The incipient partnership was aborted. As the previous rivalry between New Sweden and New Netherland had thrown Indians into conflict, so now a European struggle created new Indian battles. England and Holland revived their former conflict on terms far more formidable to the Dutch than before. New Sweden had confined its competition to the Delaware Bay, but now the English began to press against every part of New Netherland. The EnglishDutch struggle threw the Susquehannock's into a dilemma that could be resolved only by catastrophe.

Generally speaking, and on the record, the Dutch were on the defensive; they recognized their inferior numbers and avoided overt actions that could give reasonable offense to the English.³⁸   However, some of their maneuvers with the Indians under their influence were suspected by the English of being covertly hostile, and probably the suspicions were justified.³⁹   The more populous English were scattered more widely and divided into a greater number of separate interests and parties. Alike in their aggressive expansionism, Englishmen differed in their specific goals. New England coveted Dutch Long Island and the upper Hudson valley. Virginia and Maryland strove with each other over conflicting Chesapeake Bay claims while the Calverts of Maryland also laid claims to all of Dutch Delaware Bay. In Old England, provincial ambitions were disregarded in plans to seize the whole of New Netherland as a unit. Among all intrigues and struggles, the Indians pursued their own interests as best they were able.

A new crisis began in August, 1659, with English initiatives simultaneously at north and south. To the north a Connecticut delegation appeared at Fort Orange, announcing their plan to found a settlement near the Hudson.⁴⁰   To the south, Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, sent a delegation to New Amstel to demand the formal surrender of Delaware Bay, giving as reason the terms of his charter. The Dutch reacted cautiously but without conceding anything. At New Amstel they affirmed an Indian purchase right and a further right of longterm possession and habitation; and Governor Stuyvesant reenforced the garrison. After further discussions in 1660, Maryland's claims were forwarded to Amsterdam. Unfortunately for the Dutch, the firmness of their officials was not matched uniformly by all their colonists Maryland's pressure caused "much uncertainty and trouble among the people," reported the colony's ViceDirector, who added, "everyone is trying to remove and escape."⁴¹   One particular escapee requires our attention. An Indian trader named Jacob Claeson who, like salesmen everywhere, had nicknamed himself "Jacob, My Friend," departed mysteriously from New Amstel "with quite a large sum of money, given to him by divers parties to trade with," and unusual efforts were made by the Dutch to get him back. The money was not their primary concern. Jacob could speak the Susquehannock languagea rare accomplishment for a Europeanand he had considerable personal influence over those Indians. As the Dutch feared, he soon made himself useful to Maryland.⁴²

Jacob became especially valuable to Maryland because the Susquehannock's suddenly were thrust into the center of Maryland's foreign policy. The implications of Maryland's 1652 peace treaty with the Susquehannock's probably had not been fully understood by the provincial negotiators. By 1660 they began to understand, at least dimly. In that year the Oneida Iroquois killed five of the Piscatawa Indians of Maryland "for being friends" to Maryland and the Susquehannocks.⁴³   Marylanders at that time made no distinction between one Iroquois nation and another, and they did not understand that this was the year of maximum cooperation between the Iroquois Mohawks and the Susquehannock's, nor would they have cared much if they had understood. As far as the Marylanders were concerned, all the "Northern" Indians were Senecas or "Cynegoes" or some such variant in seventeenthcentury spelling, and no fine distinctions were drawn between Mohawks, Oneidas, and so on. As it appeared to the Marylanders in 1660, their protected Indians had been attacked by undifferentiated Iroquois" Cynegoes" and they certainly would not put up with such an affront. Maryland promptly declared war on those Cynegoes.⁴⁴   The fact that the Marylanders had no very clear idea of the identity of the mysterious marauders had small relevance. As it now appeared to the Marylanders, they were engaged in outright war with the Indian allies of the Dutch of Fort Orange while also engaged in pouter but no less determined struggle with the Dutch of New Amstel. One can sense the question nagging at the Marylanders' suspicions: had the Dutch instigated the Iroquois raids on Maryland's Indians ?

