The Pequot War reached its devastating climax in the pre-dawn hours of May 26, 1637, when English forces under Captain John Mason launched a surprise assault on a fortified Pequot village on the Mystic River, resulting in the deaths of more than 800 men, women, and children in a single morning of brutal combat that would effectively annihilate one of New England’s most powerful native tribes.
The attack came after nearly three years of escalating violence between English settlers and the Pequot Indians, a fierce and warlike tribe that controlled territory along the Mystic and Pequot rivers in southeastern Connecticut. What began as isolated murders of English traders in 1634 had by 1637 erupted into a full-scale war that would determine the very survival of the Connecticut colony.
According to historical accounts, the conflict’s origins trace to June 1634, when Pequot warriors treacherously murdered Captain Stone and Captain Norton, men who had long visited the tribe for trade purposes. The following year brought even greater horrors when the Pequots inhumanly murdered a Mr. Weeks, his wife, and their six children, followed by the slaying of a Mr.
Williams’ wife and children near Hartford.
The English response was swift and calculated. When the Pequots dispatched messengers with gifts to Governor Josiah Winslow, he dismissed them without answer, his determination for revenge inflexible. A second Pequot delegation arrived with a large quantity of wampum, leading to a peace treaty with three key terms: the Pequots would surrender those guilty of killing Englishmen, relinquish all rights to lands within Connecticut colony, and treat English traders as friends.
But the peace proved fleeting. Soon after the treaty’s conclusion, the English sent a small boat into Pequot territory under the pretense of trade. The crew was lured ashore and inhumanly murdered, prompting the Pequots to throw off what the historical record describes as the mask of friendship and commence open hostilities.
The brutality escalated on both sides. Two daughters of Mr. Gibbons of Hartford were put to death in the most brutal manner, their flesh gashed with knives and their wounds filled with hot embers while their killers mimicked their dying groans.
On June 20, 1636, approximately 150 Pequot warriors besieged Fort Saybrook, where about 20 Englishmen were stationed, attacking furiously at midnight with horrible yelling.
The fort’s defenders, fortunately provided with cannon, caused their enemies to groan in reality. After receiving two or three deadly fires, the Pequots retreated, leaving behind about 20 dead or mortally wounded. The English sustained no losses in this engagement.
Massachusetts authorities, alarmed by the Pequots’ bold conduct, dispatched Captain Endicott of Salem with 90 men on August 20, 1636, to avenge the murders unless the tribe consented to deliver up the murderers and make reparations. Endicott was directed to proceed first to Block Island, then inhabited by the Pequots, put the men to the sword, and take possession. Women and children were to be spared.
When Endicott arrived at Block Island, about 60 Indians opposed his landing. His men affected a landing and drove the Indians into the woods after brief skirmishing. The English spent two days destroying 100 wigwams and about 50 canoes before proceeding to Pequot country.
There, nearly 500 of the enemy collected on the shores but hastily withdrew and secreted themselves in swamps and ledges inaccessible to the troops. Endicott burned their wigwams, destroyed their canoes, killed an Indian or two, and returned to Boston. Enough had been done to exasperate, but nothing to subdue a haughty and warlike enemy.
Sassacus, the chief sachem of the Pequots, and his captains were men of great and independent spirits who had conquered and governed surrounding nations without control. They viewed the English as strangers and mere intruders who had no right to the country nor to control its original proprietors. The Pequots determined to exterminate or drive all the English from New England, conceiving a plan to unite the Indians generally against them.
They spared no effort to make peace with the Narragansetts and engage them in war against the English, representing that the English, merely foreigners, were overspreading the country and depriving original inhabitants of their ancient rights. They insisted that by general combination they could destroy or drive them from the country without open battles, by killing their cattle, firing their houses, and laying ambushes wherever they could surprise them.
So just and politic were these representations that nothing but that thirst for revenge which inflames the savage heart could have resisted their influence. Indeed, it is said that for some time the Narragansetts hesitated. The governor of the colonies, to prevent a union between these savage nations, dispatched a messenger to invite Miantonomi, their chief sachem, to Boston.
The invitation was accepted, and while at Boston with the governor and council, Miantonomi entered into a treaty establishing firm peace between the English and Narragansetts.
In February 1637, the Connecticut colony represented to the governor and council their desire to prosecute more effectually the war with the Pequots. They reported that on January 10, a boat containing three or four of their countrymen was attacked by the enemy as it proceeded down the river. The English bravely defended themselves but were overpowered by numbers.
The Indians, having captured the boat’s crew, ripped them up from the bottom of their bellies to their throats, split them down their backs, and hung their mangled bodies upon trees by the riverside.
