There had been a truce between the red men and the white, but the former could not forget that after their last attack on the Dutch fifteen of their warriors had been sent as slaves to the island of Curaçoa. There were many Indians near the prosperous settlement of Esopus, up in the Hudson country, and in the spring of 1663 settlers there sent word to the governor that they needed more protection from their dark-skinned neighbors. Stuyvesant replied that he would come himself soon and try to settle any differences. The Indian chiefs heard of this reply of the governor and in their turn sent him word that if he were coming to renew their treaty of friendship they should expect him to come without arms, and would then gladly meet in a council in the field outside the gate of Esopus, and smoke the pipe of peace with him. This was a friendly message, and the settlers at Esopus who lived within the palisades, as well as those at the little village of Wildwyck, which had sprung up a short distance from the fort, decided they had been wrong in suspecting the Indians of intending to harm them, and went on with their farming as usual. Peter Stuyvesant, busy in New Amsterdam, had not yet had a chance to go up to Esopus. On the seventh of June, as on other days, Indians came into the village, chatted with the settlers, and sold corn and other provisions they had grown. Then suddenly a war-whoop rang out inside the palisades, and was instantly followed by a hundred more within and without the gates. Indian blankets were thrown aside, and tomahawks and long knives gleamed in the hands of the savages. The settlers were taken completely by surprise. Each Indian had marked his man. Men, women, and children were made prisoners or killed. Houses were plundered and set on fire, and the flames, escaping to the farms, soon made havoc of the prosperous village. The settlers fought, and for several hours the savage war-whoops were answered by the fire of muskets. The chief officer of the village, called the Schout, Roelof Swartwout by name, rallied a few men around him, and by desperate fighting at last drove the Indians outside the palisades and shut the gates against them. But the outer village was in ashes, the fields were strewn with bodies, and houses smoked to the sky. Within the palisades matters were not quite so bad, for a change of the wind had saved part of the buildings from the flames. Twenty-one settlers had been killed, nine were badly wounded, and forty-five, most of them women and children, had been taken captive. All that night the Schout and his men stayed on guard at the gates, while in the distance they heard the shouts of the triumphant red men.