De Vries thought this a good opportunity to establish a permanent peace with the savages; but Kieft, who still seemed to thirst for blood, made it an occasion for treachery and death.
One dark, cold night, late in February, 1643, when the snow fell fast, and the wind blew loud and shrill, and there was not a star to be seen in the sky, eighty men were sent by Kieft to attack the fugitives at Hoboken and those at "Colaer's Hook," who were slumbering in fancied security.

Forty of those at the Hook were massacred, while the Hollanders, who had stealthily crossed the river through floating ice, were making the snows at Hoboken crimson with blood of confiding Indians and lighting up the heavens with the blaze of their wigwams.

They spared neither age nor sex.

"Warrior and squaw, sachem and child, mother and babe," says Brodhead, "were alike massacred.

Daybreak scarcely ended the furious slaughter.