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The Pequot War was an armed conflict in 1637 between an alliance of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies, with Native American allies (the Narragansett , and Mohegan tribe), against the Pequot tribe. This war saw the elimination of the Pequot as a viable polity in what is present-day southern New England . 400-700 Pequot people were killed by the colonists and their allies; hundreds more were captured and sold into slavery in ) and Mystic River s in what is now southeastern Connecticut .Refer to, Laurence M. Hauptman and James D. Wherry, eds.''The Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an Indian Nation'' (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990). Etymology The name ''Pequot'' is an Algonquian term, the meaning of which is in dispute among Algonquian specialists. Most recent sources claim that "Pequot" comes from "Paquatauoq," "the destroyers," thereby relying on the speculations of an early twentieth century authority on Algonquian languages. However, Frank Speck, a leading specialist of Pequot-Mohegan, had doubts, believing that another term the translation of which referred to the shallowness of a body of water seems much more plausible.See Frank Speck, "Native (sic.) Tribes and Dialects of Connecticut: A Mohegan-Pequot Diary," ''Annual Reports of the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology'' 43 (1928): 218. Origins The Pequot and their traditional enemies, the Mohegan, were at one time a single socio-political entity. Anthropologists and historians contend that sometime before contact with the Valley toward central and eastern Connecticut sometime around 1500, but these claims are disputed by modern anthropology.For archaeological investigations disproving Hubbard's theory of origins, see Irving Rouse, "Ceramic Traditions and Sequences in Connecticut," ''Archaeological Society of Connecticut Bulletin'' 21 (1947): 25; Kevin McBride, "Prehistory of the Lower Connecticut Valley" (Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1984), pp. 126-28, 199-269; and the overall evidence on the question of Pequot origins in Means, "Mohegan-Pequot Relationships," 26-33. For historical research, refer to Alfred A. Cave, "The Pequot Invasion of Southern New England: A Reassessment of the Evidence," ''New England Quarterly'' 62 (1989): 27-44; and for linguistic research, see Truman D. Michelson, "Notes on Algonquian Language," ''International Journal of Smerican Linguistics'' 1 (1917): 56-57. In the 1630s, the Connecticut River Valley was in turmoil. The Pequot aggressively worked to extend their area of control, at the expense of the Wampanoag to the north, the Narragansett to the east, the Connecticut River Valley Algonquians and Mohegan to the west, and the Algonquian peoples of present-day Long Island to the south. All of these contended with one another for dominance and control of the European trade. A series of Smallpox epidemics over the course of the previous three decades had severely reduced the Indian populationsSee Alfred W. Crosby, "Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America," ''William and Mary Quarterly'', 3rd Ser., vol. 33, no. 2 (Apr., 1976) , pp. 289-299; Arthur E. Spiero and Bruce E. Speiss, "New England Pandemic of 1616-1622: Cause and Archaeological Implication," ''Man in the Northeast'' 35 (1987): 71-83; and Dean R. Snow and Kim M. Lamphear, "European Contact and Indian Depopulation in the Northeast: The Timing of the First Epidemics," ''Ethnohistory'' 35 (1988): 16-38., leaving a power vacuum. The Dutch and the English were also striving to extend the reach of their trade into the interior in order to achieve dominance in the lush, fertile region. By 1636, the Dutch had fortified their trading post, and the English had built a trading fort at Saybrook . English Puritans from Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies had settled at the newly established river towns of Windsor , Hartford and Wethersfield . Participants As with all histories, any single narrative will fail to reveal the whole of a given historical event. The combatants in the Pequot War were represented by different polities, different leaders, with different interests. From a distance of several hundred years, many of the polities involved may be unrecognizable to those of us today. In the embryonic colonial world of the early seventeenth century, there were several semi-independent colonies ensconsed in what is today called southern New England, and each colony was administered by its own leadership. Of course, in the same way that American Indian peoples belonged to independent village-states that often allied with one another to form confederacies long before the arrival of the English, there were numerous Algonquian peoples, defined by the polities to which they belonged, who oversaw the administration of their traditional territories. These disparate polities and their leadership included:
