Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center

By 1638, two years of war had stripped the Pequots of their former power. The tribe was utterly defeated, but some two thousand Pequots survived. Still fearful of the potential military power of the Pequots, the English banished all surviving Pequots from their traditional territory and placed them under the control of tribes friendly to the English cause. For some survivors, this meant submitting to the authority of a tribe they once dominated—the Mohegans, whose leader Uncas was a sworn enemy of the Pequots.

Pequots Under Mohegan Control

The Mohegans played a vital role in the English victory against the Pequots, and as a reward for his service, Uncas was given control of close to a thousand Pequot survivors. Some were incorporated directly into the Mohegan tribe, and lost their identity as Pequots. Another group lived separately, but under Uncas's control in a place called Nameag, just outside their former territory, near the site of present-day New London.

“They answered to Uncas, they paid tribute to Uncas, and they provided warriors to Uncas if called upon,” says Dr. Kevin McBride of the University of Connecticut and the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, “but the entire history of the Nameag Pequots indicates constant efforts to maintain their separateness.”

The Surviving Pequots Find an Ally

Under the leadership of Uncas, the Mohegans were becoming the dominant Native power in the Connecticut. “Uncas was accumulating warriors, he was making war upon his neighbors,” explains Dr. McBride, “and some colonial leaders feared that he would grow very powerful.”

Connecticut Governor John Winthrop, Jr. was among the most concerned. He chose Nameag as the site for his new plantation in 1646, in part to be near a group of Indians he felt he could trust. “Winthrop didn't trust Uncas,” says McBride, “and he saw the Nameag Pequots as a way of gaining intelligence about Mohegan intentions.”

Years earlier, the leader of the Nameag Pequots, Robin Cassacinamon, had been a servant of the Winthrop family in Massachusetts. By serving the governor's interests now, Cassacinamon and the Nameag Pequots hoped to turn their acquaintance with Winthrop into a close alliance.

“I don't think they were ever thinking they could get out of colonial authority,” says Dr. McBride. “But I believe that they felt that they were better off answering directly to the colonial authorities than to Uncas.”

The Alliance Pays Off

In 1650, the Pequots at Nameag achieved their goal when governor Winthrop freed them from Uncas's control and granted them land of their own at a place called Noank. The move was a direct blow to the Mohegans and to their leader Uncas.

As McBride explains, “For the Pequots, land of their own was the key to independence. They wanted land that was far away from Uncas, and land that was near the sea. The Pequots are coastal people—most of their livelihood and power came from the sea, and Noank gave them access to the resources they required. But the most significant thing about the Pequots being allowed to move to Noank, was that this piece of land was in Pequot territory—completely contrary to the Treaty of Hartford.”

Noank was in the heart of land the tribe was banished from by the treaty that ended the Pequot war. Now, just 12 years later, after being stripped of their identity and pushed to the brink of extinction, the Pequots had returned to their traditional lands and were once again a tribe.