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The Treaty of Hartford
After a few months of clean-up, taking down various tribes of Pequots and killing the tribe’s remaining warriors, Connecticut met with the Narragansetts and Mohegans to establish peace and distribute the spoils of war. Connecticut claimed the won lands, something which prompted a century-long dispute with Massachusetts, and claimed jurisdictional dominance in the region. This made them the focal point of the Narragansett-Mohegan rivalry, and Uncas spent the next few years manipulating the English to enhance his own relations with the colonists, and to undermine the Narragansetts. The War also played a strong role in the establishment of colonial English slavery and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Transcript
After the destruction of the fort at Mystic, the Pequots were dispersed into groups of varying size. And, over the next few weeks, English, Narragansett and Mohegan soldiers captured some of the groups. Others voluntarily surrendered to the Narragansetts, or fled north to the Nipmucs, or south to Long Island.
Introduction
Stoughton and Mason captured a group of 104, 24 of whom were warriors, about a month after the raid. They executed 22 of the 24 warriors immediately, and gave the last two the option of leading the colonists to Sassacus in exchange for their lives, but they refused and were also executed. They took the women and children captive.
It was at this point that Plymouth mobilized its troops, but Winthrop told them they no longer needed Plymouth help.
By this point, the Narragansetts and Mohegans had also taken a large number of prisoners, and by the terms of Williams’s agreement, the English required the Narragansetts to turn over the prisoners they’d taken. They asked the English to treat the captives kindly, and restore the lands of the ones who’d surrendered without a fight, but yet again the English killed all of the adult males, and sent the women and children to Boston. They temporarily spared two sachems, but soon beheaded them at a place they renamed “Sachem’s Head.”
The Long Island Indians went to Saybrook to ask if the English were at war with all Indians, and Gardiner said that they weren’t, but they also wouldn’t trade with any tribe which harbored Pequots, and if they wanted to do business, they needed to send him the heads and hands of all the Pequot refugees in their midst. A few days later, the Long Island messenger did just that.
In these weeks, the Pequots only managed to inflict a couple successful attacks on the English, most notably destroying one shallop and killing its three-person crew around Six Mile Island.
By July, most of the small groups had been destroyed or dispersed, and there was only one large group of Pequots left, consisting of 200 people, 80 of whom were warriors who had gathered after the destruction of smaller groups. They were making their way for Mohawk territory in Manhattan. One Pequot captive agreed to guide the English to the group if they would spare his life and the lives of his family members. The English agreed, and he took them to a village near New Haven, where the Pequots had taken refuge with a local tribe. When the English arrived, both tribes fled into a nearby swamp which was surrounded by bushes too thick for the English to enter. The English fired into the thickets, and Salem’s Richard Davenport unsuccessfully tried to force his way in using swords. It was clear that the tribes were protected, and with the English surrounding the swamp, the Indians couldn’t get out, either.
The English sent Stanton into the swamp to ask the Indians to surrender and give up the murderers, and after he delivered his message, there was a lull. In this time, Indians started to trickle out of the swamp to ask for mercy, and after a few hours, nearly 200 had left. The local sachem then offered to give the English all his property, which was virtually nothing, if he’d spare their lives, and the English agreed. Finally, it was only the warriors left, and they refused to surrender. Given the treatment of former warriors, their lives would likely be forfeit, anyway. Stanton returned to the swamp to repeat the English offer, and the Pequots responded that, as they’d lived together, they’d die together. They attacked Stanton and wounded him so severely that he almost died. The English and Pequots fought off and on through the night, and in the morning, the warriors took advantage of the thick fog to sneak through Patrick’s lines on the far side of the swamp and escape. The 180 captives were again taken to Hartford and Boston.
The Battle of Munnacommock Swamp was the last stand of the Pequots. After this, the English stayed in the area, destroying Pequot crops and preventing fugitives from returning to their former homes. They started burning more homes and crops at Block Island, but the residents quickly surrendered. More and more tribes submitted themselves to English authority, and Massachusetts set a price on the heads of surviving Pequots. 1500 more were killed in the next two months, and no other tribes dared to harbor the survivors.
By the time Sassacus and the surviving warriors finally reached the Mohawks, the Mohawks were afraid enough of the English that they immediately killed them and sent their scalps to Boston as a peace offering. There, they were put on public display as trophies.
The war ended at Hartford in September 1638, when Connecticut-area settlers, Mohegans and Narragansetts met to establish the post-war order. They negotiated, drafted and signed the Tripartite Treaty, or Treaty of Hartford. The Massachusetts Bay Colony wasn’t invited to these negotiations.
The treaty addressed three primary issues – first dealing with the spoils of war, second, establishing peace among the victors, and third, establishing jurisdictional dominance and order in the region. Now, the fundamental thing to understand before we move on is that the Connecticut English were establishing themselves as the victors, who claimed the spoils by right of conquest. The others – the Narragansetts, Mohegans and Massachusetts English – weren’t included in this. They were allies, but not the central force which had defeated the Pequots.
