...1600. Little is known of him before his appearance at Manhattan on March 28, 1638. He seems to have been an unpopular dweller at Rochelle, France, where his effigy had been hung upon a gallows. De Vries , an active mariner, who knew him well, ranked him among the great rascals of his age. He was energetic, spiteful, and rapacious—the reverse of Van Twiller, his immediate predecessor. Kieft b...