The Kidnapping of Eyke Roosa (1663)

Historical Note:

The details of the Esopus Revolt of Wildwyk and the important role of Aldert Roosa in the dramatic events is a matter of historical record. There is ample evidence also of the kidnapping of his 12 year old daughter, Eyke, though, many details of the events themselves are lost, it takes little speculation to iamgination the impact her abduction and rescue would have on the entire community, shaping their colonial mistrust of the Indians who still inhabited the region.

Eyke's Story

The June 11^th morning of 1663 seemed like just another hot, muggy day in Wildwyck (later named Kingston) the tiny village located deep in the wilderness of New Amsterdam. Wildwyck was a Dutch colony, settled many years before by Hollanders looking for a better life in the land of opportunity. 

 Eyke Roosa was 12 and the oldest of five girls. Like other Dutch children in WIldwyck she was expected to work hard all day. There was no time for play. From early morning to night she helped with meal preparation, cleaning their tiny little house, doing laundry by hand and taking care of her younger brothers and sisters. There was always more to do than she had time for. 

This morning started off the same. If Eyke ever got tired of all the hard work, or bored like modern children, she certainly didn’t complain out loud. It was strictly prohibited. Children were to be seen but not heard.

 Her Father, Aldert and older brothers, Arien and Jan were just finishing breakfast. Arien, tall and proud of his big muscles and deep male voice, was asking Father about the Indians again. He always wanted to talk about them. 

Speaking in Dutch, he asked, “Why do they bother us so?”. 

Father sipped a tin mug of hot steaming tea and took another draft from his pipe. “It’s the Governor’s fault. He promised to pay them for this land but never did. That’s when it got bad.”  

“They’re just savages!” Arien snorted. 

 Younger Brother Jan was much shorter than Arien. His voice had only begun to change so it cracked when he asked, “Do you think the red men will bother us?” That’s what the settlers called the Esopus Indians—“red men” or “savages.” Because of the growing tensions between settlers and Indians over the past few years Governor Stuyvesant had advised all settlers to build fences around their property and to build a palisade or fort around the village itself. That’s what the Roosa men had been doing all summer—at least trying to; the Indians often harassed them, tearing down their work at night after they’d finished a section. 

Eyke noticed a look of quiet concern in her Father’s eyes. He looked out through the open door to a distant point at the edge of their land. “I pray they don’t. Every day I pray. Lord be merciful to us.” 

Always in a hurry, Father jumped to his feet with a slap on the table. “Enough talk. We have work to do!” He and the boys left the house and would plan to be gone the rest of the day.

 As the men left for the field Eyke thought about her Father. He was a very important man in the village. In Dutch he was called the “schepen”—a magistrate or leader of the village. He had been chosen by Governor Stuyvesant himself. The year before the townspeople had sent Father on the long, dangerous trip to New Amsterdam to purchase 100 pounds of gundpowder and two hundred pounds of lead for bullets. They needed to be prepared in case there was an attack by the Indians. 

 Father was also an elder in their tiny church. The pastor of their church, Domine (or “reverend”) Bloem spent many hours with Father doing the work of the church. They talked about church problems and together looked for ways to help those in need. Father had come up with a way to use money from unused portions of the estates of deceased settlers to benefit the needy. She was very proud of her Father. 

The Roosas were farmers, as were most of the other Dutch settlers. They had emigrated to New Amsterdam, and then to Wildwyck, in 1660. With a small band of other Hollanders they booked passage aboard a ship called the Bontekoe—the Spotted Cow. They didn’t speak the same language most spoke in this new land. But Eyke was learning to like it here. The main crop was what the Indians called maize (today we call it corn). It was not like anything they had back in Holland. It took Eyke a while to get used to the flavor. But over the months she had grown to like it too. And Mother was always trying to figure out some new way to prepare it. 

Her newest brother was named Guert. His was an old family name going back to Holland—Eyke seemed to recall it was her grandfather but she wasn’t really sure. Guert was not even a year old and crying as always. She picked him up and tightened the swaddling bands gently. She cooed in his ear and he looked back at her with an alert gaze. How she loved children. When would she have her own? She often wondered about that. 

