1637 — THE PEQUOT WARIn 1633 the English Puritan settlements at Plimoth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies had begun expanding into the rich Connecticut River Valley to accommodate the steady stream of new emigrants from England. Other than the hardship of the journey and the difficulty of building homes in what the Puritans consider a wilderness, only one major obstacle threatened the security of the expanding settlements: the Pequots. Show Despite early attempts to reconcile differences, continued confrontations precipitated the first war between Native Americans and English settlers in northeastern America and set the stage for the ultimate domination of the region by Europeans. The War not only involved the Pequots and the English Puritans, but several other Indians tribes, some of which, including the Mohegans, aligned themselves with the English. Based on archaeological and linguistic evidence, the Pequot and Mohegan Tribes, indian peoples of the Algonquian language group, probably have lived in what is now southeastern Connecticut for several hundred years. Mohegan oral tradition holds that the Mohegan-Pequots, originally the same tribe, migrated into the region some time before contact with Europeans. Anthropological evidence shows that the two groups were very closely related. Just before the outbreak of war with the English, the Mohegans under a sachem named Uncas split from the Pequots and aligned themselves with the English. At the time of the Pequot War, Pequot strength was concentrated along the Pequot (now Thames) and Mystic Rivers in what is now southeastern Connecticut. Mystic, or Missituk, was the site of the major battle of the War. Under the leadership of Captain John Mason from Connecticut and Captain JohnUnderhill from Massachusetts Bay Colony, English Puritan troops, with the help of Mohegan andNarragansett allies, burned the village and killed the estimated 400–700 Pequots inside.The battle turned the tide against the Pequots and broke the tribe's resistance. Many Pequots in other villages escaped and hid among other tribes, but most of them were eventually killed or captured and given as slaves to tribes friendly to the English. The English, supported by Uncas' Mohegans, pursued theremaining Pequot resistors until all were either killed or captured and enslaved. After the War, the colonists enslaved survivors and outlawed the name "Pequot." The story of the Pequot War is an American story, a key element in our colonial history. As noted historian Alden T. Vaughan wrote in his book New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians 1620–1675: "The effect of the Pequot War was profound. Overnight the balance of power had shifted from the populous but unorganized natives to the English colonies. Henceforth [until King Philip's War] there was no combination of Indian tribes that could seriously threaten the English. The destruction of the Pequots cleared away the only major obstacle to Puritan expansion. And the thoroughness of that destruction made a deep impression on the other tribes." The Pequot War was fought in 1637. It involved the Pequot Indians and the settlers of the Pilgrim Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Pequot were a powerful tribe, their only serious rival the Narragansett This war was the culmination of numerous conflicts between the colonists and the Indians. There were disputes over property, livestock damaging Indian crops, hunting, the selling of alcohol to Indians, and dishonest traders. Besides these, the Colonists believed that they had a God given right to settle this New World. They saw the Indian as savages who needed to be converted to their way of God. Unfortunately, the colonists felt superior to all Indians even those who became Christian. The Indian was in a difficultsituation. He constantly suffered at the hands of the colonists, yet at the same time was growing more dependent on the Colonists trade goods. The Indians were also disturbed at the encroachment of their lands by the colonies. Two events weakened the Pequots prior to their war with the English. In 1631 the tribe was divided into pro-English and pro-Dutch factions. This problem was not solved when the tribes leader, Wopigwooit, died in that year. Two sub-sachems, Sassacus who was pro-Dutch and Uncas who was pro-English, fought to succeed as the grand sachem. The tribe picked Sassacus. Uncas and his followers continued to quarrel with the pro-Dutch group. Eventually, Uncas and his followers fled to form their own tribe, the Mohegan. The Mohegan became hostile to the Pequots. The second event that weakened the Pequots was the smallpox epidemic which they suffered in 1633–34. The separation of the Mohegan and the smallpox cost the Pequots almost half of their people. Pequot Battle Sites The suffering of the Indians reached a breaking point on July 20, 1636. On that date, the Pequot's killed a