel, Little Manuel, Paulo of Angola and his wife Dorothy Creole, Simon Congo, and Anthony Portuguese. Each pair was given a plot of land in exchange for rent payable for life to the colony and certain obligations to the Company. Their children remained however enslaved.
By allowing each couple to have its own house, the regime granted was behind the creation of one of the first black communities of America.

March 7, 1644 - Massachusetts establishes a legislative two-chamber.

Squaw Sachem sells her lands to Gov. John Winthrop

March 8, 1644 - Having sold much of her lands to the colonists, queen of the Massachusetts Squaw Sachem agrees to sign a treaty of subjugation to the English and that her people are brought up in the Christian religion. She is accompanied by Masconomo, sachem of  the Agawam (Ipswich) and well known by governor John Winthrop and two leaders of Wachusett.

Requesting English protection allowed especially Massachusetts tribes living in the North of the province to curb the threat posed by Tarratines, always quick to carry out deadly raids in their villages.

Sqaw Sachem (? - on 1650) 

Known only under this name, she was the widow of Ninipashemit, reputed to have been the main leader of the New England Indians before the arrival of Europeans. He ruled over all the tribes living between the Charles River and the Piscataqua. He had his capital in Lynn until the Tarratine War broke in 1615 against Micmacs of the Maine region. He entrenched himself on that date on the Medford hill near the Mystic River where he made build a fortified village. He helped the Penobscot against Tarratines but his poor successes and the few prisoners he brought back would actually him hasten his own death and the disintegration of his federation.

Although he came to survive the tragic disease that decimated in 1617 almost 80 % of the local population, he was killed two years later by Tarratines. The three sons of Ninipashemit not having come of age, it therefore was down to his wife to rule over the remainders of tribes dispersed by the war, until the arrival of the English.  She tried to strengthen her power by threatening in particular both leaders Obattinua and Chikataubut, who claimed to represent Massachusetts. Sqaw Sachem remarried afterward with Pawtucket Chief Wibbacowet, the tribe's shaman also respected by his people as a good doctor ( powow ).

Masconomo (? - 1658) was the head of the Agawam, a semi-nomadic people belonging to the Wampanoag Federation, whose territory extended from the Merimac to the North of Massachusetts Bay. He had the opportunity to meet John Winthrop in 1630, aboard his ship the Arabella, and had concluded with him the first treaty of good-neighborliness.
He had no choice, in 1658, than to give up a wide part of his lands to Ipswich and Manchester settlers, due to the gradual depopulation of his tribe, and died shortly after, in poverty and loneliness, distressed by the lack of consideration of " the white man ".

Governor of New Sweden
Johan Printz

March 11, 1644 - After a harsh winter, the Fama arrives in the New Sweden colony with an important cargo.

The Swedish colony went since the beginning of the year through hard times. Supplies brought by the last ships were insufficient for bartering with Indians and Governor Johan Printz had to give up to the Dutch and the English the monopoly on beaver pelts. The timely arrival of the Fama would help to revive business and to send back to Europe an important shipment of tobacco and furs.

Since his arrival, Printz had widely encouraged the development of the colony but was facing a serious manpower problem because only 100 men were listed apart from women and the children. He urged the Company of New Sweden to send him at least 1000 additional settlers and supplies in abundance.
A letter, however, sent to Sweden highlighted his inhumanity towards Indians. He suggested to the Swedish government sending 200 soldiers to exterminate the Delaware, claiming that it would not affect the beaver pelts trade which came mostly from lands belonging to Minquas.

March, 1644 - Pound Ridge Massacre, a joint operation of the Dutch and English governments against the Wappinger Confederacy destroys several Delaware villages South of New Amsterdam and on Long Island.

The first Dutch and English mixed forces were actually ineffective. An expedition on Staten Island found only abandoned villages although corn brought back to New Amsterdam was welcome to face the shortage of provisions that plagued the colony. A second expedition against Wecquaesgeek forts was not more conclusive and during another attack against villages of Siwanoy sachem Wampage, the English soldiers killed some warriors and captured old women and children. Expected results happened when John Underhill with 120 Connecticut militiamen and the Dutch settlers got on to destroy the Metoac Fort Neck village at the western end of Long Island. They killed 120 Canarsee, Massapequa and Merrick warriors. 
Further to this first success, John Underhill and his soldiers took advantage of the night and bad weather conditions to encircle the Indian village which hosted a party. The attack was launched under the full moon. 180 Indians were killed outside the houses whereas only one dutch soldier was killed. None would escape. Underhill and his co-commander Hendrick Van Dyck decided to set fire to houses, as well as he had done  when besieging Mystic during the Pequot war. All trapped, men, women and children died in flames. They counted only 8 survivors while loss came to 700 to 800 Indians.Soldiers executed afterward seven of their captives in a close manner to the worst atrocities attributed to the Natives.

