Mystic Massacre

The Mystic massacre took place on May 26, 1637 during the Pequot War, when English settlers under Captain John Mason and Narragansett and Mohegan allies set fire to a fortified Pequot village near the Mystic River. They shot any people who tried to escape the wooden palisade fortress and killed the entire village in retaliation for previous Pequot attacks. The only Pequot survivors were warriors who had been with their sachem Sassacus in a raiding party outside the village.

The Pequots were the dominant Indian tribe in southeastern Connecticut and had long competed with the neighboring Mohegan and Narragansett tribes. When the English and Dutch arrived, they established trade policies, trading such things as wampum for European goods.

The Pequots eventually allied with the Dutch, while the Mohegans and others allied with the English. European population growth led to greater expansion, leading to eventual conflict with Indian populations. A series of infectious diseases drastically reduced the overall Indian population, such as smallpox to which the Indians had no immunity—although the Pequot and Narragansett tribes were not heavily affected.

A trader named John Oldham was murdered and his trading ship looted by Pequots, and retaliation raids ensued by settlers and their Indian allies; the Pequots responded in kind, erupting into the Pequot War.

The Connecticut towns raised a militia commanded by Captain John Mason consisting of 90 men, plus 70 Mohegans under sachems Uncas and Wequash. Twenty more men under Captain John Underhill joined him from Fort Saybrook.

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