The ten days I will be talking about in this report show the internal tensions and contradictions that reveal that America is a work in progress. It will show how people can change the course of history either knowingly or by accident. On May 26, 1637 a group of Puritans from Massachusetts Bay Colony attacked a Pequot village. The group of seventy English, seventy Mohegans, and five hundred Narragansetts warriors were led by Major John Mason and Captain John Underhill. This group had been fighting with the Pequot native americans village for more than a year when they began their final assault. Mason divided his men in two and they attacked through the two entrances of the village.The Pequots pelted the invaders with arrows but many of them
On May 26, 1637, English settlers under Captain John Mason, and Narragansett and Mohegan allies set fire to a Pequot fort near the Mystic River. The fort only had two entrances, and anybody that tried to flee the fort was shot by awaiting enemies. The only Pequots that survived were those who had followed their sachem Sassacus in a raiding party outside the village. This attack on the fort almost entirely wiped out the Pequot population and resulted in them eventually losing the war. As a result of this the 1638 treaty of Hartford was signed, stating that all remaining
16. The Pequot War was a war between the English Puritan settlers and Pequot Indians for settlement on Block Island. The English wanted to settle their colony on the land but the Pequots were impeding them to do so. At first the English hunted down and burned down Pequot villages and crops, however, they later saw many vacant villages, the Indians would leave before they arrived. This angered the settlers because they wanted to rid of the Indians altogether, this led to the idea of a massacre. Although the Pequots fought as well, the English were much too advanced and merciless.
In both Flynn and Dutcher’s accounts, it is the Pequots who started the trouble and were responsible for most of the violence. Dutcher writes that tensions between the Pequots and the English “escalated when Pequots killed English colonists and traders in 1633 and 1636” (Dutcher). This was the first act of war that the Pequots committed showing the similarities in Flynn and Dutcher’s stories. Even the tone and point of view of Flynn and Dutcher’s accounts are very similar in the fact that they show the Pequots as being the troublemakers and the colonists as being the victims. Both Dutcher and Zinn make key points about how the English attacked and killed numerous Indians very gruesomely. For example, Zinn states that “The English landed and killed some Indians, but the rest hid in the thick forests of the island and the English went from one deserted village to the next, destroying crops” (Zinn 15). The English ravaged the Pequot Indian way of life, leading the Indians to have negative thoughts. This is similar to Dutcher’s perspective that combined English and Indian fighters from other Indian tribes, “surprised and burned the Pequot fort near present-day Mystic. Only seven Indians escaped the slaughter. English forces attacked a second Pequot stronghold two miles away the same night” (Dutcher). Zinn summarizes the war from the eyes of the Pequot Indians while Flynn
Between 300 and 700 pequot men, women, and children died during this war and that is the most troubling part about how the war turned out in the end. In the middle of July, colonists surrounded a group of my people that had survived so far by the Indian village of Quinnipiac. A scouting party for the colonists had spotted one of our scouting parties and killed five of our people while sparing two others. In order for a surrender, the colonists wanted 180 women and children as well as one or two old men. The Indian men that were left either fought or flee the area but only a few were able to
In May of 1637 the English authorities of Plymouth, Boston, and Connecticut decided to lead a sneak attack while the Pequot tribe slept. They planned this to be a mass killing and massacre of the Pequot tribe. The massacre of the Pequot tribe was meant to be an example to other Native tribes. They tricked the Pequot tribe into thinking they were leaving by sailing their ships past them. They then secretly landed their ships in territory belonging to Narragansett tribe. They were enemies with the Pequot tribe and decided to ally themselves with the English, as long as the women and children were spared during the attack, as per Native American tradition. The Pequot tribes were a very
After the Pequot War in 1637-1638, Pequot lands that had been promised to the Narragansetts by the English went under the control of the Mohegans and incoming British settlers, inciting renewed battles between the Narragansetts and the Mohegan. With the English threatening to invade Narragansett territory, a peace treaty was eventually signed, with the peace lasting 30 years. Increasing tensions between the Wampanoag and the colonists eventually drew in other tribes including the Narragansett, but the rumor started to spread that they were planning on joining the Native Americans and fight the colonies. The Colonies then united to conduct a pre-emptive strike. In a brilliant pre-emptive strike, the United Colonies ordered a 1,000-troop army to invade the Nargansset Indians to force them to sign a treaty that would make them remain neutral or pay the consequences of their actions. Schultz states that, “Early on the afternoon of December 19, 1675 the combined army of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut attacked a large fortified Narragansett village located in the Great
The novel, Into Thin Air, is written by Jon Krakauer. The novel was published by Villard Books in 1997 and copyrighted in 1997 by Jon Krakauer. It is considered a non-fiction novel and has also been made into a movie in 2015. It has 301 pages.