CAUSES FOR WAR Before the war's inception, efforts to control fur trade access resulted in a series of escalating incidents and attacks that increased tensions on both sides. Political divisions between the Pequot and Mohegan widened as they aligned with different trade sources-- the Mohegan with the Puritan English, and the Pequot with the Dutch. The Pequot attacked a group of Mattabesic Indians who had attempted to trade at Hartford. Tension also increased as Massachusetts Bay Colony began to manufacture Wampum , the supply of which the Pequot had controlled up until 1633. In 1634, John Stone, a Smuggler , Privateer , and Slaver , and seven of his crewmen were killed by the Western Niantic, tributary clients of the Pequot, in retaliation for atrocities committed by the Dutch, and more recently, by Stone.Alfred Cave, ''The Pequot War'' (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996), pp. 58-59. A principal Pequot Sachem, Tatobem, had boarded a Dutch vessel to trade. Instead of conducting trade, the Dutch seized the Sachem and demanded a substantial ransom for his safe return. The Pequot quickly sent a bushel of wampum, and received Tatobem's corpse in return. Stone, the privateer, was actually from the West Indies and had been banished from Boston for malfeasance. Setting sail from Boston, Stone had met his end near the mouth of the Connecticut River while kidnapping Western Niantic women and children to sell as slaves in Virginia Colony .Cave, ''The Pequot War'', pp. 59-60. Colonial officials in Boston protested the killing. The Pequot Sachem, Sassacus, refused the colonials' demands that the Western Niantic responsible for Stone's death be turned over to them. Then on July 20 , 1636 , a respected trader named John Oldham was attacked on a trading voyage to Block Island . He and several of his crew were killed and his ship looted. To this day, it is unclear who was responsible for John Oldham's death. In the aftermath of the Pequot War, the Pequot were implicated in the trader's death. However, in the weeks following, in the eyes of colonial officials from Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island , and Connecticut, the Narragansett were the likely culprits. Knowing that the Indians of Block Island were allies of the Eastern Niantic, who in turn were allied with the Narragansett, Puritan officials became equally suspicious of the Narragansett.Cave, ''The Pequot War'', pp. 104-105. Even so, the colonial English response to Oldham's death, the last in a series of escalating incidents, has traditionally been viewed as the beginning of the Pequot War. BATTLES News of Oldham's death became the subject of sermons in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In August, Governor Vane sent John Endecott to exact revenge on the Indians of Block Island . Endecott's party of roughly 90 men sailed to Block Island and attacked a Niantic village there. Most of the Niantic escaped, but 14 were killed, while two of Endecott's men were injured. The Puritan militia burned their village to the ground. Whatever crops the Niantic had managed to store for the winter which the English could not carry away with them were burned as well. Endecott then went on to Fort Saybrook. The Puritans at Saybrook were not happy about the raid, but agreed that some of them would accompany Endecott as guides. Endecott sailed along the coast to a Pequot village, where he repeated the previous year's demand of payment for the death of Stone and more for Oldham. After some discussion, Endecott concluded that the Pequot were stalling and attacked. The Pequot ruse had worked however, and the Pequot were able to escape into the woods. The former Puritan Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony once again had to content himself with burning an Indian village and crops before sailing home. Pequot Raids John Endecott's Massachusetts Bay Colony forces had gone home, but Connecticut Colony Puritans were left to deal with the anger of the Pequot. The Pequot attempted to enjoin their allies, some 36 tributary villages, to their cause but were only partly effective. The Western Niantic joined them but the Eastern Niantic remained neutral. The traditional enemies of the Pequot, the Mohegan and the Narragansett, openly sided with the Puritan English. The Narragansett had warred with and lost territory to the Pequot in 1622. Now their friend Roger Williams urged them to side with the English. Through the fall and winter, Fort Saybrook was effectively besieged. Any who ventured outside were killed. As spring arrived in 1637, the Pequot stepped up their raids on Connecticut Colony towns. On April 12 , during a raid on Wethersfield, the Pequot killed nine men and women, a number of cattle and horses, and took two girls hostage. In all, the towns lost about 30 settlers. In May, leaders of Connecticut Colony's river towns met in Hartford, raised a militia, and placed John Mason in command. Mason set out with 90 militia and 70 