Esopus Wars - Outcome

Outcome

After the second war, the Dutch settlers remained suspicious of all Indians with whom they came into contact. Reports made to the Dutch government in New Amsterdam cited misgivings about the intentions of the Wappingers and even the Mohawks, who had helped the Dutch defeat the Esopus.

Dutch prisoners taken captive by natives in the Second Esopus War were transported through regions no white man had yet seen. Upon their release, they described the land to the Dutch authorities, who set out to survey it. Some of this land was later sold to French Huguenot refugees, who established the village of New Paltz.

In September 1664, the Dutch ceded New Netherland to the English. They were said to take a more patient and fair stance toward the natives. The boundaries of Indian territory were carefully established, the land taken for the Crown was paid for, and the remainder of the Native American land could no longer be taken without full payment and mutual agreement. The new treaty established safe passage for natives for trading, declared "that all past Injuryes are buryed and forgotten on both sides," promised equal punishment (execution) for settlers and Indians found guilty of murder, and paid traditional respects to the sachems and their people. Over the course of the next two decades, Esopus lands were bought up and the natives were peacefully but inexorably driven out, eventually taking refuge with the Mohawks north of the Shawangunk mountains.

Today, some of their descendants live on the Stockbridge-Munsee reservation in Shawano County, Wisconsin as well as among the Munsee Delaware of Ontario. Some historians believe surviving Esopus joined with the Ramapough Mountain Indians of New Jersey following the wars. In this they followed the course of some Wappinger people after Kieft's War in 1643.