On 7 February 1831, Endicott and a few of his men went ashore to purchase some pepper from the natives when three proas attacked his ship, murdered Friendship's first officer and two others of her crew, and plundered its cargo.

Upon reaching Salem there was a general public outcry against the massacre and in response President Andrew Jackson dispatched the frigate USS Potomac under Commodore John Downes to punish the natives for their treachery.

[2] The Dutch expedition on the west coast of Sumatra of 1831 by the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army was in response to the incident and served as an excuse to annex parts of the Aceh Sultanate.

The later-day muskets the Americans used were far superior to the outdated matchlock weapons of the Malays, but the natives fought fiercely and the fighting devolved into hand-to-hand combat in which one of the uleëbalang commanding the forts was killed along with about 150 other warriors.

Downes later ordered his men to return to the ship and bombarded the fifth fort as well as the town until its surviving leaders agreed to surrender, killing another 300 natives in the process.

Downes left the area to continue his journey eventually circumnavigating the globe, stopping at Hawaii and entertaining that nation's king and queen aboard his vessel.