The Other States of America History Podcast

10/11/2023

Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins and the "Era of Good Feelings"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9GPydra0Sc

The Vice Presidency of Daniel D. Tompkins in three short questions.

23/10/2023

The inclusion of lacrosse in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles brings members of the Haudenosaunee Nationals lacrosse teams a step closer to being Olympic contenders.

23/10/2023

New Episode: The Puritan Colonies for a Confederation 130+ years before the American Revolution.
The United Colonies of New England part I
New episode out now!
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/osoa/episodes/The-United-Colonies-of-New-England-I-The-New-England-Confederation-Begins-1643-1652-e2atv09

While England devolves into Civil War, the four Puritan Colonies of New England form a Confederation, leaning on one another for a little order in a chaotic world. Together the United Colonies will have to contend with Roger William's Rhode Island Colony, Sir Ferdinando Gorges' Maine Colony, and the...

20/10/2023

Newest Episode: The most Puritanical of the Puritans create a colony where government and law is rooted in congregationalism and the bible.

Reverend John Davenport and his childhood friend, businessman Theophilus Eaton, lead a wave of the wealthiest and strictest Puritans out of England, unknowingly toward the tail end of the Puritan Exodus. Arriving in Massachusetts they find the colony divided and the

17/10/2023

SPARKS, Md. — It’s official. Lacrosse is returning to the Olympics as a medal sport for the first time in more than a century.The International Olympic Committee voted on Monday to include lacrosse in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. It will be the sixth time lacrosse has been included i...

17/10/2023

T he season of crisp air, changing leaves, apple orchards and pumpkin patches is also the season of ghosts and their stories. Interestingly, New Haven’s most famous ghost story features an apparition that brought closure, not terror. The early days of the New Haven Colony were difficult, to put it...

23/09/2023

23/08/2023

The 1st action of the Pequot war was on Block Island (August 1636). In retaliation for the murders of traders Oldham and Stone, English forces launched an expedition against the Manisses of Block Island and the Pequots. The first recorded amphibious assault in the New World, the English spent two days searching Block Island, but only a few warriors skirmished. The English only succeeded in burning partial villages on Block Island and in Pequot territory on the Connecticut coastline.

In response, the Pequot besieged Fort Saybrook under command of Lieutenant Lion Gardiner in Old Saybrook, Connecticut (September 1636- April 1637). The Pequot attacked English soldiers who ventured too far from Saybrook Fort, destroyed English goods, and burned warehouses. Pequot warriors attempted to cut off all river traffic to and from the upriver Connecticut colonies of Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor.

A large force of Pequot warriors attacked English settlers at Wethersfield (April 1637) in the Great Meadow along the Connecticut River. The Pequot killed 9 men and women and captured 2 girls. As a result of the Wethersfield attack, Connecticut declared war on the Pequot on May 1, 1637 and raised a force of 90 soldiers.

In Mystic, Connecticut, the Pequot War’s most famous battle occured, referred to here as the Battle of Mistick Fort (late May 1637). During this battle, a force of English and their Native Allies attacked a Pequot fortified village. This battlefield includes the site of the Mistick Fort, several major skirmishes and rear-guard actions, and routes of march and retreat by English forces and their Native allies. Learn more about the battle, as our team completed research and archaeology at the Battle of Mistick Fort in 2009-2011.

The Fairfield Swamp Fight (ca. July 15, 1637) in Fairfield, Connecticut, was the last major action of the war. Members of the tribe scatterned after the Battle of Mistick Fort, and English and their Native Allies pursued some Pequots to modern day Fairfield. Many hid under cover with members of the Sasqua Tribe in a nearby swamp, which the English with their Native Allies surrounded. What followed was a 24-hour battle, one of the only battles where Pequot warriors used fi****ms. Hand-to-hand fighting took place as the English tried to gain entry into the swamp. Thomas Stanton, known Indian interpreter, parleyed with members of the tribe. While some Pequots escaped, some surrendered to capture.

The Dover Stone Church site in Dover Plains New York, purported to be the site where the chief Pequot sachem Sassacus was intercepted, along with other Pequot sachems and warriors, and executed by the Mohawk.................................................... The Pequot War was an armed conflict between the Pequot tribe and an alliance of the English colonists of the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies and their Native American allies (the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes) which occurred between 1634 and 1638. The Pequots lost the war. At the end, about seven hundred Pequots had been killed or taken into captivity. Hundreds of prisoners were sold into slavery to the West Indies. Other survivors were dispersed. The result was the elimination of the Pequot as a viable polity in what is present-day Southern New England.

It would take the Pequot more than three and a half centuries to regain political and economic power in their traditional homeland along the Pequot (present-day Thames) and Mystic rivers in what is now southeastern Connecticut ............................................. ( Origins ) ...............................The Pequot and their traditional enemies, the Mohegan, were at one time a single sociopolitical entity. Anthropologists and historians contend that sometime before contact with the Puritan English, they split into the two competing groups. The earliest historians of the Pequot War speculated that the Pequot migrated from the upper Hudson River Valley toward central and eastern Connecticut sometime around 1500. These claims are disputed by the evidence of modern archeology and anthropology finds.

In the 1630s, the Connecticut River Valley was in turmoil. The Pequot aggressively worked to extend their area of control, at the expense of the Wampanoag to the north, the Narragansett to the east, the Connecticut River Valley Algonquians and Mohegan to the west, and the Algonquian people of present-day Long Island to the south. The tribes contended for political dominance and control of the European fur trade. A series of smallpox epidemics over the course of the previous three decades had severely reduced the Native American populations due to their lack of immunity to the disease. As a result, there was a power vacuum in the area.

