Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in May 1607 Virginia was founded along the James River on land owned by the Powhatan Native Americans. Over time, the English began to expand more and more into Powhatan land, leading to the First Powhatan War.
The Pequot War was the English's first conflict in New England (States Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island) against the Native Americans in this area. The Pequot Indians were the dominant Indian power in southern Connecticut until 1637. The Pequot had few alliances with other tribes, and the Narragansett, the Eastern Niantic, and the Mohegan were mortal enemies of the Pequot.
Beginning in 1633, the English gradually began to settle in parts of Connecticut. In 1633, a smallpox epidemic reduced the Pequot population from around 8,000 to around 4,000, other tribes such as the Narragansett and Podunk were also affected. In September 1633, the first town in Connecticut was founded, Windsor. From the summer of 1636 to April 1637, the Pequot repeatedly attacked Fort Saybrook, founded in 1635, at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Western Niantic and Pequot villages were destroyed by the English. Due to the Pequot attack on the town of Wethersfield on April 23, 1637, the towns of Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor in central and northern Connecticut declared war on the Pequot. The English troops were in command of Captain John Mason, whose command consisted of 77 soldiers, 60 Mohegan, a group of Eastern Niantic and about 200 Narragansett.
At Old Mystic the force attacked on the 26th In May 1637, one of the Pequot's two fortified villages was attacked and burned down. 400 Pequot died, about half of them burned to death in the village. The surviving Pequot decided to leave their homeland. The English pursued the Pequot mercilessly and attacked them, among other places, at what is now the Munnacommock Swamp in southwestern Connecticut near Fairfield. Pequot chief Sassacus was recognized and murdered by Mohawk Indians in New York State.
In September 1638, many Pequot surrendered to the English. The Treaty of Hartford in 1638 regulated, among other things, the division of the Pequot among the Mohegan, Narragansett and Eastern Niantic. More Pequot were settled in what is now New London. In 1646 they were relocated to Nameag at the mouth of the Mystic River, and later also to Noank.
The Pequot War almost led to the complete extinction of the Pequot people. Today the Pequot Indians operate one of the largest casino resorts in the United States (Foxwood Casinos). The Pequots live primarily on the Lantern Hill reservations near Fairfield in southwestern Connecticut and Ledyard in eastern Connecticut.
After the Pilgrim Fathers arrived in Plymouth Harbor on the eastern coast of Massachusetts on December 16, 1620, the English began to spread rapidly into eastern Massachusetts. New England became more and more populated. The first generation of settlers had an average of 8 children per family, and by the 1660s these children now needed their own farms. Land suitable for agriculture was scarce, only about 20% of the entire area was suitable for agriculture.
King Philip (Metacom) and his Pokanocket people had already been pushed back to the area of Mount Hope near what is now the town of Bristol in Rhode Island. And wherever Philip turned, he only saw English villages around him. To the north was the town of Wannamoisett, to the south in Rhode Island were the flourishing towns of Portsmouth and Newport, and to the west lived the hated Narragansett. Only the English weren't in the east yet; the Pocasset lived here under Chief Weetamoo.
The beavers were all but extinct, the wampums had been greatly devalued and a lot of land had already been sold to the English. The English's hunger for land was enormous, and the pressure on the Indians became ever greater. One of the biggest points of contention was that the many English cattle kept escaping from the English farms and feasting on the Indians' corn.
King Philip was preparing for war. Philip had sold almost all the land in his sphere of influence to the English. He used the proceeds to buy rifles, ammunition and gunpowder. Ultimately, selling the land didn't matter to Philip. After the war was won, he calculated, he would get the land he had sold back.
By 1673, Philip had managed to sell every piece of land around his domain.
On May 20, 1675, the Pokanoket attacked the small 18-house town of Kickemuit about four miles north of Mount Hope. Attacks on Swansea, New Bedford, Taunton, Rehoboth and other towns followed. The English were more or less unprepared and could not (yet) react. Further north, on July 14, the Nipmuk attacked the town of Mendon in southeastern Massachusetts. Every settlement in one of the English colonies was required to have a 'garrison' where women and children could retreat in the event of an attack and where ammunition was stored. Most of the buildings were made of stone and were surrounded by a wooden pallisade.
From August 1675 the Nipmuk bore the brunt of the fighting. In October, the Nipmuck, Pocumtuck, and Norwotock attacked the town of Hatfield in central Massachusetts. After the English attacked the previously neutral Narragansett southeast of Richmond in southern Rhode Island on December 19, 1675 and killed several hundred people, the Narragansett also entered the war.
Even before the winter of 1675, the Native Americans had to stop fighting so they had to get food for the winter. Either the corn fields that had been planted had to be harvested or people went on the hunt to survive the winter with the dried meat. During the winter, the English took advantage of the break to recruit and train more soldiers.
On February 10, 1676, the Nipmuk, Narragasett and Pokanoket attacked the city of Lancaster in eastern Massachusetts again, and on March 28, about 1,500 Native Americans attacked Rehoboth again. Although the Indians were winning battles, the Indians were becoming increasingly short of food. Even if they managed to plant large fields of corn, they could only be harvested in late summer. And in June the groundnuts (Apios americana) became inedible. The Indians had to ask the English for peace before the start of summer or they would slowly starve to death. Nevertheless, towns in the Plymouth and Rhode Island area were attacked in June. Now Benjamin Church, a very experienced fighter and expert on the Native Americans, began to pursue them persistently. Church and his men repeatedly managed to capture small groups of Indians. This had a demoralizing effect on the Native Americans. In addition, many more English troops were now actively searching for Native Americans and also attacking their villages.
In August 1676, King Philip withdrew his last followers to the Mount Hope area. However, Benjamin Church found King Philip's whereabouts in a nearby swamp. On August 12, 1676, King Philip was killed while escaping from Church's men. The war was over.
During the 14-month war, 5,000 people died, more than 2/3 of them were Native Americans. These statistics do not count hundreds or even thousands of Native Americans who were sold or abducted as slaves. Relative to population, the war cost more than twice as many lives as the American Civil War and 7 times as many as the American Revolution.