He executed his vow by murdering a wheelwright while he was examining his tool-chest for a tool, cleaving his skull with an axe.
Governor Kieft demanded the murderer; but his chief would not give him up, saying he had sought vengeance according to the customs of his race.
The governor, who cared little for the "customs of the race," determined to chastise that tribe as he had the Raritans, and called upon the people to shoulder their muskets for the fray; but they, seeing the danger to which the rashness of the governor was leading them, refused.
They had been witnesses of his rapacity and greed, and they now charged him with seeking war that he might "make a wrong reckoning with the colony," and reproached him with selfish cowardice.
"It is all well for you," they said, "who have not slept out of a fort a single night since you came, to endanger our lives and homes in undefended places." The autocrat was transformed by the bold attitude of the people.

Reason dawned upon his dull brain, and he invited all the heads of families in New Amsterdam to meet him in convention to consult upon public affairs.
The result of this invitation was the selection of twelve men to act as representatives for the people, which formed the first popular assembly and first representative congress for political purposes in the New Netherlands.

Thus were planted the seeds of a representative democracy, in the year 1641, almost on the very spot where, a century and a half later, our great republic, founded upon similar principles, was inaugurated, when Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States.
These twelve representatives of the people chose De Vries as president of their number.

To that body the governor submitted the question whether the murderer of the wheelwright ought to be demanded of his chief, and whether, in case of the chief's refusal, the Dutch ought to make war upon his tribe and burn the village wherein he dwelt.

The twelve counselled peace and proceeded to consider the propriety of establishing a government similar to that of the fatherland.