Mohegan warriors under Uncas to repay the Pequot. At Fort Saybrook, Mason was joined by John Underhill and another 20 men. Underhill and Mason proceeded to the principal Pequot village, near present-day Groton , but the Pequot chose to defend their fortified village. Ill-equipped to take it, Mason sailed east, and stopped at the village of Misistuck ( Mystic ). The Mystic Massacre Believing that the English had returned to Boston, Massachusetts, the Pequot sachem Sassacus took several hundred of his warriors to make another raid on Hartford. But John Mason had only gone to visit the Narragansett, who joined him with several hundred warriors. Several allied Niantic warriors also joined Mason's group. On May 26 , 1637 , with a force up to about 400 fighting men, Mason attacked Misistuck by surprise. He estimated that "six or seven Hundred" Pequot were there when his forces assaulted the palisade. Some 150 warriors had accompanied Sassacus, so that Mystic's inhabitants were largely comprised of Pequot women and children. Surrounding the palisade, Mason ordered that the enclosure be set on fire. Justifying his conduct later, Mason declared that the holocaust against the Pequot was also the act of a God who "laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to scorn making Pequot as a fiery Oven . . . Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling [Mystic] with dead Bodies." Note that the term, "holocaust" means, "complete consumption by fire, or that which is so consumed; complete destruction, especially of a large number of persons; a great slaughter or massacre." See as well, John Mason's justification for incinirating Mystic in, ''A Brief History of the Pequot War: Especially of the Memorable taking of their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637 (Boston: S. Kneeland & T. Green, 1736), p. 30. Mason also insisted that should any Pequot attempt to escape the flames, that they too should be killed. Of the 600 to 700 Pequot at Mystic that day, only seven were taken prisoner while another seven made it into the woods to escape. The Narragansett and Mohegan warriors who had fought alongside John Mason and John Underhill's colonial militia were horrified by the actions and "manner of the Englishmen's fight . . . because it is too furious, and slays too many men."William Bradford, ''Of Plimoth Plantation, 1620-1647'', ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), p. 29; and John Underhill, ''Nevves from America; or, A New and Experimentall Discoverie of New England: Containing, a True Relation of their War-like Proceedings these two yeares last past, with a figure of the Indian fort, or Palizado'' (London: I. D {Link without Title} for Peter Cole, 1638), p. 84. Repulsed by the " Total War " tactics of the Puritan English, and the horrors that they had witnessed, the Narragansett returned home. Believing the mission accomplished, John Mason also set out for home. The militia became temporarily lost, but in doing so Mason narrowly missed returning Pequot Indians who, seeing what had occurred, gave chase to the Puritan forces to little avail. Puritan Hunting Pequot The slaughter at Mystic broke the Pequot, and deprived them of their allies. Forced to abandon their villages, the Pequot fled -- mostly in small bands-- to seek refuge with other southern Algonquian peoples. Many were hunted down by the Mohegan and Narragansett warriors. The largest group, led by Sassacus, was denied aid by the Metoac (Montauk, or Montaukett) from present-day Long Island. Sassacus led roughly 400 warriors west along the coast towards the Dutch at New Amsterdam and their Native allies. When they crossed the Connecticut River, the Pequot killed three men that they had encountered near Fort Saybrook. In mid-June, John Mason set out from Saybrook with 160 men and 40 Mohegan scouts under Uncas. They caught up with the refugees at Sasqua, a Mattabesic village near present-day Fairfield, Connecticut . Surrounded in a nearby Swamp , the Pequot refused to surrender. Several hundred, mostly women and children, were allowed to leave with the Mattabesic. In the ensuing battle, Sassacus was able to break free with perhaps 80 warriors, but 180 of the Pequot were killed or captured. Sassacus and his followers had hoped to gain refuge among the Mohawk in present-day New York. However, the Mohawk had seen the display of English power and chose instead to kill Sassacus and his warriors, sending Sassacus' scalp to Hartford, as a symbolic offering of Mohawk friendship with Connecticut Colony. Puritan colonial officials continued to call for the merciless hunting down of what remained of the Pequot months after war's end. NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Dempsey, Jack, and David R. Wagner, MYSTIC FIASCO: How the Indians Won The Pequot War. 249pp., 50 illustrations/photos, Annotated Chronology, Index. Scituate MA: Digital Scanning Inc. 2004. See also "Mystic Massacre"
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