THE DIRECTORS 63

further complicated by Kieft's clumsy handling
of an altercation on Staten Island. Some pigs
were stolen, by servants of the Company as ap-
peared later; but the offense was charged to the
Baritan Indians. Without waiting to make in-
vestigations Kief t sent out a punitive expedition of
seventy men, who attacked the innocent natives,
killed a number of them, and laid waste their crops.
This stupid and wicked attack still further exas-
perated the Indians, who in the high tide of mid-
summer saw their lands laid bare and their homes
desolated by the wanton hand of the intruders.

Some months later the trouble between the
whites and the red men was brought to a head by
an unforeseen tragedy. A savage came to Claes
Smits, radenmaker or wheelwright, to trade beaver
for duffel cloth. As Claes stooped down to take
out the duffel from a chest, the Indian seized an
axe which chanced to stand near by and struck the
wheelwright on the neck, killing him instantly.
The murderer then stole the goods from the chest
and fled to the forest.

When Kieft sent to the tribe of the Weckquaes-
geecks to inquire the cause of this murder and to
demand the slayer, the Indian told the chief that
he had seen his uncle robbed and killed at the fort