Dutch and Indigenous Communities in Seventeenth-Century Northeastern North America by Lucianne Lavin;

Author:Lucianne Lavin; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2021-08-03T21:00:00+00:00

7.

Early Seventeenth-Century Trade in Southern New England

KEVIN A. MCBRIDE

This chapter examines the nature, mechanics, and material culture of the trade between the Pequot, Dutch, and English between ca. 1611 and June 1637. The beginning date correlates with the arrival of Dutch explorers and traders in Long Island Sound, and the later date corresponds to the defeat of the Pequot in the Pequot War of 1636–37, when they fled their homeland shortly after the Battles of Mistick Fort and the English Withdrawal on May 26, 1637. The data used in this analysis is drawn from Dutch and English historical sources dating between 1611 and 1637 and archaeological data consisting of over 450 iron, brass, ceramic, and lead trade items that are believed to date to the same time period. The items are Dutch or English in origin and were recovered from five Pequot domestic sites identified during metal detector surveys of the Battle of the English Withdrawal.1

The Pequot War began in September 1636, when a Massachusetts Bay force of twenty men under the command of Colonel John Endicott landed in Pequot territory along the Thames River to demand the murderers of Captain John Stone and his crew who were killed by the Pequot in January 1634. The Pequot employed a number of delaying tactics and in frustration the English burned two villages and killed several Pequot. In retaliation, the Pequot laid siege to Saybrook Fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River for the next seven months, killing dozens of English soldiers, traders, and settlers. On April 23 the Pequot attacked the English settlement at Wethersfield, killing nine settlers, including women and children, and took two girls captive. In response, the English declared an Offensive War against the Pequot on May 1, 1637 and made plans to attack the Pequot fortified village at Mystic with a force of seventy-seven English soldiers and 250 Mohegan, Narragansett, Eastern Niantic, and Wangunk allies. The surprise dawn attack took place on May 26, 1637 and resulted in the deaths of four hundred Pequot men, women, and children, half of whom burned to death. The Battle of the English Withdrawal began a few hours later and consisted of a 4.5-mile, ten-hour fighting retreat against hundreds of Pequot fighting men who had mobilized after the Mistick Fort Battle in one of the longest and most intense battles of the Pequot War.2

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