* The two most noted chiefs of the Delawares at the time of our Revolution, was Captain White Eyes and Captain Pipe. The former became chief sachem in 1776, and espoused the patriot cause. He was a firm friend to the missionaries, and earnestly desired the conversion of his people to Christianity, and the enjoyment of the accompanying blessings of civilization. He died of the small-pox, at Philadelphia, in 1780. Captain Pipe secretly favored the British at the opening of the Revolution, but the vigilant White Eyes frustrated all his plans for a while. The Delawares at length became divided, and most of them, under Captain Pipe, joined the British. We have met these chiefs once before (page 264, vol. i.) and shall meet them again when we consider the Indian war of the Revolution beyond the Alleghanies.
** The Assanpink Indians were at the Falls of the Delaware (Trenton); the Rankokas and Andastakas at Christina Creek, near Wilmington; the Nishaminies near Bristol; the Shackamaxons about Kensington; the Mantas, or Frogs, near Burlington; the Minseys, or Minisinks, at the Forks of the Delaware: and three or four other tribes were in New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. A few Mingoes were among these.
[[[First Settlements on the Delaware by the Dutch and Swedes.--Troubles with the Indians.--Gustavus Adolphus.]]]
{ 251}truth, holds up this record of the curse which boasted civilization carries with it as continually as its own shadow: "Since the Europeans came into these parts, they are grown great lovers of strong liquors, rum especially, and for it exchange the richest of their skins and furs. If they are heated with liquors, they are restless till they have enough to sleep; that is their cry, '_Some more, and I will go to sleep;_' but, when drunk, one of the most wretched spectacles in the world."
In 1609, Captain Henry Hudson, then in the service of the Dutch East India Company, touched near Cape May, at the mouth of Delaware Bay, but, finding shoal water, put to sea, and soon afterward sailed through the Narrows into New York Bay. The Dutch established a trading-post on Manhattan Island, now New York. The establishment increased, and in 1621 the Dutch West India Company was formed. In 1623, this company took formal possession of the country discovered by Hudson, including the Delaware, or South River, as they called it, in contradistinction to the North River, now the Hudson. The foundation of New Amsterdam was laid, and Captain Jacobus May was sent to take possession and colonize in the most southern part of New Jersey. He gave Cape May the name it still bears. Near where Gloucester, in New Jersey, now stands, he built Fort Nassau. This was the first white settlement on the shores of the Delaware, but it was not permanent. In 1631, Captain David Pieterson de Vries entered the Delaware River with two ships and about thirty colonists. He was associated with Godyn, Bloemart, and Van Rensselaer, wealthy Dutch _patroons,_ establishing a permanent settlement on the Delaware for the purpose of cultivating tobacco and grain, and prosecuting the whale and seal fishing. He built Fort Oplandt, near Lewiston, Delaware. DeVries returned to Holland, and when he came back, in 1632, his colony was destroyed. The arms of Holland, emblazoned on a piece of tin, had been raised upon a pole. An Indian stole the metal to make a tobacco-box of it. Osset, the commander, quarreled with the Indians, and the latter fell upon the colonists, while at work in the fields, and butchered every one of them. De Vries made peace with the tribe, but, finding Fort Nassau deserted, and the whole settlement a desolation, he left the bay forever; for, before the Dutch could re-establish their power, the patent granted to Lord Baltimore, proprietor of Maryland, gave them an English competitor for the lower portions of the territory on the west side of the Delaware.