The affairs of Connecticut colony wore a most gloomy aspect. They had sustained great losses in cattle and goods the preceding years but were still more unfortunate in the present. A most dreadful and insidious enemy sought opportunity to destroy them.
They could neither hunt, fish, nor cultivate their fields, nor travel at home or abroad, but at the peril of their lives. They were obliged to keep constant watch by night and day, to go armed to their daily labors and to houses of public worship.
The report of these horrid and unprovoked cruelties roused the other colonies to harmonious and spirited exertions. Massachusetts determined to send 200 men and Plymouth 40 to assist their unfortunate brethren. Captain Patrick with 40 men was sent forward before the other troops to form a junction with Connecticut forces, who notwithstanding their weak and distressed state had engaged to furnish 90 men.
On Wednesday, May 10, 1637, the Connecticut troops proceeded to their fort at Saybrook, consisting of 90 Englishmen and 70 Mohegan and river Indians. The latter were commanded by Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, and the former by Captain John Mason, accompanied by the Reverend Mr. Stone of Hartford.
The Mohegans, detached from the English on their way to Saybrook, fell in with a considerable body of the enemy whom they attacked and defeated. They killed 22 and took 18 prisoners. Among the prisoners was one recognized as a perfidious villain who had lived in the forts with the English and understood their language.
He had deserted the garrison and joined the enemy, serving as guide, and through his instigation many English had been captured and put to death.
Uncas and his men insisted upon executing him according to the custom of their ancestors, and the English, in the circumstances in which they then were, did not judge it prudent to interfere. The Indians enkindled a fire near which they confined the prisoner to a stake until his skin became parched with heat. The Mohegans then violently tore him limb from limb, barbarously cutting his flesh in pieces.
They handed it round from one to another, eating it, while they sung and danced around the fire in a manner peculiar to savages. The bones and such parts as were not consumed in this dreadful repast were committed to the flames and consumed to ashes.
On May 19, Captain Mason and his men proceeded for Narragansett Bay, arriving safely. On May 21, Mason marched to the plantation of Canonicus, a Narragansett sachem, and acquainted him with his designs, then dispatched a messenger to Miantonomi. The next day, Miantonomi with his chief counselors and warriors met the English.
Mason informed him that the cause of his entering the country with armed force was to avenge injuries the Pequots had done to the English and desired free passage to their forts.
After solemn consultation, Miantonomi observed that he highly approved of the expedition and would send men to assist, but that they were too few in number to fight the enemy, that the Pequots were great warriors and rather slighted the English.
Captain Mason landed his men and marched to Miantonomi’s plantation, which by previous agreement was to be the place of general rendezvous. In the evening, an Indian runner arrived with information that Captain Patrick with his men had arrived at Roger Williams’ plantation in Providence and desired Mason to postpone his march until they could join. Mason, after mature deliberation, determined not to await his arrival, although a junction was considered important.
His men had already been detained much longer than agreeable, and the Mohegans were impatient for battle.
The little army, consisting of 90 Englishmen, 60 Mohegan and river Indians, and about 200 Narragansetts, commenced their march on May 24, reaching Niantic in the evening, which bounded on Pequot country. Niantic was the seat of a Narragansett sachem who seemed displeased with the expedition and would not suffer the English to enter his fort. Mason, suspecting treachery, placed a sentinel at night at the fort’s entrance, determined that as he could not enter, no one should come out to advise the enemy of his approach.
On the morning of May 25, Mason was joined by additional Narragansetts and a few Niantics. They formed a circle and brandishing their scalping knives made protestations of how gallantly they would fight and what numbers they would ๐๐พ๐๐. Mason now had under his command near 500 Indians in addition to his former force, with whom he early resumed his march for the enemy’s headquarters.
The day proved uncommonly warm, and the men, through excessive heat and want of provision, were only enabled by night to reach the Pequot River, where the Narragansetts began to manifest great fear and inquire of Mason his real designs. He assured them it was to attack the Pequots in their fort, at which they appeared greatly surprised and exhibited a disposition to quit the English and return home.
Wequash, a Pequot sachem who had revolted from Sassacus, was the principal guide of the English and proved faithful. He gave such information respecting the distance of the enemy’s forts from each other as induced Mason to determine to attack the latter, which his guide represented as situated at the head of Mystic River. He found his men so much fatigued in marching through a pathless wilderness with their provisions, arms, and ammunition that this resolution appeared absolutely necessary.
The little army on the morning of May 26 proceeded directly for Mystic, and at about sundown penetrated a thick swamp where, imagining they could not be far distant from the fort, they pitched their camp between two large rocks now known as Porter’s Rocks. The sentinels, advanced in front of the main body, distinctly heard the enemy singing and dancing through the night at their fort.
