QUEBEC-RESEARCH-L Archives

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Subject: May 26, 1637
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 16:46:49 EDT

May 26

1637 Pequot massacres begin
During the Pequot War, an allied Puritan and Mohegan force under English
Captain John Mason attacks a Pequot village in Connecticut, burning or
massacring some 500 Indian women, men, and children.
As the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay spread further into Connecticut, they
came into increasing conflict with the Pequots, a war-like tribe centered on
the Thames River in southeastern Connecticut. By the spring of 1637, 13
English colonists and traders had been killed by the Pequot, and Massachusetts Bay
Governor John Endecott organized a large military force to punish the
Indians. On April 23, 200 Pequot warriors responded defiantly to the colonial
mobilization by attacking a Connecticut settlement, killing six men and three women
and taking two girls away.
On May 26, 1637, two hours before dawn, the Puritans and their Indian allies
marched on the Pequot village at Mystic, slaughtering all but a handful of
its inhabitants. On June 5, Captain Mason attacked another Pequot village,
this one near present-day Stonington, and again the Indian inhabitants were
defeated and massacred. On July 28, a third attack and massacre occurred near
present-day Fairfield, and the Pequot War came to an end. Most of the surviving
Pequot were sold into slavery, though a handful escaped to join other
southern New England tribes.

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