Pequot War

The Pequot war also known as the Mystic Massacre happened on May 26,
1637. Leading up to the war I will discuss how things went and developed that led to this event. I will also discuss how the cultures clashed and made one become more powerful than another. This was the first time English people engaged in the wholesale slaughter of Native Americans. Way before the Massacre even took place there were 20,000 people who left England in the great migration spiritual journey. They had their beliefs of religion and cultural values that were already set forth in their land. Within their journey the English come into contact with the Pequot. The
Pequot are the most dominant and powerful group of Native Americans in the southern New England. The English and Pequot were equally puzzled by each other’s cultures. Native Americans and the English puritans saw the world around them in entirely different ways, especially with respect to land and ownership.
The Native Americans had claimed the land and established where they lived. But the Native Americans had no real concept of land ownership. The English believed they had divine rights as which they purchased patents and rights to the land. The warfare from European and Native was different. Native Warfare was on a smaller scale. Although capture, torture, and other foul deeds were committed on people, large number of people were never killed in conflicts. The
Natives were not prepared for the kind of war that the English could do. Natives saw themselves as being in communion with other people and living things. That the living spirit was in all living things. The Puritans saw themselves as the chosen people of god. Ultimately they believed that their ability to survive and overcome threats from savages was a measure of their own righteousness before god. The
Native Americans were devastated the Native Population. Diseases such as small pox, chicken pox, measles, yellow fever and typhus killed most of the Native
Americans. This leaving their population much smaller than they initially started out at. This made them less powerful. It gave the Puritans more of an advantage over them. An English trader was killed and Native Americans looted the trading ship and the English suspected the Pequot. The Pequot and the Puritans did not know or understand how their actions affected the other and what they meant to their culture. They had language barriers and lack of knowledge about how each culture practiced politics and negotiated and talked through their problems and issues with one another. There had been stories of when the English had killed many Native Americans and because of this the English settlers were afraid that they would not survive. Two men John Mason and John Underwill both recruited people to help them attack the Native Americans. John Mason had a militia that consisted of 90 men, plus 70 other men. Then came 20 more men under Captain
Underhill. Captain Mason also recruited more than 200 men who would help attack the Native Americans. On the night of May 266, 1637 the forces of the
Native Americans who had sided with the English and the English attackers arrived and surrounded the village near Mystic River. The English tried to catch the Pequot’s off guard yet the Pequot’s did not go without a fight. They stood up for their land and what they had believed was theirs. They set ablaze the fort and set fire to block the exits. People still tried to escape by climbing over walls and when they did the English would shot them. Taking out all the Pequot that was on that land. Estimates were 400-700 people that had been killed in this massacre and it included women and children. The English did not have mercy on anyone. The English sold captured Pequot’s as slaves or servants and took their land. They had killed so many Pequot members that the tribe had basically become nonexistent. Had these different people with different beliefs and ways of living was able to communicate and effectively discuss problems this war would not have took place. Not being able to discuss and the Native Americans not understand the whole land issue made it a problem when the English came.
Even though they had set up trade and established these policies there was still conflict. Understanding that the Pequot war was not only about one group being more powerful than the other but not being able to communicate and having different beliefs. The Native Americans thought that because they settled their and established on the land it was theirs. While the Europeans believed you had to purchase or have paperwork for the land you wanted to establish as your own.
These cultural issues still have an impact in our world today. People coming from different ways of life and having their own beliefs and practices makes it hard to

Reference Page
1. The Pequot War: A Documentary-The Project pequotwar.com/project.html
2. Http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_massacre