1. Early in 1621 the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts, made a treaty with Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoags, who inhabited the eastern part of the State. This treaty was observed by all the Indian tribes in the vicinity for a long time, and it was not until three years after the first settlers arrived in Connecticut that an Indian war broke out.
2. The Pequots were a small but very warlike tribe, living upon Long Island Sound, near the border of Rhode Island. These Indians attacked the settlers, and in 1627 they killed three men at Saybrook, and six men and three women at Wethersfield.
3. These things caused great alarm, and a council was called at Hartford to consider what was to be done. A force, consisting of ninety white men and seventy friendly Indians, under the command of Captain Mason, were sent against them.
4. They went down the Connecticut River from Hartford to Saybrook in boats, and thence eastward along the Sound to the Indian fort Mystic, near where Stonington now stands. They reached the spot about daybreak. The Pequots had no suspicion that an enemy was near. But as they reached the fort a dog barked, and the Indian sentinel called out, "Owanux! Owanux!" (Englishmen! Englishmen!), and the savages sprang to arms. The soldiers fired and killed many Indians, but it was a fight of the little army of whites against six hundred.
5. The Indians fought bravely, and Captain Mason, fearful of being defeated, called out, "We must burn them!" A torch was applied to a wigwam, and soon the whole fort was in flames. Seventy wigwams were burned, and six hundred men, women, and children perished.
6. A few Indians escaped, and, joining others of their tribe, took refuge in a swamp in Fairfield. Here the whites pursued them, and killed and captured nearly the whole tribe. The prisoners and all that remained alive of the Pequots, were divided and given to the Mohicans and the Narragansetts, two tribes friendly to the English.