But the up-river Indians continued sullen.

With their customary cunning or sagacity they retained quite a number of captives, holding them as pledges to secure themselves from the vengeance of the Dutch.

There was no hope of liberating them by war, since the Indians would never deliver up a white captive in exchange for prisoners of their own tribes.

And upon the first outbreak of war the unfortunate Dutch prisoners would be conveyed to inaccessible depths of the forests.
The Dutch settlers had scattered widely, on farms and plantations.
Thus they were peculiarly exposed to attacks from the Indians, and could render each other but little assistance.

As a remedy for this evil, Governor Stuyvesant issued a proclamation ordering all who lived in secluded places in the country to assemble and unite themselves in villages before the ensuing spring, "after the fashion," as he said, "of our New England neighbors." In Sweden, before the tidings of the fall of fort Casimir had reached that country, an expedition had been fitted out for the South river, conveying one hundred and thirty emigrants.