Mystic massacre

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The Mystic massacre took place on May 26, 1637, when English settlers under Captain John Mason, and Narragansett and Mohegan allies set fire to a Pequot fort near the Mystic River, shooting whatever victims attempted to escape the wooden palisade fortress, killing the entire village of mostly women and children, in retaliation for previous Pequot attacks.

The only Pequot survivors were those who had followed their sachem Sassacus in a raiding party outside the village.

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[edit] Background

The Pequot were the dominant Native American tribe in central to eastern Connecticut, though natural animosity existed between them and the competing tribes of the Mohegan and Narragansett. When the English and Dutch arrived, they established trade policies, trading such things as wampum for European goods. The Pequot eventually allied with the Dutch, while the Mohegan and others allied with the British, as evidence of their divergent interests. European population growth led to greater land demands leading to eventual conflict with indigenous populations. A series of European diseases such as smallpox, to which the Native Americans had no immunity, also drastically reduced the Pequot population, tipping the population balance in high favor of the settlers.

The tensions erupted into war when a trader named John Stone was killed and his trading ship looted by natives suspected to be Pequot. Some retaliation raids by settlers and natives alike ensued and Pequots responded in kind (Pequot War).

[edit] The massacre

The Connecticut towns raised a militia commanded by Captain John Mason and consisting of 90 men, plus 70 Mohegan under Uncas. Twenty more men under Captain John Underhill joined him at Fort Saybrook.

The Pequot sachem Sassacus, meanwhile, gathered a few hundred warriors and set out to make another raid on Hartford, Connecticut.

At the same time, Captain Mason retrieved over 200 Narragansett and Niantic braves to join his attack force. On the night of May 26, 1637, the forces of English and Native American attackers arrived outside the palisade-surrounded Pequot village near the Mystic River, which had only two entrances/exits.

The English attempted to attack the villagers by surprise without detection, yet the English met with stiff Pequot resistance until Underhill gave the order to set the village on fire and block off the exits. The village was set on fire and the exits were blocked up, trapping the Pequot inside. Those who tried climbing over the palisade were shot; anyone who succeeded in getting over was killed by the Narrangasett waiting outside.

[edit] Aftermath

Estimates of dead Pequot range from 400 to 700, including mostly women and children. The massacre practically broke the Pequots, who fled and were hunted down. Sassacus and many of his followers were surrounded in a swamp near a Mattabesic village called Sasqua. In the following battle, Sassacus and about 80 others managed to escape, but at the cost of 180 warriors killed, wounded, or captured. Sassacus was eventually killed by the Mohawks, who sent his scalp to the English as a symbol of friendship.

The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Hartford on September 21, 1638. Remaining Pequot were sold as slaves or servants and their lands taken. The Pequot numbers were so diminished that they ceased to be a tribe until recent tribal resurgence in the later 20th Century.

The massacre was featured in the History Channel series 10 Days that Unexpectedly Changed America.

[edit] See also

Cave, Alfred A. Who Killed John Stone? A Note on the Origins of the Pequot War. The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol.49, No.3 (Jul.,1992), pp.509-521