CONNECTICUT PAUGAUSSETT INDIANS

THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD

Golden Hill Indians
The Housatonic
The Wepawaug
Cupheags and Pequannock
Weantinock
Goodyear's Island
Indian Slaves
Indian Remnants
Indian Troubles
New Indian Papers

THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD

Wm. Howard Wilcoxson

Stratford Indians

Trouble with the Indians

Establishing Title to the Land

Indian Deeds and Relics

White Hills Purchase

FORREST MORGAN

Lifestyles, Government, Religion and War

Indian Titles and Mohegan Land Troubles

Sowheag, Uncas, and Miantonomo

Owenoco, the Son of Uncas

THE HOUSATONIC

CHARD POWERS SMITH

The Promised Land
Heathen in the Land
The Lord's Scouts

The Land and The Lord

The Next Seven Tribes

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON

Connecticut Indian History

The Pequot War

Alexander Johnston

Pequot War

The Connecticut General Court met at Hartford May 1, 1637, the ninth meeting of that body which is on the records. It is not likely that it represented, as yet, more than eight hundred souls, though the proportion of fighting men in so young a colony must have been abnormally large. Its action was through-going. It resolved that there should be "an offensive warr against Pequoitt," and a draft of ninety men was ordered from the three towns, - forty-two from Hartford, thirty from Windsor, and eighteen from Wethersfield, - the whole to be under the command of Captain John Mason, of Windsor. The minute distribution of the assessment of the requisition for stores upon the three towns, and the proviso that one half of the corn is to be baked into biscuit "if by any meanes they cann," are evidence of the poverty of the colony, and the resolution with which its rulers drove their demands upon its patriotism up to the highest possible point. It is certain that the people were nearly starving when they were thus called on for a full third of their able bodied men. Nine days after the call, May 10, the ninety men were ready, and, with seventy Mohegans under Uncas, who was thereafter the ally of the colonists, embarked on the river in three small vessels. Uncas and his men soon found the voyage uncomfortable, and begged to be allowed to make the trip to Saybrook by land. When Mason reached Saybrook, after five days of tedious sailing, he found Uncas there, exultant in the success of a battle with Pequots, in which he had killed seven of his enemies and captured another, who had been living among the colonists as a spy. The spy could appeal to no law, civilized or savage, for safety; but it is repulsive business to read the punishment which was allowed to be inflicted. He was handed over to the mercy of Uncas and his Mohegans, who tortured and roasted him, and finally ate him. Lying wind-bound in front of the fort at Saybrook, Mason knew well at his motions were under the sharp eyes of Pequot scouts, and that his entry into the Thames river would find his enemies thoroughly prepared to meet him. Fortified by a council of war, and by an all-night prayer of the chaplain, Mr. Stone, he decided to disobey instructions, pass on to Narragansett Bay,and attack the Pequots from the eastward. The change of programme was no doubt watched carefully by the runners of Sassacus; and when the three vessels had passed the only available landing place in the Pequot country, the Thames or Pequot river, the doomed tribe abandoned itself to a sense of triumphant security: The white men has not dared attack them after all, but had chosen the less formidable Indians of Block Island or the Bay as the objects of their revenge. The danger had passed them by. On Saturday, May 30, the little squadron came to anchor in Narragansett Bay, too late in the afternoon to effect anything that day. It is a witness of their conscientious exposition of the Puritan theory that the urgent need for prompt action in order to gain the advantage of a surprise could not induce them to devote Sunday to that purpose; and then an unfavorable wind kept them from landing until Tuesday night. Marching at once to the village of Miantonomoh, the Narragansett chief, Mason demanded his assistance against the common enemy. The chief considered their enterprise a most laudable one, but thought the English too few to deal with such "great captains" as the Pequots. All that could be obtained was permission to pass through the Narragansett country, but a number of individuals from the surrounding Indians joined the troops on their march. A few days' waiting would have increased their force by a Massachusetts reinforcement under Captain Patrick, which had already reached Providence; but Mason balanced the advantage of surprise against this increase of force and pushed on. Thirteen men were sent back with the vessels to meet the main body at the Pequot River; and the army now consisted of seventy-seven Englishmen, Uncas's Mohegans, and about two hundred exceedingly doubtful Narragansett auxiliaries, who were present rather as spectators and critics than as fighting men.