 The rest of that morning seemed as if it would be like every other morning  But then, shortly before noon, she noticed some stirring outside.

Her heart skipped a beat. It was Indians. They were walking toward the house, half-naked as always, carrying some items for trade. Their fierce dark eyes and colored skin made her nervous. Why couldn’t they just leave the settlers alone? 

 At first they did—many years ago. But some time ago settlers got the idea to trade with the Indians. It was a good way to get food. Since the settlers didn’t have very much to trade, someone got the idea to start trading their homemade liquor. The Indians had never tasted it before and became possessed by the desire for more. Over time, more and more Indians demanded trade of their wears and produce for alcohol. They didn’t want anything else. According to her Father, it was the “demon liquor” that made them so wild. After trading with the settlers they would go out into the forests and drink it all up, getting drunk. That’s when they were most frightening. And unpredictable. 

 But it was early in the day, Eyke thought. It’s too early for them to be drunk. As they walked up to the door of their little home she called for Mother. Eyke was strictly forbidden from speaking to them or letting them in the house. 

  “What do you want?” Mother asked, nervously? 

Instead of answering the question in their strange tongue, the Indians just stood there, looking in the doorway, fumbling with whatever it was they kept under their cloaks. 

Mother asked again, this time more sharply, “What do you want? I am very busy!”

Just then, from a distant part of the village, Eyke heard a shrill scream. It was a child. The Indians snapped to attention, threw off their cloaks, revealing tomahawks and knives against their dark skin. Eyke screamed, clutching Baby Guert close. The fear rippled through the house. Eyke began to cry, trying to run to the back of the house. But at that moment one of the Indians stormed through the door and grabbed her, holding a tomahawk over her in a threatening pose. The other one had grabbed Mother around the waste and was pressing a knife against her neck. Baby Guert screamed in fear. The crying baby caused some confusion for the Indian, just enough so Eyke could break free for a moment and put Guert back in his little wooden cradle by the fireplace. For a moment the Indian watched as she tucked him in, trying to comfort him. Her attacker was just a young man—probably not much older than Eyke. 

 The older one barked a sharp command in the strange language and the younger one immediately grabbed Eyke once again. Squirming and pushing, she tried to get away as Mother also was doing. Mother was successful. She grabbed little Guert from the cradle and quickly ran from the room. Eyke was not so fortunate. The last thing she heard before everything went dark was the distant sound of her younger siblings in the back of the house,

“Eyke? Where are you?”

News of the attack spread quickly through the village and countryside. The men had not gone far and were back within the hour. As Aldert surveyed the village he was filled with rage. Smoke rose from the embers of burning houses. Dead bodies lay on the ground. The horrified screams of bereaved children and widowed husbands echoed from the trees. 

Always a man of action, Aldert did not lose time. For some reason it appeared his house had been spared the carnage. After checking on the safety of his family he found that Little Eyke had been taken. He grabbed his musket and powder. With hot passionate fury Aldert stormed out the door, determined to find his precious little girl. He could not allow himself to think about how she felt at that moment or what the savages may have been contemplating to do to her. 

The next days and weeks were filled with ever expanding search. Aldert scarcely slept. Even when he tried to sleep he could not get the image of his frightened little girl out of his mind. Days turned to weeks. There were many reports of the kidnapped settlers but every lead turned up short. 

Immediately after the massacre word had been sent by horse and rider to the Governor begging for troops to assist in the search. Eventually a detachment of fifty men came, led by Captain Martin Kregier of the British Army. Daily they searched. Daily they came back with empty arms. 

By July Aldert’s impatience had reached the boiling point. On the morning of July 7, during the daily Council of War led by Captain Kregier, two Wappinger Indians were being questioned. Aldert and another father, Jan Hendricksen showed up outside the Captain’s makeshift office. They were heavily armed and in the most foul mood. They demanded to enter the Council chamber. The soldier standing guard refused at first whereupon the two aggrieved fathers pushed their way in. 

