This book offers the first full-scale analysis of the Pequot War (1636-37), a pivotal event in New England colonial history. Through an innovative rereading of the Puritan sources, Alfred A. Cave refutes claims that settlers acted defensively to counter a Pequot conspiracy to exterminate Europeans. Drawing on archaeological, linguistic, and anthropological evidences to trace the evolution of the conflict, he sheds new light on the motivations of the Pequots and their Indian allies, the fur trade, and the cultural values and attitudes in New England. He also provides a reappraisal of the interaction of ideology and self- interest as motivating factors in the Puritan attack on the Pequots.

This book offers an overview of the Pequot, including their history, the Pequot War, homes, food, clothing, religion, and government.

Before their massacre by Massachusetts Puritans in 1637, the Pequots were preeminent in southern New England. Their location on the eastern Connecticut shore made them important producers of the wampum required to trade for furs from the Iroquois. They were also the only Connecticut Indians to oppose the land-hungry English. For those reasons, they became the first victims of white genocide in colonial America. Despite the Pequot War of 1637, and the greed and neglect of their white neighbors and "overseers," the Pequots endured in their ancestral homeland. In 1983 they achieved federal recognition. In 1987 they commemorated the 350th anniversary of the Pequot War by organizing the Mashantucket Pequot Historical Conference, at which distinguished scholars presented the articles assembled here.

In 1637 the Puritans of Massachusetts and the fledgling colony of Connecticut declared war on the Pequot Indians--the most powerful of all the New England tribes.The Pequots' seat of power was near the mouth of the Thames River, at New London and Mystic. The area under their control, roughly two thousand square miles, stretched far beyond the Connecticut River and included parts of Long Island.The objective of the English was not merely to defeat the Pequots, but to annihilate them entirely, to destroy them as a people. The Pequot War was the first genocidal war fought in New England.What--if anything--had the Pequots done to incur the wrath of the English? Why did the English undertake such a vicious campaign? Why did the Narragansetts and Mohegans side with the English? What role did the Dutch play in the war? Why did the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony refuse Massachusetts' request for assistance?Edward Lodi provides answers to these and other questions. Drawing upon numerous sources, including seventeenth-century narratives by men who fought in the war--John Mason, leader of the Connecticut forces; John Underhill, leader of the Massachusetts forces; and Lion Gardiner, in charge of the fort at Saybrook--Lodi presents a lively description of the war, along with a Chronology and Brief Biographies of more than one hundred and fifty significant players: English, Indian, and Dutch.