Settlers versus Natives: the Pequot War

Sixteen years after hostilities broke out between the Colonists at Jamestown and the Powhatan Confederacy, Settlers in New England would have their first conflict with Natives.  It would become know as the Pequot War (1636-1638), and it would result in the destruction, though not extinction of the Pequot tribe.  This episode in history shows both how colonial powers used and exploited feuds between various tribes or alliances of tribes to benefit each country at the expense of the Native peoples.  It also shows how Settlers used scorched earth and other tactics to bully tribes into submission and prevent their attacking.

By 1636 several towns in Massachusetts were already established, some as part of Massachusetts Bay Colony and others as independent endeavors. English colonists were also making their way into Connecticut and establishing settlements there.  Meantime, beginning in 1602, the Dutch were also making their way to North America.  They set up the rival colony of New Netherland, taking in New York, New Jersey, portions of Pennsylvania and Connecticut.  Not only were the two countries competing over land, they were competing over fur trading rights with various tribes.  As this was happening, two tribes were having a serious rivalry of their own, the Pequot and Narragansett.  As disease left a power vacuum and vacant land in Massachusetts and Connecticut the Pequot rushed to fill it, angering surrounding tribes such as the Wampanoag, the Narragansett, the Mohegan, and even the Mohawk tribe in New York.  The Narragansett saw a way to use this situation to their own advantage, keeping everyone else angry at the Pequot while they themselves tried to increase their land base in Connecticut. 

In 1633, an English smuggler named John Stone and his crew were ambushed by members of the Niantic tribe, allied with the Pequot.  Despite the fact that Stone was a criminal and a nuisance and generally disliked in Massachusetts, leaders in Boston protested his killing and demanded that the perpetrators be handed over to them for punishment.  The Pequot claimed that the warriors involved were not aware Stone was English.  Pequot Sachem Sassacus sent some wampum to atone for the killing but did not turn over the warriors responsible.  Not wanting to make the situation an issue, things returned to an uneasy peace for awhile.  Then in 1636, a respected trader named John Oldham and several of his crew were killed and his ship looted by Natives allied with the Narragansett.  The Narragansett were upset that the traders of Massachusetts Bay were favoring their rivals, the Pequot.  Since the Natives involved were likely allies to the Narragansett, officials in Boston began to suspect them.  The Narragansett blamed the Pequot and their allies for the killing.  The citizens of Boston bought the lie and calls for vengeance against the Pequot increased.

In 1636, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay sent John Endicott to punish the Natives involved.  Endicott raided two Niantic villages at Block Island, in Rhode Island, coming dangerously close to territory claimed by the Dutch.  While most of the villagers escaped, Endicott's men seized their food stores and burnt the two villages to the ground.  Endicott then marched to a Pequot village and again demanded a year's payment in food stores for the deaths each of Stone and Oldham.  The villagers stalled for time, long enough for most of them to get away.  Endicott then burnt the Pequot village.  As war loomed, the Pequot searched for allies, but only the Western Niantic joined them.  The Eastern Niantic remained neutral, while the Narragansett and Mohegan sided with the English.  Fort Saybrook in Connecticut was besieged throughout the winter of 1636-37 as matters stalemated again. 

As spring arrived in 1637, Pequot warriors began attacking English settlements in Connecticut, including the town of Wethersfield.  In retaliation, Connecticut leaders raised a troop of militia under John Mason, who was assisted by a Mohegan leader, Uncas, with several warriors.  We'll get to Uncas and his impact on popular culture in another post.  They made their way to Fort Mistick, now Mystic, and camped on the river to plan a surprise attack.  The English and their allies surrounded one of two fortified Pequot villages at Mystic.  Twenty soldiers breached the palisade's gate and were quickly surrounded by the warriors inside.  The English managed to start a fire to cover their escape and the resulting inferno razed the village and resulted in several Native deaths.  Other Pequot who attempted to escape the blaze were shot or otherwise killed.  Only a handful of people survived.  The Narragansett and Mohegan were horrified at what the English had done, believing that the English had displayed too much ferocity and had slain too many.  The Narragansett attempted to leave, but were ambushed by Pequot mobilized from the other fortified village nearby.  They had no choice but to remain with the English for their own protection.  The English commanders also had to answer questions from their own people, which they quickly put off by asserting that the fire was not deliberately set, but was an act of God. 

The attack at Mystic broke the Pequot spirit.  Sachem Sassacus believed that his best hope lay with the Mohawk in New York.  He led a group of 400 warriors along with women, children and elderly westward to seek the Mohawk's protection.  In June, English Militia with their Mohegan allies under Uncas caught up with the refugees near present-day Fairfield, Connecticut.  In a battle called the Fairfield Swamp Fight, the English allowed several hundred, mainly women and children, to surrender.  Sassacus managed to break away with about eighty warriors and continued his journey west.  The Pequots who remained were killed in battle with the English.  When Sassacus reached the Mohawk, they realized that they, too, might bring the wrath of the English and the Dutch down on them if they gave the Pequot shelter.  The Mohawk killed Sassacus and his bodyguard, sending their heads to Hartford, Connecticut in an attempt to pacify the English.  This action ended the war.

It was now time for the various victors to divide the spoils.  The English rewarded their Narragansett and Mohegan allies with Pequot lands in the Treaty of Hartford (1638).  Unable to find refuge with a neighboring tribe, several remaining Pequot gave themselves up to the English.  They were parceled out as slaves, some being given to the Narragansett and Mohegan, and some being taken to the larger towns to be used in English households.  Others were put on a ship and sent to Bermuda to be sold as slaves for the plantations there.  The English believed that their destruction of the Pequot was so total that the tribe was physically extinct.  Other Algonquian-speaking tribes in the area were terrified by their first encounters with European warfare and dared not attack.  The English thanked God for His just conclusion to this war and the resulting peace that followed what they believed was the total destruction of their enemy.  Meanwhile, although they no longer existed as a tribe, individual Pequots clung to their identity and survived as best they could.  It wouldn't be until the twentieth century that they would emerge and attempt to claim their heritage again.  Today, the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation is the largest group of Pequot Natives in Connecticut.