dishonest trader, John Oldham. Many settlers demanded that the Pequot's be punished for this transgression. Massachusetts raised a military force under the command of John Endicott. This troop of 90 men landed on Block Island and killed 14 Indians before they burned the village and crops. Endicott then sailed to Saybrook where they demanded tribute from the Pequot village there. This was the first indication Connecticut had that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was fighting the Pequots. The Pequots managed to flee their village at the approach of the Massachusetts troops who then burnedtheir village. Endicott then left, leaving the Connecticut troops at Fort Saybrook to feel the wrath of the Pequots, who attacked anyone trying to leave the fort. That winter Pequot sent war belts to many surrounding tribes Both the Narragansett and the Mohegan refused to side with the Pequots. This was due to past aggressions by the Pequots and to the influence of Roger Williams. While the Narragansett, and many smaller tribes, remained netural, the Mohegan sided with the English and fought the Pequots. On May 26, 1637, a military force under John Mason and John Underhill, attacked the Pequot village located near New Haven, Conn. The village was destroyed and over 500 Indians killed. The Pequot leader, Sassacus, was captured on July 28. Many of Sassacus' tribesmen were captured during the war.The captives were sold in the West Indies as slaves. Sassacus was executed bythe Mohawks, a tribe that fought on the side of the English. The few Pequots who were able to escape the English, fled to surrounding Indian tribes and were assimilated. The Pequots, once a powerful Indian nation, was destroyed. (Ed Note — This from a reader adds another reasonable discussion:
That statement is simply wrong. First, it implies that the "suffering of the Indians" resulted in John Oldham's death because he was a "dishonest trader". The suffering to which the writer refers is a) a terrible plague that killed hundreds of Pequots and b) an intertribal conflict which split the Pequots. As terrible as the death to plague of hundreds of the tribe may have been, they would have had no way of knowing that it was most probably disease brought by contact with the settlers. The intertribal conflict had nothing to do with the settlers. Why take any of that out on John Oldham? Second, the Pequots most likely were not the killers of John Oldham, but the Block Island Narragansets. Finally, John Oldham was one of the founders of Wethersfield and I have seen no evidence that he was a "dishonest trader".) CHRONOLOGY OF THE PEQUOT WAR 1630s 1634 23 October 1634 7 November 1634 16 June 1636 July 1636 25 August 1636
Monuments to Captain Jon Underhill, Captain John Mason and Mohegan Sachem Uncas August 1636 Late summer 1636 Late winter 1637 Spring 1637 March 1637 18 April 1637 April 1637 23 April 1637 Late spring 1637 10 May 1637 15 May 1637 16 May 1637 18 May 1637 20 May 1637 22–24 May 1637
"Further information regarding Robert Seely: In May 1637, Robert was appointed a Lieutenant and was second in command under Captain John Mason in the expedition against the Pequot Indians on the Mystic and Pequot (Thames) Rivers. He was one of the first to enter the fort in the desperate "Fort Fight" on Friday, 26 May 1637. He was severely wounded. Captain Mason says in his report, "Lieutenant Seeley was a valiant soldier. I myself pulled the arrow out of his eyebrow." Robert wore the scar on his brow the rest of his life. Pequot Hill, where the fight took place, is about 8 miles northeast of New London, CT. In June 1637, he was paid 20 shillings per week and 150 bushels of corn by the inhabitants of Wethersfield. In 1653 and 1654, Robert was appointed as Captain to the New Haven forces under Major Sedgwick and Captain Leverett, English officers, against the New Netherlands, and in Mar 1654, was put in charge of some troops and took part in the seizure of the trading place at "Dutch Point" in Hartford. In June 1654, he was appointed to act against the Dutch. In Jan 1654, he petitioned the Court to pay for his services in the Dutch campaign, but they refused, saying they did not "absolutely require his attendance." Then to "encourage him in any service this way," voted to give him 5 pounds. In Aug 1654, Robert was sent with 12 pounds of powder and 30 pounds of lead as a present to keep peace with the Long Island Indians". 25 May 1637 26 May 1637 Late May or early June, 1637 July
1637 13 July 1637 14 July 1637 Summer 1637 21 September 1638 Fall 1638 Notes
