Video Review – Massacre at Mystic

Video Review – Massacre at Mystic

What was the justification given for the Massacre of the Pequot Natives by the British?

On May 26, 1637, a Puritan force that had fortified Native Indian allies massacred a Pequot fort. The fort was located in Connecticut. More than 500 men, children, and women were killed during the massacre while the village was burned to ashes. The attack carried out at pre-dawn was the first time that the Pequot faced defeat. In the first 8 months of the war, the Pequot did not face any defeat in battle with the English army. Tactically, the former was more superior to the latter even when the former lacked firearms. The Pequot had won every war until the time that the Mystic Massacre took place. Captain John Mason led the English-orchestrated massacre, and this was the first ‘total war’ documented. The English army killed all the American Indians at Pequot and made no distinction between helpless children and women and armed warriors. In justifying the attack, Captain Mason stated that the attack against the Natives was an act of God. This justification was made in Mason’s Brief History of the Pequot War, which was later published in 1736, long after his demise. In the Brief, Mason stated that: God “laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to scorn making [the Pequot] as a fiery Oven… Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling [Mystic] with dead Bodies.” (Duffy, 2014)

How did this massacre change the way the war was conducted with Native Americans by Europeans from this point forward?

According to Grandjean (2011), there were significant implications that came from the massacre. The British sent a crucial message to the Native Indians, and that the former had the military means and political will to exact their will upon the native group. The British wanted the Native Indians to know, after the massacre, that the new inhabitants had the policy of assimilation. The British, after the war, were unwilling to attempt any diplomacy; hence, the relationship that the British had with the Natives was based on wielding and displaying the military threat they posed to the natives.

The following two months after the Pequot massacre, the English went on to massacre Native Indians in two other villages also located in Pequot, on the 5^th of June and 28^th of July. Most of the natives who survived the massacres escaped and joined other tribes in southern New England, while others were sold as slaves. However, the Pequot eventually returned and once again became one of the US’s most powerful tribes. In the 1970s, close to 300 years following the Pequot War, tribal groups started to move back to restore their community and land base.

References

Duffy, S. E. (2014). The Pequot War: 1636–1638. In The Routledge Handbook of American Military and Diplomatic History (pp. 40-46). Routledge.

Grandjean, K. A. (2011). The Long Wake of the Pequot War. Early American Studies, 379-411.

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After viewing the video (Massacre at Mystic), answer the following questions:
What was the justification given for the Massacre of the Pequot Natives by the British?
How did this massacre change the way the war was conducted with Native Americans by Europeans from this point forward?