Chronology of American Indian History

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1631

The Lenni Lenape (Delaware) attack
Swanendael.
A band of Lenni Lenape (Delaware) Indians attack
the Dutch settlement of Swanendael (the site of
present-day Lewes, Delaware). The Indians destroy
the town and massacre 32 settlers. Eager to main-
tain peace, the Dutch West India Company (see
entry for 1621) chooses to negotiate with the Lenni
Lenape rather than retaliate. To ingratiate the rebel
Indians, the Dutch offer them gifts and increased
avenues for trade.

1632

The Pequot attack a Dutch trading post.
Pequot warriors attack Indians gathered to trade at
House of Hope, a Dutch trading post established
at present-day Hartford, Connecticut. The Pequot
are angered that the Dutch are trading directly with
area tribes, bypassing Pequot middlemen. In retalia-
tion, the Dutch kill Pequot leader Tatotem.

“[O]ur lives depend upon a sin-

gle thread.... [T]he malice of

the Savages gives especial cause

for almost perpetual fear; a mal-

content may burn you down, or

cleave your head open in some

lonely spot. And then you are

responsible for the sterility or

fecundity of the earth, under

penalty of your life; you are the

cause of droughts; if you cannot

make rain, they speak of noth-

ing less than making away with

you.”

—Father Paul le Jeune

in Jesuit Relations

Jesuit Relations begins publication.

Jesuit missionaries record their efforts to convert

Indians in New France in the first volume of Jesuit

Relations. The publication will appear annually until

1674. Although largely a propaganda tool to pro-
      mote Jesuit missions, Jesuit Relations will become a
      source of extensive information on the earliest rela-
      tionships between Indians and the French.

Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s True Story of the

Conquest of New Spain is published.

Fifty-one years after his death, Bernal Díaz del Cas-

tillo’s account of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec

Empire (see entry for CA. 1430 TO 1521) is pub-

lished. Díaz del Castillo was a conquistador who

participated in both of Hernán Cortés’s brutal cam-

paigns against the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán (see

entries for 1519 and for 1521). New Spain is the first

history of these events written by an eyewitness.

1633

The Zuni kill Spanish priests and soldiers.

To convert the Zuni, in 1629 the Spanish sent four

priests under the protection of a group of soldiers

into the Indians’ territory. After four years, the

Zuni become so angered by the presence of for-

eigners in their midst that they rise up against the

Spanish, killing all of the soldiers and two of the

missionaries.

Smallpox spreads through eastern Indian

groups.

An epidemic of smallpox, a disease brought to North

America by non-Indians, strikes Indian populations

throughout what is now the northeastern United

States and southeastern Canada. For two years the

disease will spread quickly from Indian group to

Indian group. With no natural immunity to the

disease, Indians die in huge numbers. The Huron

alone lose more than 10,000 tribe members.

The English colonists celebrate the horrendous

epidemic as proof of God’s approval of their efforts

to expand into Indian territory. Charleston town