Endicott's raid


 * See main article Pequot War

Origins
Animosity amongst the New England trading tribes developed in the early 1630s with the arrival of the English in the Connecticut River Valley. A couple of incidents resulted in the deaths of Englishmen John Stone and John Oldham (1592-1636) at the hands of the natives which they blamed on their rivals the Pequot.

News of Oldham's death became the subject of raging sermons in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In August 1636, Governor Vane sent John Endecott to exact revenge on the Indians of Block Island. Endecott's party of roughly 90 men (mostly from Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony) sailed to Block Island and attacked two apparently abandoned Niantic villages.

In 1636 the boat of Massachusetts trader John Oldham was seen anchored off Block Island, swarming with Indians. The Indians fled at the approach of the investigating colonists, and Oldham's body was found below the main deck. The attackers were at the time believed to be from tribes affiliated with the Narragansetts, but Narragansett leaders claimed that those responsible had fled to the protection of the Pequots. At the time the Pequots were aggressively expansionist in their dealings with the surrounding native tribes (including the Narragansett), but had generally kept the peace with the English colonists of present-day southern New England. The accusation of the Narraganssetts angered Massachusetts authorities (then under governor Henry Vane), who were already upset that the Pequots had earlier failed to turn over men implicated in killing another trader on the Connecticut River. This second perceived affront produced calls in Massachusetts for action against the Pequots. In August 1636 Governor Vane placed Endecott at the head of a 90-man force to extract justice from the Pequots.

1636 raiding force
Endecott's instructions were to go to Block Island, where he was to kill all of the Indian men and take captive the women and children. He was then to go to the Pequots on the mainland, where he was to make three demands: first, that the killers of Oldham and the other trader be surrendered; second, that a payment of one thousand fathoms of wampum be made; and third, that some Pequot children be delivered to serve as hostages. Endecott executed these instructions with zeal. Although most of the Indians on Block Island only briefly opposed the English landing there, he spent two days destroying their villages, crops and canoes; most of the Indians on the island successfully eluded English searches for them. English reports claimed as many as 14 Indians were killed, but the Narragansetts only reported one dead. Endecott then sailed for Saybrook, an English settlement at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Lion Gardiner, the leader there, angrily informed Endecott when he learned of the mission's goals, "You come hither to raise these wasps around my ears, and then you will take wing and flee away."

After some discussion and delays due to bad weather, Gardiner and a company of his men agreed to accompany the Massachusetts force to raid the Pequot harvest stores. When they arrived at the Pequot village near the mouth of the Thames River, they returned the friendly greetings of the inhabitants with stony silence. Eventually a Pequot sachem rowed out to meet them; the English delivered their demands, threatening war if they did not receive satisfaction. When the sachem left to discuss the matter in the village, Endecott gave a promise to await his return; however, shortly after the sachem left, he began landing his fully armed men on shore. The sachem rushed back, claiming the senior tribal leaders were away on Long Island; Endecott responded that this was a lie, and ordered an attack on the village. Most of the villagers got away, and once again the expedition's activity was reduced to destroying the village and seizing its crop stores; Gardiner reported that "[t]he Bay-men killed not a man". After completing this work, Endecott and the Massachusetts men boarded their boats to return to Boston, leaving Gardiner and his men to finish the removal of the crops. The Pequots regrouped and launched an attack on Gardiner's party whose armor protected them from the arrowfire, but their escape was nevertheless difficult.

Historian Alfred Cave describes Endecott's actions as a "heavy-handed provocation of an Indian war." All of the surrounding colonies protested the action, complaining that the lives of their citizens were placed in jeopardy by the raid. Since the Pequots had previously been relatively peaceful with the English, Endecott's raid had the effect Gardiner predicted and feared. Communities on the Connecticut River were attacked in April 1637, and Gardiner was virtually besieged in Saybrook by Pequot forces. Endecott had no further role in the war, which ended with the destruction of the Pequots as a tribe; their land was divided up by the colonies and their Indian allies in the 1638 Treaty of Hartford, and the surviving tribespeople were distributed among their neighbors.