Regarding point one, the Hartford treaty dissolved the Pequot Nation. It wouldn’t become a legally recognized entity until 1983. Connecticut and their allies had to deal with the prisoners they’d taken, and the Pequots’ former land. Around the time of negotiations, they also ended up with 200 Pequots who submitted themselves to English authority. One of the surviving Pequot sachems reached out, and told the English that, of a pre-war population of 3,000, fewer than 200 of their tribe were left, excluding captives. The sachem said they’d submit themselves to English authority, knowing they were defeated, and the English accepted their surrender. So these, not exactly prisoners, also had to be dealt with.
They ultimately decided to have those 200 integrate into the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes, and to stipulate that they must stop calling themselves Pequots, and to stay away from their former land.
As for the actual prisoners, 30 more men were executed, and the rest became slaves. The ones who had been taken to Boston weren’t included in the treaty, but of the ones living in Connecticut, 180 went to the Narragansetts and Mohegans, who would pay for them with a tribute of a fathom of wampum for every adult male, half a fathom for every youth, and a handful of wampum for every child who went to live in their territories.
This wasn’t an attempt to directly undermine the Mohegans and Narragansetts. It was meant to enforce the idea that the Pequots were subject to the English. Whether slave or free, they were under English control, not native. The English would get the final say in issues involving the tribe. Roger Williams had actually suggested a similar idea, though he had said the tribute should be paid in the form of wolves heads, which would have the additional benefit of reducing the threat to English cattle.
As for land, Connecticut again claimed it by right of conquest. They renamed the Pequot River the Thames, and the town of Pequot, New London. Both Narragansett and Mohegan would need Connecticut permission before settling in the area, but more notably, this provision caused issues with the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which also wanted (and expected) a portion of the land and had been left out of the negotiations. Massachusetts also argued that it had established its own right to Pequot land under its previous treaties with the Narragansetts and Mohegans. Massachusetts argued that the Hartford Treaty had usurped its rights, and disputes over former Pequot territory would continue for centuries.
As a result of this dominance, though, Connecticut was able to collect tribute from local tribes and former Pequot tributaries, resulting in a massive influx of wampum into what had previously been a weak and poor collection of towns.
Second, peace. The Mohegans and Narragansetts agreed to help the English capture and kill any remaining Pequot warriors who had killed Englishmen, and agreed not to shelter anyone who might be an English enemy. They would also defend English interests, including protecting the lives of English settlers and livestock that strayed onto their lands, and in return the English would pay for damage the livestock had done. Mohegans and Narragansetts would also act as a first line of defense for the English, rescuing people from wrecked ships and warning the English about any mischief local tribes were planning against the English. No group, English included, would encroach on each other’s hunting grounds.
If any one of the parties broke the treaty, the other two were allowed to join forces and declare war on the offender unless they changed their behavior. And, the English could compel the others to oppose any obstinate or refusing party.
In addition, and this is perhaps the single most important provision of the entire treaty, both the Narragansetts and the Mohegans agreed to allow the English to settle all disputes involving their tribes. Even if no English were involved in a given dispute, Connecticut would settle it.
And that’s the third major point of the treaty. No English charter had put Indians under English jurisdiction, and no colony had ever been powerful enough to seriously do this. In Virginia, the English had tried to cohabitate with the Powhatan until the 1622 massacre, after which they’d just pushed the offending parties out of English lands. Plymouth was in no way big enough to control Indian behavior. Massachusetts had been more focused on internal struggles, and conflicts with their own government and European powers. But, New England had essentially been experiencing a power vacuum since 1616, and the Pequot War had solidified English dominance. Though they were small, Connecticut was able to take a role governing the Indians, even the larger tribes. This was a huge deal, and again a source of conflict with Massachusetts. Indian sachems still had authority over their own people, but inter-tribal relations, as well as relations with the English, would be firmly governed by those in Connecticut.
As the biggest tribes in the region, the Narragansetts and Mohegans had a rivalry, and Connecticut hegemony didn’t end it. It just made the English a focal point of that rivalry. The two groups had vastly different approaches to the English, and the rivalry, too. Uncas had always seen alliance with the English as the way to power. That’s why he jumped at the opportunity to help them militarily during the war, and after the Hartford Treaty, Uncas gave the English most of Eastern Connecticut, just as a gift, to maintain favor. And, River Indian sachems soon followed his example, ceding massive tracts of land to Connecticut for virtually no payment.
On the other hand, the Narragansetts always valued their independence and autonomy. They had only reluctantly signed a treaty with Massachusetts, and even during the war, they’d sent Roger Williams a list of criticisms about English behavior regarding land, corn and captives, also complaining about their unnecessarily high number of casualties during the Mystic raid. Williams had remained firmly loyal to the English, but did voice his sympathy for Narragansett complaints, and his opposition to English behavior during and after the war, saying their behavior, repeatedly, wasn’t Biblically sanctioned.