March 14, 1644 – The Long Parliament of England grants a Charter to the Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay (Rhode Island).
The Rhode Island colony which was originally called the Providence Plantations is ruled by an English colonial government commission thanks to the determination of Puritan Robert Rich, 2nd Earl de Warwick who intends to give guarantees of religious freedom in America.

William Brewster (1566-1644)

April 6, 1644 – Stamford, following the Pound Ridge Massacre, 4 Wappinger sachems conclude a truce with Willem Kieft. Representatives of the Matinecoc, Long Island do not delay to do the same even if some Indian bands want to keep fighting.

April 10, 1644 - William Brewster dies in Plymouth. This pilgrim of the first hour who was one of the leaders of the Mayflower expedition had been for many years Governor William Bradford’s closest adviser.

Spring, 1644 - Governor Johan Printz forms a company to go defend the Chester site where Delaware Indians killed 3 settlers.
Printz did not hide his intentions to do battle with the Indians and there was a good reason for initiating hostilities.

The situation was very tense in the region because of the war that the Dutch were leading against the tribes of the low Hudson Valley but the Delawares headed by Chief Mattahorn who did not have to complain about the Swedes quickly let them know that they denounced this act and wished to preserve peace.
The Delawares held a Council to discuss the attitude to adopt towards the Swedes. Mattahorn asked not to attack them, what the warriors eventually agreed, deciding to consider them as good friends.

April 1644 - After Fairfield and Stratford in 1639, the Connecticut jurisdiction extends to two new towns: Southampton on Long Island and Farmington near Hartford.
George Fenwick, the Governor of the Saybrook colony since 1639 sells to Connecticut the property of the fort and the city, and promises to transfer the remaining territory to its ownership, as far as it comes under his power.

While the Connecticut government held no guarantee from London, assignment by Fenwick was of great interest because it gave the colony a virtually legal status. 

April, 1644 – Jesuit priest Joseph Bessani who moved from New Amsterdam to visit the Hurons in the Niagara region is captured by Mohawks. The Dutch have to pay a ransom for his release. 

April 14, 1644 - Edward Hopkins is elected for the second time governor of Connecticut. He also becomes commissioner to the United Colonies of New England.

April 18, 1644 – Opechancanough, the Paramount Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy supported by a party of Nansemond, Chickahominy and Weyanock warriors, launches an attack against the settlers of Virginia established along the south shore of the Pamunkey, killing more than 400 victims.

The half-brother of Pocahontas, Opechancanough had been primarily responsible for Captain John Smith's capture in december, 1607. He was over 90 years old and almost blind when he launched into a final attempt to drive out the Europeans from Virginia, wishing to take advantage of religious strife that waved the colony. The Indians arrived at dawn and massacred about 400 colonists but stopped at the end of the first assault, certainly discouraged by a bad omen. At that time, Virginia had 8,000 inhabitants and the massacre did not have the expected effect.

How unusual could have been Opechancanough’s life, moved, despite his advanced age, by a steady hatred towards settlers although attending the hopeless breakdown of the powerful Powhatan Confederacy founded by his father in the last quarter of the 16th century. Yet, the one intended to be the ally of Europeans had become his fiercest enemy, aware that the colonization of America would eventually shoot down all the Native peoples and permanently install white-man subjugation. There has been a tradition that, when the shores of Virginia were regularly visited by Spanish explorers, 17-year old Opechancanough had embarked on one of their boats for Spain.

He would have lived several years in Cadiz and been converted to Christianity. Trained in the Spanish language by Dominicans friars, he had become Don Luis de Velasco, leaving in 1570 with Jesuit companions for a mission to Christianize Powhatans. But again in contact with his people, he would have disowned his new religion and even organized the massacre of several priests. He was then actively engaged in the rise of the Powhatan Confederacy which had passed in few years from 6 to 32 tribes. When Jamestown was founded, he had captured captain John Smith but had made him release further to the intercession of her young sister Pocahontas and also certainly because this English settler had revealed distinctive qualities from the European people he had once known.

He even asked at the time to consider him as his brother. Smith having left for England, Opechancanough had taken up with his suspicious feelings towards English settlers, especially when in 1613, these had abducted Pocahontas. Even if he had eventually accepted her wedding with John Rolfe and attended the ceremony, his shady and whimsical character decided however Chief Powhatan to prefer his young brother Itopatin (Opitchapam) to succeed him, what Opechancanough could not bear. When the time came, he engaged hostilities and went out victorious in this intertribal struggle more through persuasion and strength of character than by leading to a civil war, foreseeing it would benefit eventually to the colonists. The uprising triggered in 1622 did not clear off the English invader as he would have thought but had tragic aftermath for him by creating in a definitive way a climate of tension between colonists and Natives detrimental to the latter. Pushed farther inland and always in the grip of internecine strife about whether or not to deal with the English or to doggedly pursue an unwinnable war, the Indian peoples were the targeted victims of the ceaseless migratory waves that won't delay to whelm them. April 18, 1644 was in something the final jolt, a reason why it was remembered as Opechancanough’s day in Virginia. It was the start of the 3rd and last Anglo-Powhatan War ending in 1646 with the capture and death of Opechancanough at the age 92.

