Pequot War: Bloodiest Native American Massacre In American History

May 26, 1637 was a fateful day in the history of America. The actions of Major John Mason and his Puritan men set a precedent for the next two hundred years of European and Indian relations. On that clear May night near the Mystic River of New England, hundreds of Pequot Indians were killed by the Europeans and their allies, most of the victims being the elderly, women, and children. This massacre was a massive turning point in the Pequot War, effectively ruining the tribe. Already weakened by disease and by competing native tribes, the Pequot were quickly routed and by September 21, 1638 the war ended with the Treaty of Hartford. The treaty

In exchange, the encomendero could force the Native Americans to pay tribute in forms of bullion and labor. Eventually, the native people began to die off from the harsh labor and foreign diseases that the Spanish brought from Spain. The Native Americans rejected Spanish control and returned to their customs. Angered by this, the Spanish captured 46 Pueblo leaders, which started the Pueblo Revolt. After years of fighting, the Spanish regained control. In New England, relationships with local Native Americans started out peaceful. The Native Americans and settlers of New England began to trade with each other. Native Americans, who were used to their elementary weapons, acquired better weapons from the Europeans. This once beneficiary exchange between the two cultures eventually grew tense. As years went on and more settlers came to America, conflicts arose. An agreement formed between Dutch settlers of New York and the English settlers of New England about the division of the Pequot lands. When no immediate decisions were reached of who would gain the land, New Englanders started to settle in the area without notice. The Pequot took this unplanned invasion as a form of attack, and fought back. After a series of attacks, New England called for reinforcements from allies. By joining forces with Plymouth and the Narragansett people, the English gained control

Praying towns were towns created to convert Natives and make them live by a Puritan Code. In exchange for converting they were promised security and eternal life. John Eliot, a puritan minister, established the first Praying town in 1651. By the 1650’s the Native people were weakened by disease and saw how Pilgrims were now powerful enough to no longer need the Native people’s help. The Pequot war proved how vicious the pilgrims could be in expanding their colonization. With disease and the growing population of the English. Many Native people saw no other choice but to go to these praying towns and convert and survive. The Wompanoag had lost much of their land and Massasoit did not want missionaries in their territory. The protection promised

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

The Pequot war was a bloody conflict that demonstrated the hatred and distrust between the the Puritans and the Pequot Tribe. Both sides were deeply suspicious of each other” (10). The Puritans viewed the Native Americans as “godless savages” (19) while the Native Americans viewed the Puritans as invaders. Rather than trying to coexist, the English firmly believed “there would be no assimilation of Indian culture” (24) which lead to even more tensions that eventually manifested in the form of the Pequot war.

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

In the Pequot war, “About 1,000 – 1,500 Pequots are thought to have been killed in the subsequent year of war”. (P.234) Mason wrote “The Pequots, were utterly destroyed, to the Number of six or seven hundred in just over one hour”. (P.231) The Pequot population was truly devastated at the end of 1638 it was estimated that “fewer than 500 Pequot males had survived, and only 1,500 – 2,000 women and children had survived”. (P.234) The English spared no one killing any and every Pequot they could. In terms of quantity the Romans left a more deadly aftermath following their policy of “extreme violence” (P.51) This caused “The population of 200,000 to 400,000 citizens, at least 145,000 Carthaginians were killed and 55,000 taken as slaves”.

In 1637, warfare started to erupt between a group of English colonists and an Indian tribe named Pequot. The English settlers along with a

In New England, John Winthrop began conflicts early when he declared that the Indians had only a natural right to their land and no legal right. The Puritans and Pequot Indians lived side by side with relative peace until an attack was launched upon the Narraganset Indians. Not many people were killed and the Narragansets did not fight back, but when the Puritans attacked the Pequot Indians, they fought back. The Pequot War was one of large massacres, rather than battles, from both sides and had many deaths. "Mason proposed to avoid attacking Pequot warriors, which would have overtaxed his unseasoned, unreliable troops. Battle, as such, was not his purpose. Battle is only one of the ways to destroy an enemy's will to fight. Massacre can accomplish the same end with less risk, and Mason had determined that massacre would be his objective" (Jennings). The Europeans raided the Pequot village and burned all of

What is the Pequot war? How did it begin and what was the aftermath? The Pequot War could have also been known as a massacre. The Pequot war was on May 26, 1637. The Pequot war was a war between the Europeans and the Pequot Indians. The English Puritan settlements had begun expanding into the Connecticut River Valley. The only major problem with expanding the settlement was the Pequot Indians. Though, the feud had also involved other Indian tribes including the Mohegans; the Mohegans, however, shared close relation to the Pequot Indians because they were once apart of their tribe and had later split off. The Pequots and the Indians had disputes involving property, livestock damaging Indian crops, hunting, the selling of alcohol to Indians,

Wounded Knee was a terrible event in US history. It showed how the US government didn't understand the Native Americans and treated them badly and unfairly.

At dawn on November 29th, 1864 the Civil War began between the United States Army and the Cheyenne Indians. The Sand Creek Massacre, where the humans who lived in times of trouble and tribulations against one another. The Sand Creek Massacre took many lives of children, women, and men. The United States Army went to war with the Cheyenne Indians with no warning. The Cheyenne Indians were surprised at what was happening, but there had been hostility among them since the Indians and Americans had signed the treaty. The brutality that happened was horrible.

The resulting white, indian conflicts often took a particularly brutal turn and ultimately resulted in the near -de- struction of the indigenous peoples.Warfare between Europeans and Indians was common in the seventeenth century.In 1622 the Powhatan confederacy nearly wiped out the struggling Jamestown colony.In New England Puritan forces annihilated the Pequot’s in 1636-1637, a campaign whose intensity seemed to foreshadowing the future.

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