Home > Pequot War
The Pequot War in 1637 saw the virtual elimination of the Pequot Indians as a tribe. The Massachusetts and Connecticut settlers from England and their allies captured or killed most of the Pequots.This article uses the term tribe to describe various bands of Indians. The New England Indians were not that formally organized. What we now view as a tribe was a village or collection of villages adhering to a leading sachem. These alignments shifted as leaders arose and populations changed.
1 Background
In the 1630s, the Connecticut River Valley was in turmoil. The Dutch traders and English settlers were each striving to include the area in within the sphere of influence of their colonies in New Amsterdam and Massachusetts respectively. The Indian tribes were contending with each other for dominance and control of the European trade. The Indian population was severely reduced in 1634 by the latest in a series of smallpox epidemics.
By 1636, the Dutch had fortified their trading post, and the English had built a trading fort at Saybrook.. Farmers and crafters from Massachusetts had settled at the new river towns of Windsor, HartfordHartford is the capital of the state of Connecticut, in Hartford County. It is located on the Connecticut River, near the center of the state. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city was 121,578. It is the second largest city in the state, after and WeathersfieldWethersfield is a census-designated place located in Hartford County, Connecticut. Many records from colonial times spell the name Weathersfield . As of the 2000 census, the CDP had a total population of 26,271. Wethersfield was founded in 1634, and claim.
The very word Pequot is derived from an AlgonquianThe Algonquian languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic language family (others are Wiyot and Yurok of northwestern California). They should be carefully distinguished from Algonquin, which is language phrase meaning "the destroyers". They had moved into southeastern Connecticut in the area around the Pequot RiverNew London, Connecticut The Thames River is a short river and tidal estuary in the U. state of Connecticut. It flows south for 15 mi. through eastern Connecticut from the junction of the Yantic and Shetucket Rivers at Norwich, to New London and Groton, wh and the Mystic RiverThere are at least two rivers in New England called the Mystic River; this article is about them. See Mystic River (book for Dennis Lehane's book : see Mystic River (movie for the 2003 movie based on the book. The Mystic River is a river which flows throu some time before European contact and dominated or eliminated the tribes there. They were aggressively working to extend their area of control in all directions, at the expense of the WampanoagThe Wampanoag are a Native American people. In 1600 they lived in what is now south-eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, including Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and had a population of about 12,000. Wampanoag leaders included Squanto, King Philip, a to the north, the NarragansettThe Nahahigansek Soveriegn Nation people live in Narragansett Bay as well as in Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts. Traders have come to this land for thousands of years trading with Nahahigansek. Some still speak the original Algonquian language. to the east, the Connecticut Valley tribes to the west, and the Long IslandThis article is about Long Island in New York State. For other uses, see Long Island (disambiguation Long Island part of New York State, is an island off the North American coast, some 118 miles (190 km) long, and from 12 to 20 miles wide, extending from tribes to the south.
1.1 Participants
Any single narrative description of the War tends to be confusing because of the number of parties involved. From a distance of several hundred years, many of these are unrecognized, since they have been consolidated into larger states. There were several independent colonies involved, each of which had its own leadership. There were also several tribes of native Americans, sometimes dealt with in summary based on their alliances or tributary status at the time. Participants included:
