"Wild Horse". Native American Art & History. Native people tribe. Pequot

Pequot war,
1636

If the Mohegan are included, the Pequot probably numbered around 6,000 in 1620. After a major smallpox epidemic during the winter of 1633-34 and the separation of the Mohegan, there were still about 3,000 Pequot in 1637. Less than half are believed to have survived the Pequot War of that year. The terms of peace treaty afterwards systematically dismembered them in a manner designed to insure that the Pequot would no longer exist as a tribe. A few Pequot eluded capture and were given refuge by other New England Algonquin, but this was the exception. Most of the captured Pequot warriors were executed, and the English sold the remainder as slaves to the West Indies.Some of the women and children were distributed as "servants" to colonial households in New England. The Narragansett and Eastern Niantic accepted some Pequot, and one band of Pequot was exiled to Long Island and became subject to the Metoac. For the most part, these Pequot were absorbed by their "hosts" within a few years and disappeared.

Pequot man

The remainder were placed under the Mohegan, and it is from this group that the two current Pequot tribes have evolved. The Mohegan treated their Pequot so badly that by 1655 the English were forced to remove them. Two reservations were established for the Pequot in 1666 and 1683. By 1762 there were only 140 Pequot, and the decline continued until reaching a low-point of 66 in the 1910 census. At present, the State of Connecticut recognizes two Pequot tribes: Mashantucket and Paucatuck. The 600 Paucatuck (Eastern Pequot) have retained the Lantern Hill Reservation (226 acres) at North Stonington but are not federally recognized. The Mashantucket (Western Pequot) received federal recognition in 1983. Created from lands purchased from the profits of a bingo operation and successful land claim settlement, their Ledyard reservation has expanded to 1,800 acres. Dramatic changes occurred after a gambling casino began to generate enormous profits in 1992, and with 320 members, the Mashantucket have suddenly discovered that they have many "long-lost relatives."

Highly-organized, aggressive and warlike, the Pequot dominated Connecticut before 1637, a pattern continued later by the closely related Mohegan. As were their neighbors, the Pequot were an agricultural people who raised corn, beans, squash, and tobacco. Hunting, with an emphasis on fish and seafood because of their coastal location, provided the remainder of their diet. Clothing and housing were also similar - buckskin and semi-permanent villages of medium-sized longhouses and wigwams. For this reason, it is difficult today to distinguish between the site of a Pequot village and that of another tribe. The main difference being that Pequot villages were almost always heavily fortified. The Pequot were not that much larger than the tribes surrounding them, but they differed from other Algonquin in their political structure. Highly organized, the strong central authority exercised by their tribal council and grand sachem gave the Pequot a considerable military advantage over their neighbors. In this way, the Pequot were more like the Narragansett of Rhode Island and the Mahican of New York's Hudson Valley (with whom they are frequently confused).