And it wasn’t long before the English had to mediate their first dispute between the two. The next spring, 300 Pequot refugees and escaped captives moved back to their old territory to set up a town and cornfields, and the English and Mohegans went to push them out. They burned the wigwams, took the corn and valuables, and destroyed what they couldn’t carry. The Pequots didn’t resist, except when the English tried to stop them from fleeing into the woods, but they were captured and given to the Mohegans. The Narragansetts claimed the Pequots, some of whom had previously been living with them, should rightfully be returned to them. The English mediated the dispute, and the captives stayed with the Mohegans.
Faced with Narragansett aloofness, though, the English became skeptical of the tribe’s intentions. Roger Williams consistently tried to advocate on the Narragansetts’s behalf, but his efforts were only partially successful. Uncas and other sachems began to circulate rumors that Miantonomo had incorporated Pequot warriors into his fighting force, intending to use them in a future war against the Puritans. They concluded that the Narragansetts wanted to “be the only Lords of the Indians,” and were thus a threat to Puritan security. Other rumors circulated that the Narragnsetts were trying to bribe the Mohawks to join them in a war of extermination against the English.
Massachusetts was obviously also unhappy with the Hartford Treaty. They’d done as much as Connecticut to win the war, but whereas Connecticut had essentially been made by the war, with the region’s colonies walking away with a huge amount of prime land, and vast quantities of wampum, as well as political hegemony – Massachusetts got virtually nothing. They got plenty of the captives, but that was it. In the months before the war, the treaty Roger Williams had drafted had seemed like a great victory, but the Pequot defeat left Massachusetts wondering just how much more it could have gotten, feeling cheated out of what should have rightfully been theirs, and figuring out how to get what they were entitled to.
First, the Bay Colony asserted the right and title to all Pequot lands between New Haven and New London, beginning a land dispute with Connecticut which would last well into the 18th Century. Then they started treating the Narragansetts as if the Hartford Treaty applied to them. For example, when Massachusetts livestock were killed for encroaching on Narragansett hunting grounds, the colony demanded that Miantonomo and Canonicus pay for the killed animals. The sachems responded that by the terms of their agreement, they weren’t obligated to pay for what their subjects did. They’d happily send the offending Indians for punishment, but that punishment would come from the delinquents, not the sachems. Still, Massachusetts persisted. The next year, they even demanded compensation for some horses which had been caught in a trap belonging to a tribe which had no relation to the Narragansetts. And again, the Narragansetts refused.
The last person to die as part of the Pequot War was a man named Nepaupuck, who was tried at New Haven at the end of October, 1639, a month after the Hartford Treaty was signed. He had participated in the Wethersfield raid and assaulted a shallop to try to help Sassacus escape. He was arrested, and after a short trial, charged with murder and beheaded, and his head stuck on a pole in the town square.
This was the story of the Pequot War, and over the course of time, it’s become one of the most debated episodes in early New England history. At what point did war become inevitable? At what point did the Pequots even expect that the conflict would lead to war? These are questions that we may never know the answer to, but the effect of the war is indisputable.
The war made Connecticut rich and powerful, something which was enhanced even more as they levied fines against various tribes for various offenses, according to the Hartford Agreement. They got lots of wampum, lots of land for virtually no money, and they walked away as the supreme power of the region. Meanwhile, it damaged relations between Connecticut and Massachusetts, and sewed the seeds of conflict between both colonies and the Narragansett tribe.
For his role in the war, Mason got a promotion, command of all Connecticut forces, and would go on to become deputy governor of the colony. On the other hand, Underhill was exiled for his support of Anne Hutchinson, moved to Long Island, and worked for the Dutch as an Indian fighter.
And there’s one last effect of the war which emerged over the course of the following years. It was in the aftermath of the Pequot War that Massachusetts and later Connecticut legalized slavery for the first time in English North American history. 1638 was the inaugural year of the Massachusetts-Caribbean slave trade, with the Desire making its first successful voyage, the first African slaves were brought into the colony, and many of the Pequots, who proved frustratingly difficult to control, were sent to Bermuda, and either sold or traded for Africans. Some were blown off course and ended up in Providence Island. Slavery would be codified in the Body of Liberties first proposed in 1638, and passed in 1641, and the enslaving of Indian captives created precedents for other colonies in the New World, particularly those owned by the Dutch.
Now, we’ve spent the last six weeks discussing just two years (and we’re not exactly done with them), but they were easily the two most formative years in New England history. They turned a group of disparate individuals with a common-ish goal, into a people with a common identity. They reshaped Puritan society both internally and externally, politically and socially. That’s not to say that there wouldn’t be future disputes or divisions, and in fact multiple conflicts we’ll discuss over the rest of this series have their roots in these two years. But, what it does mean, is that from 1638 forward, New England Puritan development would be focused, unified, and unstoppable.