Prudence dictated prompt countermeasures. Thoughtfully, the Maryland Assembly decided, in April, 1661, that "the Sasquehannoughs are a Bullwarke and Security of the Northern parts of this Province," and within the month their existing treaty of peace was expanded into a full alliance. Jacob was licensed to trade with the Susquehannocks and employed as an official intermediary for the province, and the Indians were provided with substantial help. Besides goods and arms, they were allotted a troop of fifty Englishmen to help garrison their fort.⁴⁵   There were, of course, diverse motivations between the allies. The Susquehannock's obviously wanted help for their feud with the (nonMohawk) Iroquois. Maryland's objectives were to fight the Dutch and the allies of the Dutch, defensively on the exposed Susquehanna River approach to the province, offensively at Delaware Bay. Both of Maryland's objectives were cloaked from the Susquehannocks, who were intended to be manipulated on both fronts.

To the northward, Maryland's commissioner was instructed "to informe yourself of the processe of the Warre" between the Susquehannocks and the Iroquois nations "and if you finde them slack in itt, to press them discreetly to a vigourous prosecution of it."⁴⁶   To the eastward, a Lenape murder of four Marylanders served as a provocation; the province demanded Susquehannock assistance to obtain "satisfaction" from the Lenape. The point of this action was instantly understood at New Amstel. Dutch Secretary Beeckman fretted

that if the English go to war with these savages, that all of the territory whence they drive out the same will be seized as being taken from their enemies by the sword. The English will most likely come into our jurisdiction to pursue their enemies without having given previous notice; in case of refusal they would suspect us and treat us in the same manner.

Beeckman had good reason for anxiety. Shortly after he wrote, the Maryland Council sat down to consider a letter from Proprietor Lord Baltimore instructing them to direct hostilities against "certaine Ennemies, Pyratts, and Robbers," meaning the Dutch.⁴⁷

But if the Dutch worried about English aggression, the English were not unmindful of Dutch resources. While Lord Baltimore was abroad, his government showed some discretion. It was easy for Baltimore to bluster valiantly from England. On the Chesapeake, however, one had to act a little more cautiously "lest Generall Styvesant at the Manhatans make an advantage by those Indians [the Iroquois] . . . it being doubted whether there be a warre betweene Holland and England or not." This hesitation gave the Dutch a chance to temporize. In September, 1660, Director d'Hinojossa summoned the Passyunk Lenape to meet with Maryland's Governor Philip Calvert. Lenape Chief Pinna responded and explained that the English had begun the trouble by killing an Indian "upon Easter daye." Calvert showed unusual willingness to accept the Indian's shifting of blame. "Satisfaction" was waived, and "Governor Calvert . . . made peace with the aforesaid sachem and merry with d'Hinojossa."⁴⁸

After all this excitement the smallpox epidemic that swept over the Susquehannock in 1661 and the Iroquois in the following year may have seemed anticlimactic. As if the plague brought too little misery, new wars were in store for the Indians. In Europe, commercial and dynastic struggles began afresh with the Restoration of Charles II to the English throne in 1660 and the assumption in 1661 of personal government by Louis XIV in France. Remote as these monarchs were from the American backwoods, their decisionsfiltered, refracted, and distorted by local conditionsbegan to enter into the pattern of Indian politics. Their first effect came with the heightening of competition between England and the Dutch Republic. Defensively, in 1662, the Dutch allied themselves to 'France. In 1663 the Indians living between Dutch Fort Orange and French Montreal undertook largescale attacks on other Indians allied respectively to the English of Maryland and the English of New England. The attacking Iroquois could have obtained their armament only from the French and Dutch; as both these European peoples had excellent sources of information among the Iroquois, it seems fair to conclude that their officialdom had some notion of where their powder and ball was destined to be shot. One must rely on pattern and inference; the direct evidence discloses only a murky picture of activities whose difficulty of interpretation has left them usually abandoned by historians as a chaotic pile of mere data.