Edward Winslow (1595-1655)

May, 1644 - Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of the Dutch Curaçao colony, sends 130 Brazilian soldiers and 70 civilians to New Amsterdam.

June, 1644 - Edward Winslow is appointed a governor of Plymouth. He reaches this position for the third time. He has been since 1643 among the United Colonies of New England commissioners.
During his term, some Plymouth residents leave the town to settle in Nauset, on Cape Cod.

June, 1644 - The Great Assembly of Virginia decides to abandon any form of peace and familiarity with the Indian nations and wherever possible to track and expel all those who have hands stained with European blood.

The colonists undertook a series of punitive expeditions intended to root out the Indians of the region. They marched against all the groups involved in the uprising and planters living in the remote areas were invited as in 1622 to group together into fortified places. Captain William Claiborne defended his point of view according to which Indians living between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers had not taken part in the April 18, uprising and that they had distanced themselves from Powhatan.

John Endecott (1601-1664)

June 18, 1644 - After the abolition of the Council Of Twelve Men originally formed to advise Director-General Willem Kieft on what to do with Indian Natives, the settlers of New Netherland choose to replace it by a Council of Eight Men. At Kieft’s request, it included Isaac Allerton, an English merchant settled for 3 years in New Netherland. This one was soon sent to New Haven ask the colonists providing men and equipment to defend New Amsterdam but after long talks, these eventually refused.

 June, 1644 - Already president of the United Colonies of New England and commander in chief of the militia, John Endecott is elected at 56, governor of Massachusetts Bay.

This man with rough personality who had been the first governor of the colony before the arrival of John Winthrop had always been distinguishable by his honesty and outspokenness, not always excluding brutality. Upright and poorly concerned with wealth, he had devoted himself to public good with the ambition to remain faithful to his Puritan convictions. Although without sound theological knowledge, he however readily placed to be vigorously against talented ministers as Thomas Morton and Roger Williams. He was nevertheless blamed for his misjudgments and his harshness in the conduct of some military operations.

Chief Passaconaway (?)

June 12, 1644 - Penacook Chief Passaconaway and his counterpart Nanamocomuck, representative of  the Nashaway sign a treaty under which they agree to submit their people and their lands to the Massachusetts Government.

This agreement ended a tense period during which the English had suspected Penacook of selling furs to the Dutch and conspiring against them. Wanalancet, the son of Passaconaway, had been, as such, taken hostage and held for two years in Boston.
After realizing that they had acted only on assumptions, the English had tried to be conciliatory and agreed to apologize. They had even invited Passaconaway to go to Boston but, wary, the Indian chief had preferred to keep his distance.

Summer, 1644 - With the help of the Swedes, the Susquehannock, at war for two years against the Province of Maryland, win a symbolic victory over it.

July, 1644 - the government of Jamestown begins operations against the Pamunkey, the Weyanoke, the Warresqueak and the Nansemond. Commander-in-chief William Claiborne leads a major attack against the Pamunkey, burning their villages and cornfields but the Indians vanish into the forest.

Summer, 1644 - in the port of Boston, a boat claiming to act on the orders of Parliament attacks and captures another ship favorable to the king. Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop shows his displeasure and sends a protest letter to the Parliamentarians.

Shortly after, however, another ship of the Parliament attacked a boat belonging to people from Dartmouth known for their royalist sympathies. Governor Winthrop then decided to direct the artillery of the fort against the pro-parliamentary captain and obliged him to pay a powder keg for his arrogance. 

September 13, 1644 - Willem Kieft, the Director-General of New Netherland convenes council members Teunis Cray, Isaac Deforest, Jan Verbrugge to define how best to accommodate 200 refugees from Brazil.

In May, 1644, 400 to 500 people working for the Dutch West India Company, serving in Brazil at Maranham and Recife, were ousted by the Portuguese and had to find refuge in Curaþao. As it was impossible to provide food to so many people, it was decided to send most of them to New Netherland. 130 soldiers under the command of captain Jan de Fries and a number of additional persons forming all in all two hundred people sailed to New Amsterdam aboard the Blue Cock captained by Willem Oudemarkt.

September, 1644 – Back to Maryland after spending nearly two years in England, Governor Leonard Calvert faces a Protestant rebellion conducted by William Claiborne sided by Richard Ingle, benefiting from the Civil war to try to recover the rights lost in 1638 on Kent Island.

Autumn, 1644 - After a year in England, Roger William is back in Providence with his new charter.

Rev. John Eliot (1604-1690)

He had just landed when he succeeded to prevent Narragansett from starting a suicidal war against the United Colonies of New England and their allies Mohegan.

November 29, 1644 - the General Court of Massachusetts passes a law intended to encourage the conversion of the New England Natives. This convinces Rev. John Eliot to learn Indian languages in preparation to a significant Christianization campaign within the Indian communities.