The Esopus Wars: Dutch and Lenape in Conflict
New York
The ground you are passing through was, in the sixteen fifties and sixteen sixties, the site of two brutal colonial wars. The Esopus people, part of the Lenape nation, had lived along this stretch of the Hudson River for generations, with an estimated ten thousand people in the region at the time Europeans arrived. As Dutch settlers pushed into their territory around present-day Kingston, tensions erupted into open conflict.
The First Esopus War broke out in sixteen fifty-nine, provoked by the colonists. The Second, beginning in sixteen sixty-three, was carried out by the Esopus in retaliation for ongoing dispossession. Both wars ended badly for the Esopus: their villages were burned, captives were sold into slavery in the Caribbean, and their political power in the valley was broken.
The wars cleared the way for permanent European settlement of Ulster County.