UNCAS Although born into the Pequot tribe, an American Indian sachem named Uncas (1588?–1683) became leader of the Mohegan tribe. He rebelled against Chief Sassacus (1560?–1637), his father-in-law, and with his followers formed the separate Mohegan branch. Uncas aided the English colonists in the Pequot War of 1637 and fought a series of wars with the Narragansett Indians, whom he defeated in 1643. In 1661, however, he made war on an ally of the English, Chief Massasoit and his Wampanoag tribe, and the English intervened and forced Uncas to relinquish his captives and plunder. Upon the outbreak of King Philip's War in 1675, he was required to turn over his sons as hostages to the English in assurance of his neutrality. A character named Uncas was immortalized in literature in The Last of the Mohicans (1826) by the American writer James Fenimore Cooper. PEQUOT WAR NARRATIVE In the very morning of this colonial era of Connecticut, dark clouds gathered black and threatening, and for awhile a storm impended which seemed ready to sweep the little settlements from the face of the earth in a moment. The fiery Pequods had become jealous of the English because the latter appeared to be on friendly terms with the Mohegans on the west and the Narragansets on the east, the bitter enemies of this warlike tribe. Over the Pequods, a famous sachem and chief named Sassacus was ruler. He was cool, calculating, treacherous, haughty, fierce and malignant, and lie was the terror of the neighboring tribes. He ruled over twenty-six sagamores or inferior princes, and his domain extended from Narraganset Bay to the Hudson River, and over Long Island. His bravery won the unbounded admiration of his warriors, of whom almost two thousand were always ready to follow him wheresoever he might lead. Seeing the power of the few English in garrison at Saybrook, and dreading the strength and influence of more who would undoubtedly join them, he resolved to exterminate the intruders. By every art of persuasion and menace, he tried to induce the Mohegans and Narragansets to become his allies. The united tribes could put four thousand men on the war-path at one time, while among all the English in the Connecticut Valley, there were not more than two hundred and fifty men capable of bearing arms. How easily might those fierce pagans have annihilated the pale-face Christians! The Pequods moved cautiously. At first thee were sullen. Then they kidnapped children; and finally they murdered Englishmen found alone in the forests or on the waters, and destroyed or made captive families on the borders of the settlements. It was evident that they intended to exterminate the white people in detail, and terror prevailed throughout the valley. This was heightened by the capture of a Massachusetts trading vessel by the allies of the Pequods on Block Island, killing the commander and plundering the vessel. The authorities at Boston determined to punish the Pequods and awe them into quietude. For this purpose they sent a small military force, in three vessels, into Long Island Sound. This force killed some Indians on Block Island, burnt their wigwams, broke their canoes in pieces, and cut down their growing corn. Then they went over to the Pequod country on the main, where they made demands which they could not enforce, burnt some wigwams, destroyed crops, and killed a few people. The expedition, weak in numbers and injudiciously conducted, was looked upon with contempt by the savages, and intensified their hatred of the white intruders. They sent ambassadors to the monarch of the Narragansets urging him to join them at once in a war of extermination, declaring, as a powerful plea, that the two races could not live together in the same land, and that the Indians, who would soon be the weaker party, would be scattered and destroyed like leaves in autumn. At this critical juncture, a deliverer appeared in the person of Roger Williams, a Puritan minister, who had been driven out of Massachusetts by persecution and had taken refuge in the land of the Narragansets, who soon learned to love and respect him. He heard of the proposed alliance and perceived the danger. Unmindful of the cruel wrongs lie had suffered at the hands of his Puritan brethren, he hastened in an open boat on a stormy day, across Narraganset Bay, to the dwelling of Miantonomoh near the site of Newport, on Rhode Island. He was the acting chief sachem of the Narragansets (for his uncle, Canonicus, the chief, was very old), and was revered by them all. There Williams found fierce ambassadors from Sassacus, urging their suit, and at the peril of his life he opposed them with arguments. "Three days and nights," Williams wrote to Major Mason, "my business forced me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequod ambassadors, whose hands and arms, methought, reeked with the blood of my countrymen, murdered and massacred by them on Connecticut River, and from whom I could not but nightly took for their bloody knives at my own throat, also." Williams prevailed. He not only prevented the alliance, but induced Narraganset chiefs to go to Boston, where they concluded a treaty of peace and alliance with the colonists. So the Pequods were not only compelled to carry on their proposed war alone, but