The Pequot tribe is a Northeast Indian tribe that was located in Connecticut.
Originally, they and the Mohegan tribe were connected. However, as the Pequot tribe grew more powerful, the Mohegans split off from them.
The Pequots dominated the Connecticut landscape until the Pequot War which devastated their population and caused them to relocate.
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History
The history of the Pequot tribe has faded over time, and what was once a proud and powerful tribe has lost too much of history.
It is believed that the Pequots migrated to Connecticut in the early 16th century. This theory is just a theory and originated from Plymouth Colony minister Reverend William Hubbard.
This narrative that the Pequots were foreigners was given to Hubbard after King Philip's War when the other tribes in the area told of their invasion prior to Plymouth being founded.
Through archaeological evidence, this theory that the Pequot tribe was invaders has been proven false. Jealousy of their power most likely prompted these stories.
By the time Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay had been founded, the Pequots had already established themselves as political, military, and economic leaders of the region. This status could not have been attained with the previous theory.
They occupied the coastal area between the Niantic tribe of the Niantic River of Connecticut and the Narragansett tribe in western Rhode Island. The Pequots numbered some 16,000 persons in the most densely inhabited portion of southern New England.
The Demise of the Pequot Tribe
Unlike many Native Americans, the Pequots were not devastated by European disease. A smallpox epidemic that lasted for 3 years within the region did not reach them.
In 1633, the Dutch established a trading post called House of Good Hope in Hartford. While there, they made an agreement with the Pequot, but when the Pequot sachem Tatobem went back on the agreement, they executed him and then returned his body to the Pequots for ransom.
In 1633, European disease finally struck the Pequots and many within the region. It is believed that the Pequots lost close to 80% of their population.
Shortly after the epidemic, the Pequot War broke out. At the end of the war, their population was devastated, and they never came back from it.
In the 1910 United States Census, there were only 66 Pequots still living.