In 1634 the the Pequot Tribe initiated peace negotiations with the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They wanted the English to re-establish trade and arbitrate a peace settlement with the Narragansetts. The Bay Colony responded with demands for exorbitant tribute (1000 fathoms of wampum) and the surrender of the killers, something the Pequots were not prepared to do.
In the same year, John Stone was murdered by the Pequots on the Connecticut River. It may be that he was thought to be a Dutchman, and one of the murderers of Tatobem. Stone was known to the Bay Colony authorities as a privateer and rogue and may have provoked the Indians who claim to have acted in self-defense, but he soon became another statistic in the Colony’s list of Pequot “crimes.”
Then in 1636, John Oldham, a respected trader and friend of the Narragansetts, was murdered in his boat off Block Island. The murderers were Block Islanders, tributaries to the Narragansetts, however, they escaped capture and were given safe haven by the Pequots.
A punitive expedition, led by John Endicott, enraged the Pequots. They retaliated by raiding the unsuspecting settlement of Wethersfield on 23 April 1637. Thirty settlers were killed and two girls were kidnapped. They tortured many of their victims, as was the custom of some Eastern tribes, and reinforced their reputation for cruel savagery.
On 26 May 1637, captains John Underhill and John Mason led another retaliatory expedition through Narragansett territory and struck the Pequot settlement in Mystic. Mason’s order to his soldiers and Narragansett allies was “Let us burn them.” The settlement, comprised mostly of women and children, was decimated. An estimated thirty or forty Pequots escaped. The ones who were captured were sold into slavery in Boston, meeting there fates in the plantations of the Bermuda. In the following weeks, the warriors were hunted down and killed.
The war officially ended on September 1638 when the few survivors of the Pequot tribe were forced to sign the Treaty of Hartford, also called the Tripartite Treaty, declaring the Pequot nation to be dissolved.
Tribes who fought in the Pequot War
- Pequot Tribe (contr. of Paquatauog, ‘destroyers.’- Trumbull). An Algonquian tribe of Connecticut. Before their conquest by the English in 1637 they were the most dreaded of the southern New England tribes.
- Algonquian Tribe (adapted from the name of the Algonkin tribe). A linguistic stock which formerly occupied a more extended area than any other in North America. Their territory reached from the east shore of Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains and front Churchill River to Pamlico Sound.
- Mohegan Tribe (from maïngan, ‘wolf.’ Trumbull). An Algonquian tribe whose chief seat appears originally to have been on Thames river, Conn., in the north part of New London county. They claimed as their proper country all the territory watered by the Thames and its branches north to within 8 or 10 miles of the Massachusetts line.
- Narragansett Tribe (‘people of the small point,’ from naiagans, diminutive of naiag, ‘small point of land,’ with locative ending -et).
- Wampanoag Tribe (‘eastern people’). One of the principal tribes of New England. Their proper territory appears to have been the peninsula on the east shore of Narragansett Bay now included in Bristol county, R. I., and the adjacent parts in Bristol county, Mass.
History of the Pequot War – Connecticut
- Chronology of the Pequot War (hosted at The Society of Colonial Wars)
- The Pequot War hosted at The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut)
- John Mason hosted at The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut)
- The Indian Wars in the Colonies (hosted at The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut)
- Another View of the Pequot War (hosted at The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut)
- Pequot History (hosted at First Nations)
- The Pequot War (hosted at The Descendents of Henry Dowds)
- Pequot War (hosted at Wikipedia)
- Timeline of the Pequot Tribe
- Who were the Pequot Indians (by Lee Sultzman)
- Narragansett Stalking Horse (hosted at Clayton Cramer’s Web Page)
- Sargent William Hayden (hosted at Heydon, Haydon, Hayden, Keys Genealogy)
- Narrative of the Pequot War (hosted at Time Traveler’s Genealogy Page)
History of the Pequot War – Massachusetts
- The Pequot War (hosted at The Descendents of Henry Dowds)
- Pequots and Puritans
- Timeline of Plymouth Colony, 1620-1692 (Includes the Pequot War)
- Indian Raids in New England and Essex County (hosted at Native American Deeds)
Suggested Reading for Pequot Tribe
- The Pequot Tribe
- Connecticut Soldiers in the Pequot War of 1637
- A Brief History of the War with the Indians in New England