In 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America started by the History Channel selecting dates from many years that included an all-day meeting with a group of historians and producers discussed and debated against the days that should fit in the final list of days that changed America. All the historians and producers agreed on that they would not use events that occurred after 1965. The historians and producers gave dates that would provoke discussion and a debate which meant them overlooking events such as the signing of the constitution and the first shot of the civil war. Most of the topics chosen in 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America covered span of our history from settlement to recent pass. 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America places people
In 1675, the Algonquian Indians rose up in fury against the Puritan Colonists, sparking a violent conflict that engulfed all of Southern New England. From this conflict ensued the most merciless and blood stricken war in American history, tearing flesh from the Puritan doctrine, revealing deep down the bright and incisive fact that anger and violence brings man to a Godless level when faced with the threat of pain and total destruction. In the summer of 1676, as the violence dispersed and a clearing between the hatred and torment was visible, thousands were dead.(Lepore xxi) Indian and English men, women, and children, along with many of the young villages of New England were no more; casualties of a conflict that
In June of 1675, King Philip, called Metacom by the Indians, led the Wampanoag, Algonquin, Nipmunk, and Narragansett Indians in massive attacks against the English in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The English colonists allied with the Mohegan, Pequot, Mohawk, and Christian Indians and fought back. There were organized raids back and forth which resulted in thousands of murders. On both sides, women and children were killed, tortured, and the survivors sold to slavery.
But on October 21, 1636, The English and the Narragansett enter a peace treaty and formed an alliance. “Massachusetts Bay pressure Plimoth Colony to join the war against the Pequot.” But the Plimoth colony did not take the offer. They continued to battle through the rest of the year. The battle did soon after all the fighting, calm down but was not completely over.
In the novel, the Scarlet Letter, there are four main characters, Hester Prynne, Pearl Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Prynne Chillingworth. The story goes; Hester Prynne committed the sin of adultery with the minister of their Puritan Community, Arthur Dimmesdale, the community then condemning her to wear the scarlet letter “A” for the rest of her natural life. Pearl Prynne being the product of the two sinners. In the moment, when Hester is completing the first part of her punishment, her long lost husband, Roger Prynne Chillingworth, arrives. Not wanting his arrival acknowledge Roger replaces his maiden name for Chillingworth. This situation creates a whole plot of conflicts both
They were in a intention of fighting with Pequots and arrived in Massachusetts prepared for a war. Pequots were a superior Native American tribe who lived between Connecticut and Rhode Island. The massacre at mystic was in response to many years of hatred towards the Pequot Indians. The Pequot were incriminated of crimes and chastened for them; the Puritans would try to attack but never succeeded. In response to their actions the Pequot brutally exterminated a handful of Puritans. In retribution Major John Mason along with John Underhill; on the night of May 26, 1637 attacked the south and north entrances of the village. Mason believe that most Pequots were hidden inside the wigwams or huts, and decided to burn the entire village. An unknown Englishman who saw the dreadful event wrote, “The fire burnt their bowstrings… down fell men, women and children… great and doleful was the bloody sight” (Gillon 8). On that night oodles of men, women and even children were burnt alive. Mystic was completely collapsed. Nevertheless, on hearing about the condition of the Pequots, other Indians demanded revolts against the
The fuel for this war was mainly noted to derive from a lust to control the trade of fur pelts, which was dominated by the Dutch and Pequots at the time. As stated by the Battlefields of the Pequot War Project (2017), “ The primary cause of the Pequot War was the struggle to control trade… Particular events which have often been cited as the cause for the Pequot War are the murders of English traders.” The murder of the English trader John Stone was particularly prevalent in the accumulation of an abhorrence that spread throughout the Colony of Connecticut. This feeling led to the first engagement in the war, Endicott’s Raid on Manisses Villages.
Individual reactions to situations of external or internal conflict are reflected in much of literature. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the character of Hamlet must deal with both external and internal conflict. He faces the death of his father, the knowledge that his uncle Claudius is his father's murderer and the knowledge that he must take revenge. Hamlet's responses to these external conflicts and his own internal views proclaim his nature and character.