Mystic massacre

Background

In southeastern Connecticut Colony, the Pequots held the most power among local tribes and had a long-standing rivalry with the Mohegan and Narragansett. European goods like wampum and furs were traded by colonists with all three groups. The Pequots formed an alliance with the Dutch, while the Mohegans and others backed the New England colonists. After a trader named John Oldham was killed and his ship raided by Pequots, retaliatory strikes followed.

On April 23, 1637, two hundred Pequot fighters hit Wethersfield, killing nine unarmed civilians—six men and three women. This attack outraged settlers and fueled broader support for war. Tensions had already been rising due to food shortages from the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635, which ruined harvests and intensified competition for winter supplies.

Massacre

Connecticut towns raised a militia of 90 men under Captain John Mason, joined by 70 Mohegans under sachems Uncas and Wequash. Meanwhile, Pequot sachem Sassacus led several hundred warriors toward Hartford. Mason recruited over 200 Narragansett and Niantic allies. On the night of May 26, 1637, the combined force reached the fortified Pequot village on a low hill near the Mystic River.

The village was enclosed by a palisade with only two exits. An initial surprise attack met stiff resistance and was withdrawn. Mason then ordered the village set ablaze and the exits blocked. As fire spread, many trapped Pequots were shot while trying to climb over the palisade; those who escaped were killed by Narragansett fighters.

Captain Underhill described setting fire at the south end with a powder train, while Mason set fire on the west side; the flames met in the center and burned the fort in half an hour. Hundreds were killed; the colonists reported only five occupants escaped and seven were taken prisoner. Mohegans collected heads and took scalps as war trophies.

Aftermath

Pequot deaths are estimated between 400 and 700, including women, children, and the elderly. Colonial casualties were 22 to 26, with two confirmed dead. About 40 Narragansett warriors were wounded after being mistaken for Pequots. The massacre broke the Pequots.

Sassacus and his followers were surrounded in a swamp near a Mattabesset village called Sasqua, leading to the Fairfield Swamp Fight, where nearly 180 warriors were killed, wounded, or captured. Sassacus escaped with about 80 men but was killed by the Mohawks, who sent his scalp to the colonists. The treaty mandated remaining Pequots be absorbed into the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes and forbade them from calling themselves Pequots. In the late 20th century, descendants revived the tribe, achieving federal recognition in 1983 and settling some land claims.

Modern reappraisals

In the 1990s, as the modern Pequot tribe emerged, The New England Quarterly examined arguments for and against classifying the Mystic massacre as genocide. Rebecca Joyce Frey lists it as genocide in her 2009 book Genocide and International Justice. Harvard Law School's Steven M. Wise called it 'the Puritans genocidal Indian War,' claiming one thousand Indians were killed, and noted that Captain John Underhill justified killing the elderly, women, and children by citing Scripture.

In 2020, following national protests over Confederate monuments, some called for removal of a John Mason statue at Palisado Green in Windsor, Connecticut. The statue had been erected at the massacre site in 1889 and moved to Windsor in 1996. The town council voted 5-4 in September 2020 to remove it and give it to the Windsor Historical Society. Pequot Museum research director Kevin McBride noted that tribal chairman Skip Hayward had opposed the 1990s removal, saying, 'If you take it down, no one will remember what happened here.'

In early 2021, calls arose to remove another John Mason statue outside the Connecticut State Capitol; a state commission decided it should be removed, with lawmakers allowed to debate its future. The massacre was featured on the History Channel series 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America.