Willem Kieft, Director of the Dutch Colony of New Netherlands had the distillery built in 1640 within the new settlement on Staten Island. Less than three years later, settlers got some of the Natives drunk and ripped them off. When the Indians realized what happened and demanded their possessions back, the colonists refused. The Natives got “Medieval” on the settlers and utterly destroyed them and their Staten Island colony.

This occurrence, called the “Whiskey War”, was the second of three “Wars” with the Indians. The result of each War ended the same: death on both sides and the obliteration of the Staten Island colony. Ultimately, Peace made with the Lenape resulted in the First Permanent Settlement on Staten Island on August 20, 1661.

 

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