Contents 
Front Matter Where I Was Born Alone in Holland An Important Introduction I Go My Way The Bargain Sailing for the New World A View of New Netherland The "Brown Men" or Savages Summoned to the Cabin Toys for the Savages Claim of the India Company Making Ready for Trade Braun and Gildersleeve Gathering the Savages Going Ashore Buying Manhattan Boats Used by the Savages Wandering over the Island The Homes of the Savages Master Minuit's Home Beginning the Work A Strange Kind of Craft Building a Fort In Charge of the Goods The Value of Wampum Buildings of Stone The Government A Prosperous Town Quarrelsome Slaves A Brutal Murder A Village Called Plymouth I Go on a Voyage A Lukewarm Welcome Two Days in Plymouth Forging Ahead The Big Ship Minuit's Successor Trouble with the English Van Twiller Discharged Director Kieft Unjust Commands Minuit's Return Revenge of the Savages Kieft's War Director Petrus Stuyvesant Time for Sight-Seeing How the Fort was Armed Village Laws Other Things about Town A Visit of Ceremony New Amsterdam, a City Stuyvesant Makes Enemies Orders from Holland Making Ready for War An Unexpected Question With the Fleet Driving out the Swedes Uprising of the Indians An Attack by the Indians Back to New Amsterdam Coaxing the Savages Religious Freedom Punishing the Quaker Other Persecutions Dull Trade Charge Made by Hans Braun Dismissed by Stuyvesant English Claims Idle Days On Broad Way Looking after the Ferry Coming of the English A Weak Defense Stuyvesant Absent Disobeying Commands Surrender Demanded A Three Days' Truce English Visitors Stuyvesant's Rage The End of Dutch Rule The City of New York

Peter of New Amsterdam - James Otis




Building a Fort

Within an hour after the last of the traders had set off, Master Minuit had his workmen busy on a fort, to be built an hundred yards or more from the place where we first landed.

Although these brown men appeared so very friendly, it was not in his mind to give them any chance to work mischief, and, therefore, some place where our people could defend themselves against an enemy, was needed.

All the Dutchmen who had been hewing timber were called upon to take part in the work, and it went on with amazing rapidity, for Master Minuit was not one who gave those in his employ much chance to suck their fingers.

The fort was made in the form of a triangle, with bastions, or projections, at each corner, so that while within them the defenders could have a view of each side-wall. Around the entire building, say at a distance of twenty feet, was a palisade, or fence, of cedar logs planted upright in the earth, and fastened together with heavy timbers at the top.

A more solid fortification of wood I have never yet seen, nor have I known of a like defence to have been made in so short a time.