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Drawing of the 1637 "Mystic Massacre" from a manuscript by John Underhill

The massacre at Fort Mystic and the Puritan “Wars of the Lord”

The first light of dawn flickered through the trees as soldiers rushed to take position around the fort. Twenty soldiers from Massachusetts commanded by Captain John Underhill prepared to storm the south gate. Another sixty from Connecticut under Captain John Mason would move against the northeast gate. Behind them, some three hundred Natives—Mohegans, Eastern Niantics, and Narragansetts—formed a perimeter surrounding the fort to prevent anyone from escaping.

It was Friday, 26 May 1637. Inside the fort, known as Mystic, in modern day eastern Connecticut, between four hundred and seven hundred Pequots lay sleeping. As the soldiers crept forward, a dog started barking. The soldiers opened fire. Although the Pequots had been taken by surprise, they offered bitter resistance. Soldiers cut their way into the fort, which they found crammed full of wigwams. Soon as many as twenty soldiers were killed or wounded.

Captain Mason made a snap decision: “We must burn them.” The wigwams were covered with mats made from “rushes and hempen threads” that lit easily. The soldiers withdrew, and the densely packed wigwams quickly became an inferno. Mason ordered his soldiers and their Indian allies to prevent anyone from escaping. While some Pequots fought on, others, including groups of women and children, tried to flee the fort. Soldiers cut them down with swords. “Down fell men, women, and children,” Captain Underhill recalled. “Not above five of them escaped out of our hands.” Only seven were taken prisoner. The rest were killed.

A relieved Mason later proclaimed that the victory belonged to God. “God was above them, who laughed his enemies and the enemies of his people to scorn, making them as a fiery oven,” he crowed. Thus did the LORD judge among the heathen, filling the place with dead bodies.” Like his soldiers, Mason viewed the massacre as vengeance on the Pequots for their brutal raid on the Connecticut town of Wethersfield, back in April, in which nine unsuspecting settlers had been killed. Puritan pastors had assured the soldiers that their cause was just and that God was with them: the heathen were servants of Satan who threatened not only their families and communities, but Christ’s nascent kingdom in the American wilderness.

This was not why the Puritans had come to America. When their leaders recruited potential colonists in England and lobbied the crown for permission to migrate, they had emphasized that their efforts would result in the salvation of the Natives. Indeed, the Massachusetts Bay colony charter, issued in 1629, declared that the “principal” purpose of the colony was to “win and incite the natives of [the] country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Savior of mankind, and the Christian faith.” The colony seal depicted a humble Indian petitioning the English to “come over and help us,” which was exactly what most Puritans thought they were doing. They viewed their efforts as a sort of spiritual warfare in which they were saving Native souls from Satan’s tyranny.

Their efforts had begun peacefully enough. Alliances and trade relations had been established with many Native communities. But many Puritans had imagined that the Natives would embrace Christianity with open arms, and this did not happen. When Indians aligned with the Pequots killed an English trader, the English felt they had to retaliate with a raid against the Pequots. When the Pequots retaliated in kind, the English decided to destroy them. A spiritual war for Native souls devolved into a military campaign to obliterate a Native nation.

The massacre at Mystic was a low point in English-Native relations, and the Pequot War was relatively brief. The support of the Mohegans, Eastern Niantics, and Narragansetts for colonial forces is a reminder that more Indians supported the English during the Pequot War than opposed them. If anything, English military dominance enhanced the credibility of Christianity among Indians. A renegade Pequot named Wequash, who had guided colonial forces to Fort Mystic, was so stunned by English power that he became convinced their God was real, converted to Christianity, and began to evangelize other Natives. During the 1640s, numerous Native communities began to submit to the English and accept Christianity. Thanks to the efforts of missionaries like John Eliot and Thomas Mayhew, over the next three largely peaceful decades, thousands of Natives would accept Christianity. Some twenty “praying towns” were organized where Indians were guaranteed their land in exchange for submitting to Christian teaching and administering their own Christian governments.

Nevertheless, the massacre at Mystic was a constant reminder of what the English could do if America’s First People resisted them. The Puritans wanted to conquer the Indians for Christianity through love and justice, but they were willing to conquer them by force if provoked, and they were fully convinced that this too was in accord with God’s will. Conscientious Christians would protest cases of injustice, but there was never a doubt whose side they would take if war broke out.

It all came to a head in King Philip’s War, perhaps the bloodiest war per capita in American history, fought in 1675-1676. Once again, the English and their Indian allies–some Christian, others not–squared off with their Indian enemies. This time the conflict would rage across New England and beyond. Puritan ministers reminded their people that they deserved God’s wrath, but they also insisted that God would not abandon them if they repented and faithfully defended Christ’s kingdom. Their Christian Indian allies did not disagree. Some Indians believed their own welfare required supporting the English. Others were convinced that the English had to be defeated. Religion, culture, trade, government, even simple survival–everything was at stake. All came down to the catastrophe of a war that would decide the fate of New England.

Featured image Engraver unknown. Author of folio was John Underhill (1597-1672). Photo-Facsimile by Edward Bierstadt (1824–1906), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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