The important day was now approaching when the very existence of Connecticut was to be determined by sword in a single action, decided by the valor of less than 100 brave men. About two hours before day, the men were aroused from slumbers, and after commending themselves and their cause to the Almighty, proceeded with all possible dispatch for the enemy’s fort.
When within a few rods of the fort, Mason sent for Uncas and Wequash, desiring them in their Indian manner to harangue and prepare their men for combat. They replied that their men were much afraid and could not be prevailed upon to advance further. “Go then,” said Mason, “and request them not to retire, but to surround the fort at any distance they please, and see what courage Englishmen can display.”
The day was now dawning and no time to be lost. The fort was soon in view. The soldiers pressed forward, animated with the reflection that it was not for themselves alone they were about to fight, but for their parents, wives, children, and countrymen.
As they approached within short distance, they were discovered by a Pequot sentinel who roared out, “Oh, Englishmen, Englishmen!”
The troops pressed on, and as the Indians were rallying, poured in upon them the contents of their muskets, and instantly hastening to the principal entrance, rushed in sword in hand. An important moment this, for notwithstanding the blaze and thunder of English arms, the Pequots made a manly and desperate resistance. Sheltered by their wigwams and rallied by their sachems and squaws, they prepared themselves and in some instances attacked the English with a resolution that would have done honor to Romans.
After a bloody and desperate conflict of near two hours’ continuance, in which hundreds of Indians were slain and many English killed and wounded, victory still hung in suspense. In this critical state, Mason had recourse to a successful expedient, rushing into a wigwam within the fort. He seized a brand of fire and crying out to his men, “We must burn them,” communicated it to the mats with which the wigwams were covered.
By this means the whole fort was soon enwrapped in flames.
As the fire increased, the English retired and formed a circle around the fort. The Mohegans and Narragansetts, who had remained idle spectators to the bloody conflict, now mustered courage to form another circle in their rear. The enemy were now in a deplorable situation.
Death inevitably was their portion. Sallying forth from their burning cells, they were shot or cut in pieces by the English. Many, perceiving the vigilance of the troops, threw themselves voluntarily into the flames.
The violence of the flames, the reflection of the light, the clashing and roar of arms, the shrieks and yells of the savages in the fort, and the shoutings of the friendly Indians without exhibited a grand and awful scene. In less than two hours from the commencement of the bloody action, the English completed their work. Eighty wigwams were burnt and upwards of 800 Indians destroyed.
Parents and children, the aged and the young, perished in promiscuous ruin. The loss of the English was comparatively trifling, not exceeding 25 killed and wounded.
After the termination of this severe engagement, as the English were proceeding to embark on vessels which fortunately arrived in the harbor at that moment, they were attacked in the rear by about 300 of the enemy dispatched from a neighboring fort to assist their brethren. The English gave them so warm a reception that they soon gave way and fell back to the field of action, where viewing for a few moments with apparent marks of surprise and horror the ๐๐ฝ๐ธ๐ธ๐๐พ๐๐ scene, they stamped, bellowed, and with savage rage tore their hair from their heads, then with a hideous yell pursued the English as if determined to avenge the deaths of their friends even at the expense of their own lives.
They pursued the English nearly six miles, sometimes shooting from behind rocks and trees, sometimes pressing hard upon them and hazarding themselves in open field. The English killed numbers of them but sustained no loss. When a Pequot fell, the Mohegans would cry out, “Run and fetch his head.”
The enemy, finding at length that they discharged their arrows in vain and that the English appeared well supplied with ammunition, gave over the pursuit.
In less than three weeks from the time the English embarked at Saybrook, they returned, with the exception of the few killed and wounded, in safety to their respective habitations. Few enterprises were ever achieved with more personal bravery. Few have so great a proportion of the effect of men of a whole colony been put to so great and immediate danger.
And few have a people been so deeply and immediately interested as were the English inhabitants of Connecticut at this important crisis.
In these respects, even the great armaments and battles of Europe are of comparatively little importance. It ought never to be forgotten that through the bravery and unconquerable resolution of less than 100 men, Connecticut was once saved, and the most warlike and terrible tribe of Indians in New England completely exterminated.
The few Pequots that now remained alive, conceiving it unsafe to inhabit longer a country so ๐ฎ๐๐น๐ธ๐ผ๐ฎ๐ญ to invasion, removed far to the westward. Among them was Sassacus, their principal sachem. On June 25, the Connecticut troops under Captain Mason, together with a company from Massachusetts commanded by Captain Stoughton, were sent in pursuit.
They proceeded westward and on June 27 fell in with, attacked, and defeated a considerable body of them. They took about 50 prisoners, among whom were two sachems whose lives were offered on condition of serving as guides.