to fight the Narragansets. This failure did not dishearten the Pequods. They kept the settlements on the Connecticut in a state of constant fear, all the autumn and winter. They plundered and murdered whenever opportunities offered. Barns were fired and cattle were killed by them and the murders were sometimes accompanied by the most horrid atrocities. Finally, a band of a hundred Pequods attacked Wethersfield, killed seven men, a woman and a child, and carried away two girls. They had now slain more than thirty of the English, and the settlers were compelled to choose between flight and destruction, or war and possible salvation. They resolved to fight, having promise of aid from the eastern colonies. At this time there were in the colonies two brave soldiers who had served in the Netherlands. These were Captains John Mason and John Underhill. The former had taken an active part in military and civil affairs in Massachusetts, and was now in Connecticut. The latter was an eccentric character, and might have been mistaken at one time for a friar and at another for a buffoon. He had been brought to Massachusetts by Governor Winthrop to teach the young colonists military tactics, which it was evident they would need. Under him the authorities of that colony and Plymouth placed two hundred men to aid the Connecticut people in their war. It was not safe for the settlers in the valley to wait for their allies on the sea-coast. They placed ninety men under Mason, who rendezvoused at Hartford. With twenty of them, the captain hastened to reinforce the garrison at Saybrook. There he found Underhill, who had just arrived with an equal number of men. Mason hurried back, assembled his whole force, and with these and seventy warriors of the Mohegans under Uncas, he marched down to the fort. Uncas was of the royal blood of the Pequods, and had been a petty chief under Sassacus, but was now in open rebellion against his prince, and a fugitive. He gladly joined the English against his enemy, and Captain Mason gladly accepted his services. As the war was begun by the Connecticut people, Captain Mason was regarded and obeyed as the commander-in-chief of the expedition. It was determined in council to go into the Narraganset country and march upon the rear of the Pequods, where they would least expect an attack. In three pinnaces the expedition sailed eastward. As they passed the Pequod country, those savages concluded that the English had abandoned the Connecticut Valley in despair. It was a fatal mistake and the relaxation which that belief caused ruined them. They had no spies out beyond the Mystic River; and when the expedition landed near Narraganset Bay, Sassacus was rejoicing in a sense of absolute security from harm. So he continued to rejoice while the white people, joined by two hundred Narragansets and as many Niantics — more than five hundred warriors in all, pale and dusky — were marching swiftly and stealthily toward the citadel of his power. That chief stronghold of Sassacus was on a hill a few miles northward from both New London and Stonington, near the waters of the Mystic River. It was a fort built of palisades, the trunks of trees set firmly in the ground close together, and rising above it ten or twelve feet, with sharpened points. Within this enclosure, which was of circular form, were seventy wigwams covered with matting and thatch and at two points were sallyports or gates of weaker construction, through which Mason and Underhill were destined to force an entrance. When the invaders reached the foot of the hill on which this fort stood, quite undiscovered, and arranged their camp, the sentinels could hear the sounds of noisy revelry among the savages in the fortress, which ceased not before midnight. Then all was still, and the invaders slumbered soundly. At two hours before the dawn on a warm June morning, they were aroused from sleep and arranged in marching order so as to break into the fort at opposite points and take it by surprise. The Indian allies had grown weak in heart, all but the followers of Uncas. They regarded Sassacus as a sort of god, and supposed he was in the fort. So they lagged behind, but formed a cordon in the woods around the fortress to arrest any fugitives who might escape. In the bright moonlight the little army crept stealthily up the wooded slope, and were on the point of rushing to the attack when the barking of a dog aroused a sentinel and he gave the alarm to the sound sleepers within. Before they were fairly awake, Mason and Underhill burst in the sallyports. The terrified Pequods rushed out of the wigwams, but were driven back by swords and musket-balls, when the tinder-like coverings of the huts were set on fire. Within an hour about seven hundred men, women and children perished in the flames, and by the weapons of the English. The strong, the beautiful, and the innocent were doomed to a common fate with the