CCD   HISTORY 201 - History of United States 1

Mystic Voices: The Story of the Pequot War

Pequot War: The History

 

It is a moonlit pre-dawn in May 1637. English Puritans from Massachusetts Bay Colony and Connecticut Colony, with Mohegan and Narragansett allies, surround a fortified Pequot village at a place called Missituck (Mystic). In the village, the Pequots sleep. Suddenly, a dog barks. The awakened Pequots shout Owanux! Owanux! (Englishmen! Englishmen!) and mount a valiant defense. But within an hour, the village is burned and 400-700 men, women, and children are killed.

Captain John Underhill, one of the English commanders, documents the event in his journal, Newes from America :

Down fell men, women, and children. Those that 'scaped us, fell into the hands of the Indians that were in the rear of us. Not above five of them 'scaped out of our hands. Our Indians came us and greatly admired the manner of Englishmen's fight, but cried "Mach it, mach it!" - that is, "It is naught, it is naught, because it is too furious, and slays too many men." Great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of young soldiers that never had been in war, to see so many souls lie gasping on the ground, so thick, in some places, that you could hardly pass along.

The battle cuts the heart from the Pequot people and scatters them across what is now southern New England, Long Island, and Upstate New York. Over the next few months, remaining resistors are either tracked down and killed or enslaved. The name "Pequot" is outlawed by the English. The Puritan justification for the action is simply stated by Captain Underhill:

It may be demanded, Why should you be so furious? Should not Christians have more mercy and compassion? Sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents. Sometimes the case alters, but we will not dispute it now. We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings.

In 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, disease, scarce food supplies, 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.

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.  Although a small conflict by today's standards, the Puritans' religious rhetoric made their victory over the "heathens" in the Pequot War a significant factor in the formulation of Colonial/American Indian policy over the next three centuries. The underlying causes of the War are complex and its consequences are far-reaching. For the first time, northeastern tribes experienced the total warfare of European military methods. For the first time, the English Puritans realized they held the power to dominate the people they saw as Godless savages.

Although the Pequot War was a small-scale conflict of short duration, it cast a long shadow. The images of brutal and untrustworthy savages plotting the extermination of those who would do the work of God in the wilderness became a vital part of the mythology of the American frontier. Celebration of victory over Indians as the triumph of light over darkness, civilization over savagery, for many generations our central historical myth, finds its earliest full expression in the contemporary chronicles of this little war.  (Alfred Cave, The Pequot War)

Based on archaeological and linguistic evidence, the Pequot and Mohegan Tribes, Native American peoples of the Algonquian language group, probably lived in what is now New England for several hundred years  before contact with Europeans. Mohegan oral tradition holds that the Mohegan-Pequots originally were the same tribe and that they migrated into the region from the Southwest 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 Missituck, was the site of the major battle of the War. Under the leadership of Captain John Mason from Connecticut and Captain John Underhill from Massachusetts Bay Colony, 90 English Puritan troops, with the help of several hundred Mohegan and Narragansett allies, burned the village and killed 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 to tribes friendly to the English.  Some were taken by the English as domestic servants, and some were sold into slavery. The English, supported by Uncas' Mohegans, pursued the remaining Pequot resistors until all had been killed, captured, or forced into hiding.

The smallpox epidemic of 1633 had reduced the Pequot population from about 8,000 to about 4,000. In the Pequot War, about 1,500 more Pequots were killed.  In the 1638 Treaty of Hartford that dictated the terms of the English victory, the colonists outlawed the name Pequot , forbade the Pequots from regrouping as a tribe, and required the other tribes in the region to submit all their inter-tribal grievances to the English and abide by their decisions.  Gradually, the Pequots were able to reestablish their identity, but as separate tribes:  the Mashantucket (Western)  Pequots and the Paucatuck (Eastern) Pequots.  In 1675, both bands of Pequots fought on the side of the English against the Wampanoag-Narragansett alliance in King Philips' War.

Contact with European settlers and the resulting Pequot War had a profound and indelible effect on Native Culture in Northeastern America. In less than a generation, the world into which most surviving Indians had been born, and for which they had been prepared, vanished forever.

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 story of the War also is a human story, an important part of American cultural history. Through this story, a larger issue is illuminated: the clash of cultural values that ultimately led to the domination of all Native American tribes by European settlers. On a more personal level, the story is especially significant for the descendants of the Native Americans and colonists who fought the War, as well as for all Native peoples across America. For many Native Americans, it sounds a theme that is not unique to seventeenth-century New England: dominance through subjugation of indigenous peoples. It later surfaced as the concept known as Manifest Destiny, and it echoed again and again across North America for the next 250 years. Many Native Americans believe it still echoes today.