P
The Pequot massacre has enormous ramifica-
tions for Indian-white relations in the colonies. In
addition to nearly destroying the Pequot as tribe,
the slaughter sends a message to other area Indians
that resistance to the English is futile. It also helps
unite the Massachusetts colonists, who have been
struggling with dissension within their leadership.
By demonizing the Pequot, the English come to see
the massacre as a shared victory in a holy war. Pu-
ritan minister Cotton Mather celebrates the killings
by writing, “No less than six hundred souls were
brought down to hell that day.” (See also entry for
1638.)
“It was a fearful sight to see
them thus frying in the fire and
the streams of blood quench-
ing the same, and horrible was
the stink and scent thereof; but
the victory seemed a sweet
sacrifice, and they gave the
praise thereof to God, who
had wrought so wonderfully
for them, thus to enclose their
enemies in their hands and
give them so speedy a victory
over so proud and insulting an
enemy.”
—Plymouth leader William
Bradford on the slaughter of
the Pequot Indians1638The Treaty of Hartford ends the
Pequot War.
The hostilities between the Massachusetts
colonists and the Pequot Indians are officially con-
cluded with the Treaty of Hartford. Decimated by
the colonists’ attack on their principal village (see
entry for MAY 25, 1637), the now-powerless Pe-
quot are offered nothing in the treaty. It holds that
any Pequot who escaped massacre will be forced to
live as a slave with an English-allied tribe. It also
forbids the Pequot from ever again living in their
former lands.MarchThe Swedish buy Indian land in the
Delaware Valley.
With the help of Dutch envoy Peter Minuit, Swed-
ish colonists purchase land along what is now
Delaware Bay from the Indians of the region. The
settlement they establish at the site of present-day
Wilmington, Delaware, is the first in New Sweden.
Although the Swedish presence in North America
remains limited, the Swedes will become important
trading partners of the Susquehannock (see entry
for 1643), Lenni Lenape (Delaware), and Mingo
until the colony is dissolved in the 1650s.November 14The English establish the first Indian
reservation.
The English compel the Wappinger Indians of pres-
ent-day Connecticut to cede most of their territory.
The agreement reserves only 1,200 acres for the
tribe’s use. The Indians are forbidden from leav-
ing or selling this land, and their activities are to be
monitored by an English agent. The arrangement
represents the earliest enforcement of many ele-
ments of later reservation policy.1639The Dutch tax their Indian neighbors.
The governor of the Dutch West India Company,
Willem Kieft, attempts to help finance the strug-
gling colony of New Netherlands by imposing
a tax on nearby tribes. The tax—payable in furs,
wampum, or corn—is greatly resented by the