blood-thirsty and cruel. The door of mercy was shut. Not a dusky human being among the Pequods was allowed to live. When all was over, the pious Captain Mason, who had narrowly escaped death by the arrow of a young warrior, exultingly exclaimed God is over us He laughs his enemies to scorn, making them as a fiery oven. Thus does the Lord judge among the heathen, filling the place with dead bodies. And the equally if not more pious Dr. Mather afterward wrote: "It was supposed that no less than 500 or 600 Pequod souls were brought down to hell that day." Happily a better Christian spirit now prevails Sassacus was not in the doomed fort, but was at another near Groton, on the Thames, to which point Mason had ordered his vessels to come. As the English were making their wearisome way to the river, three hundred warriors came from the presence of Sassacus to attack them. The savages were soon dispersed. Most of the victors then sailed for the Connecticut, making the air vocal with sacred song. The remainder, with friendly Indians, marched through the wilderness to Hartford to protect the settlements in that vicinity. There warriors and clergymen, Christians and pagans, women and children, gathered in a happy reunion after great peril. Sassacus sat sullenly and stately in his embowered dwelling, when the remnant of his warriors, who escaped from the citadel, came to tell him of the great disaster. They charged the whole of the misfortunes of the day to his haughtiness and misconduct. Tearing their hair, stamping violently, and with fierce gestures, they threatened to destroy him, and doubtless they would have executed the menace had not the blast of a trumpet startled them. From the head-waters of the Mystic came almost two hundred armed settlers from Massachusetts and Plymouth to seal the doom of the Pequods. The question, Shall we fight or flee? was soon answered at the court of Sassacus for there was little time for deliberation. After a strong and hot debate, it was determined to flee. They set fire to their wigwams and the fort, and with their women and children hurried across the Thames and fled swiftly westward, with the intention of seeking refuge with the Mohawks beyond the Hudson. The English hotly pursued the Pequods, with despairing Sassacus at their head. As the chase was kept up across the beautiful country bordering on Long Island Sound, a track of desolation was left behind, for wigwams and corn-fields were destroyed, and helpless men, women and children were put to the sword. At last the fugitives took refuge in Sasco Swamp, near Fairfield, where they all surrendered to the English excepting the sachem and a few followers, who escaped to the Mohawks. A blow had been struck which gave peace to New England forty years. A nation had been destroyed in day. But few of the once-powerful Pequods survived the national disaster. The last representative of the pure blood of that race was, probably, Eunice Mauwee, who died at Kent, in Connecticut, about the year 1860, at the age of one hundred years. The proud Sassacus, haughty and insolent in his exile, fell by the hands of an assassin among the people who had opened their arms to receive him; and his scalp was sent to the English, whom he hated and despised. He was the last of his royal line in power excepting Uncas, who now returned to the land of his fathers and became a powerful sachem, renowned in war and peace. He remained a firm friend of the English, and was buried among the graves of his kindred near the falls of the Yantic, in the City of Norwich, where a granite monument, erected by the descendants of his white friends, marks the place of his sepulchre. 1637 Pequot War Bibliography 1637 Links What was the outcome of the Pequot War 1636 1637 )?The war concluded with the decisive defeat of the Pequot. At the end, about 700 Pequots had been killed or taken into captivity. Hundreds of prisoners were sold into slavery to colonists in Bermuda or the West Indies; other survivors were dispersed as captives to the victorious tribes.
What is significant about the Pequot War of 1637?The Pequot War was the sole determinant for total English domination of New England, the end of Dutch domination in the region, and subjugation of natives. Probably the most significant outcome of the Pequot War was that it established a pattern for English policy towards natives.
What impact did the Pequot War have?In the end, the Pequot War forever changed the political and social landscape of southern New England, and it influenced colonial and U.S. policies toward Native Americans for centuries.
What were the causes and effects of the Pequot War?The murders of English traders are often cited as the cause for the Pequot War; however, these deaths were the culmination of decades of tension between Native tribes further stressed by the arrival of the Dutch and English.
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