“What’s the meaning of this?” Kregier demanded. 

“We’re here to shoot some savages” Aldert spat. 

“You will certainly not,” Kregier dismissed. “They are being interrogated. You will leave immediately.”

 “We will not leave!” Aldert insisted, “Until we’ve done what we came to do.”

The standoff lasted for quite a while. Eventually, Kregier warned that if they persisted he would be forced to physically arrest and detain them.

“Do what you will,” Hendrikson replied. “We will have our way, should you shoot us dead.” 

In frustration Kregier snorted, “You shall be hanged by the neck if you do it. Now go!” Hendricksen must have made a provocative move for in a moment Kregier gave the command and he was grabbed by two burly soldiers and put in irons. Realizing he had no choice, Aldert turned and left. He could not look for his daughter if he was imprisoned. 

For days the soldiers went on with the search. When they would find groups of Indians they would question them. Sometimes they pillaged and burned their crops to try and force their cooperation. August came and went. Aldert had little interest in working his field that summer. He was consumed by his quest. It had been three months! Would they ever find them?

The 1^st day of September brought hard, soaking rains to the Shawanagunk Valley. The river itself began to swell with the rain and the search activities were seriously hindered. But there was apparently a let up on the 5^th of September for the search resumed. 

Many years later, a descendent of one of the prisoners, Catherine du Bois, wrote this account based on family stories passed from one generation to the next. 

One day in early September a panic seized the Red Men, a fear that the soldiers were surely coming again. They could retreat no farther, for they depended on their corn and beans to carry them through the winter and all their other plantations had already been destroyed.  They had taken good care of these white women and children, but if they were to be thwarted in their plans to hold them as hostages… there was still time to take a bitter revenge. 

So squaws were sent out to gather wood and they were laid in piles. The white women were brought forward. All was ready. The light had only to be applied. Then it was that Catharine began to sing a French hymn based on the psalms [Psalm 137]: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion . . . .” 

She sang while the savages stood motionless around. Perhaps she had a presentiment that her rescuers were near and she must do something, anything to gain time.  Perhaps she did it only to keep up courage to the end. But all at once a shot rang out on the September air and some strange hounds nosed through the circle of listeners.

The next things happened very suddenly. The movement of the search party caught the attention of one the Squaws. She screamed in alarm. That alerted the other Indians. Within minutes the ground was pounding with action. Krieger’s and his party too went into action.  The air became thick with powder and fear. And then it was quiet.  

Reports say that seven Dutch settlers were among the search party that day. Though they are not officially named we can be fairly sure three of them were fathers, including Aldert Heymans Roosa. 

By the time it was done 14 Indians lay dead on the ground and 3 British soldiers. One of the dead Indians was Papequanaehen, an Esopus Chief. But the best news was that all 23 of the Dutch prisoners were found, including Little Eyke Roosa.   

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Eyke was alive. It is impossible to know how being kidnapped for so many weeks by the Indians affected the rest of her life. We know from the historical record that she went on to marry a medical doctor named Roelof Kierdstedt. We also know she had 9 children of her own, living to the good old age (for those days) of 60. 

Our ancestors were made of strong stuff and there is no evidence that she suffered long term emotional damage. But it is not hard to imagine that Eyke always remembered the Psalm that had given them comfort those many years before. Bible scholars today call Psalm 137 an “imprecatory psalm” because it calls down judgment on the enemies of God. Though some today are troubled by the plea for judgment (particularly in the last verses), it is important to remember that it is not a mere thirst for human revenge. Though Eyke may have wanted to see the Indians pay for their crimes, she no doubt knew that ultimately God himself was the judge. And, as the psalmist records, it would be God’s judgment on the wicked, not her own, that was decisive. Certainly it was this confidence that allowed Eyke to keep her sanity, through one of the most horrible events anyone can imagine. 

  By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. ² There on the poplars we hung our harps, ³ for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴ How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land? ⁵ If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. ⁶ May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.

⁷ Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. “Tear it down,” they cried, “tear it down to its foundations!” ⁸ Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. ⁹ Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. (Psalm 137)