Gordis

ASH 3002y Approaches to American Culture, 1607-1865
February 10, 1999

The Pequot War

Overview:  Why did this happen? 

• seventeenth-century vs. twentieth-century assignment of blame
  • seventeenth-century explanations
  • twentieth-century explanations
• role of Stone's murder
• maps
  • Maps of Seventeenth-century Native American Settlements
  • Map of Pequot War Battle Sites
  • contest between Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay for sovereignty over Connecticut
    River Valley (See animated map of state formation)
• Go over timeline
  • See also Timeline of Events at Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.
• Other connections, including Antinomian Controversy.

Discussion of seventeenth-century accounts:

• John Mason, A Brief History of the Pequot War:   Especially of the memorable Taking of their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637.  ed. Charles Orr.  Cleveland:  Helman-Taylor, 1897. (This text is available in Adobe Acrobat format as well.)
  • Mason's biblical allusions
• Gardener, Lion.  Leift Lion Gardener his relation of the Pequot Warres.  Boston, 1833.  History of the Pequot War, ed. Charles Orr.  Cleveland:  Helman-Taylor, 1897.
• Attack on the Pequot Village at Mystic, Connecticut

Revised accounts:

• Comparison of seventeenth-century accounts with Tribal Nation History   presented at the web site of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.
• Consider Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center website more generally.

Connection to Moby-Dick:

• Issue of ship name.
• Ruminations on naming more generally--see especially chapter 16, pp. 88-89.

Resources for further exploration:

• Axelrod, Alan.  Chronicle of the Indian Wars:  From Colonial Times to Wounded Knee.  New York:  Prentice Hall, 1993.
• Cave, Alfred A.  The Pequot War.  Amherst:  U of Massachusetts P, 1996.
• Gardener, Lion.  Leift Lion Gardener his relation of the Pequot Warres.  Boston, 1833.  History of the Pequot War, ed. Charles Orr.  Cleveland:  Helman-Taylor, 1897.
• Hall, David D., ed.  The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638:   A Documentary History.  2nd ed.   Durham and London:  Duke UP, 1990.
• Jennings, Francis.  The Invasion of America:  Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest.  New York:  W. W. Norton, 1976
• Mason, John.  A Brief History of the Pequot War:   Especially of the memorable Taking of their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637.  Boston, 1736.  History of the Pequot War, ed. Charles Orr.  Cleveland:  Helman-Taylor, 1897.
• Captain John Underhill's biography at the Underhill Society of America