The English on their march frequently fell in with small detached parties whom they captured or destroyed but could not obtain information relative to the main body commanded by Sassacus. Finding that the two sachem prisoners would not give the information required, they on June 29 beheaded them at a place called Menunkatuck, now Guilford, from which circumstance the place still bears the name of Sachem’s Head.
The English on June 30 arrived at Quinnipiac, now New Haven, where they were informed by a friendly Pequot that the enemy were encamped in a swamp a few miles to the westward. The troops pushed forward and the succeeding day arrived at the border of said swamp, which they found to be a thicket so extremely boggy as to render it inaccessible to anyone but the natives. The English therefore thought it most advisable to surround the swamp and annoy the enemy as opportunity presented.
The Indians, after a few skirmishes, requested a parley, which being granted, Thomas Stanton, interpreter to the English, was sent to treat with them. He was authorized to offer life to such as had not shed the blood of Englishmen, upon which the sachem of the place together with about 300 of his tribe came out and producing satisfactory proof of their innocence were permitted to retire. But the remaining Pequots boldly declared that they had both shed and drank the blood of Englishmen and would not upon such terms accept of life, but would fight it out.
The English, unwilling to brook the threats and insulting language of the Pequots, attempted to devise means to attack the whole body without further delay. The officers were divided in opinion as to the mode of attack. Some were for setting fire to the swamp, others for cutting their way through with hatchets, and others for surrounding it with a high fence or palisado, neither of which plans were fully adopted.
As night approached, the English cut through a part of the swamp, by which means its circumference was much lessened, and they were enabled so completely to surround the enemy as to prevent their escape during the night. Early the ensuing morning, the Indians, perceiving themselves completely hemmed in, made a violent attempt to break through the lines. They were driven back with great loss.
They next attempted to force the line formed by Connecticut troops, but here they met with a much warmer reception.
The contest now became close and severe. The Indians, who were about 600 in number, appeared determined not to yield but at the expense of their lives. One of the most resolute walked boldly up to Captain Mason with an uplifted tomahawk and when about to give the fatal stroke received a blow from the latter, who with his cutlass severed the head of the Indian from his body.
The enemy soon after made another attempt to break through the lines and in which after a violent struggle they succeeded, about 60 of their bravest warriors escaping, the remainder being either killed or taken prisoners. The loss of the English was 11 killed and about 20 wounded. The prisoners taken were divided among the troops, some retained as servants, the remainder sent to the West Indies and sold to the planters.
The prisoners reported that the whole tribe of Pequots was now nearly exterminated, that in different engagements there had been upwards of 2,000 killed and about 1,000 captured, among whom were 13 sachems, and that six yet survived, one of whom was Sassacus, who had fled with the fragments of his tribe to the country bordering on the Hudson River, inhabited by the Mohawks.
After the swamp fight, the Pequots became so weak and scattered that the Mohegans and Narragansetts daily destroyed them and presented their scalps to the English. The few that fled with Sassacus to the westward were attacked and totally destroyed by the Mohawks. The scalp of Sassacus was in the fall of 1638 presented to the governor and council of Massachusetts.
The Pequot War stands as one of the first major conflicts between English colonists and Native Americans in New England, second only to the Powhatan War in the Jamestown settlement of 1622. The Pequots, similar to the Erie Indians who were almost completely exterminated about 20 years later in 1656, were a very warlike and powerful tribe, which turned other tribes against them. In both cases, other Indian tribes played a large part in bringing about their ends.
In the main attack on the Pequot village known as Mystic Fort, it was the English who took the lead, while the Narragansett and Mohegan allies were too scared to attack the fort and created a large perimeter outside while the English went in first. This type of behavior among Indians where they seemed less willing to storm a fortified position during war has been noted by historians. Several cases exist where the Indians could have won a battle or war that in some cases would have exterminated all the whites in a particular region, but they were not willing to attack a fortified position if it meant that some of them would die.
The brutal torture and execution practices carried out by these tribes, including the Narragansetts who were allied with the whites, included roasting and then eating the body of one of the Pequots who had been responsible for many deaths. As might be expected, there have been many recent journalists and so-called historians who have condemned the Pequot War as a genocide. One is Steven M.
Wise, who in his 2009 book called it the Puritans’ Genocidal Indian War, where 1,000 Indians were killed. In September of 2020, the town council of Windsor, Connecticut, voted 5-4 to remove the statue of John Mason, who had led the attack at Mystic River, but it is unclear if it has yet been removed.
The events of the Pequot War remain a subject of historical debate and reflection, raising questions about the nature of colonial expansion, the conduct of warfare, and the complex alliances between English settlers and Native American tribes. The war effectively ended Pequot power in the region, with the tribe nearly annihilated and its survivors scattered or enslaved. The conflict set a precedent for future English-Native American relations in New England and demonstrated the devastating consequences of colonial warfare on indigenous populations.