The Dutch and the English, from Western Europe, across the Atlantic Ocean, were also striving to extend the reach of their trade into the interior to achieve dominance in the lush, fertile region. The colonies were new at the time, the original settlements having been founded in the 1620s. By 1636, the Dutch had fortified their trading post, and the English had built a trading fort at Saybrook. English Puritans from Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies settled at the then four recently established river towns of Windsor (1632,) Wethersfield (1633,), Hartford (1635) and Springfield (1636.) ............................................... ( Causes for war) .............................. Before the war's inception, efforts to control fur trade access resulted in a series of escalating incidents and attacks that increased tensions on both sides. Political divisions between the Pequot and Mohegan widened as they aligned with different trade sources—the Mohegan with the English, and the Pequot with the Dutch. The Pequot assaulted a tribe of Indians who had tried to trade at what is known as Hartford. Tension sparked as the Massachusetts Bay Colony, became a stronghold for wampum, the supply of which the Pequot had controlled up until 1633.[citation?] John Stone, an English rogue, smuggler and privateer, and about seven of his crew were murdered by the Western tributary clients of the Pequot, the Niantic. According to the Pequots' later explanations, they did that in reprisal for the Dutch having murdered the principal Pequot sachem Tatobem, and were unaware of the fact that Stone was English and not Dutch. In the earlier incident, Tatobem had boarded a Dutch vessel to trade. Instead of conducting trade, the Dutch seized the sachem and appealed for a substantial amount of ransom for his safe return. The Pequot quickly sent bushels of wampum, but received only Tatobem's dead body in return.

Stone, the privateer, was from the West Indies. He had been banished from Boston for malfeasance (including drunkenness, adultery and piracy). Since he was known to have powerful connections in other colonies as well as London, he was expected to use them against the Boston colony. Setting sail from Boston, Stone abducted two Western Niantic men, forcing them to show him the way up the Connecticut River. Soon after, he and his crew were suddenly attacked and killed by a larger group of Western Niantic. While the initial reactions in Boston varied between indifference and outright joy at Stone's death, the colonial officials later decided to protest the killing. They did not accept the Pequots' excuses that they had been unaware of Stone's nationality. The Pequot sachem Sassacus sent some wampum to atone for the murders, but refused the colonists' demands that the Western Niantic warriors responsible for Stone's death be turned over to them for trial and punishment.

On July 20, 1636, a respected trader named John Oldham was attacked on a trading voyage to Block Island. He and several of his crew were killed and his ship looted by Narragansett-allied Indians who sought to discourage English settlers from trading with their Pequot rivals. In the weeks that followed, colonial officials from Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, assumed the Narragansett were the likely culprits. Knowing that the Indians of Block Island were allies of the Eastern Niantic, who were allied with the Narragansett, Puritan officials became suspicious of the Narragansett. However, Narragansett leaders were able to convince the English that the perpetrators were being sheltered by the Pequots....................................................... (Battles ) ........................................ News of Oldham's death became the subject of sermons in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In August, Governor Vane sent John Endecott to exact revenge on the Indians of Block Island. Endecott's party of roughly 90 men sailed to Block Island and attacked two apparently abandoned Niantic villages. Most of the Niantic escaped, while two of Endecott's men were injured. The English claimed to have killed 14, but later Narragansett reports claimed only one Indian was killed on the island. The Puritan militia burned the villages to the ground. They carried away crops which the Niantic had stored for winter, and destroyed what they could not carry. Endecott went on to Fort Saybrook.

The English at Saybrook were not happy about the raid, but agreed that some of them would accompany Endecott as guides. Endecott sailed along the coast to a Pequot village, where he repeated the previous year's demand of payment for the death of Stone and more for Oldham. After some discussion, Endecott concluded that the Pequot were stalling and attacked. The Pequot ruse had worked, and most escaped into the woods. Endecott had his forces burn down the village and crops before sailing home.
Pequot raids

In the aftermath, the English of Connecticut Colony had to deal with the anger of the Pequot. The Pequot attempted to get their allies, some 36 tributary villages, to join their cause but were only partly effective. The Western Niantic joined them but the Eastern Niantic remained neutral. The traditional enemies of the Pequot, the Mohegan and the Narragansett, openly sided with the English. The Narragansett had warred with and lost territory to the Pequot in 1622. Now their friend Roger Williams urged the Narragansett to side with the English against the Pequot.

Through the Autumn and winter, Fort Saybrook was effectively besieged. People who ventured outside were killed. As spring arrived in 1637, the Pequot stepped up their raids on Connecticut towns. On April 23, Wongunk chief Sequin attacked Wethersfield with Pequot help. They killed six men and three women, a number of cattle and horses, and took two young girls captive. (They were daughters of William Swaine and were later ransomed by Dutch traders.) In all, the towns lost about 30 settlers.

In May, leaders of Connecticut river towns met in Hartford, raised a militia, and placed Captain John Mason in command. Mason set out with 90 militia and 70 Mohegan warriors under Uncas to punish the Pequot. At Fort Saybrook, Captain Mason was joined by John Underhill and another 20 men. Underhill and Mason sailed from Fort Saybrook to Narragansett Bay, a tactic intended to mislead Pequot spies along the shoreline into thinking the English were not intending an attack. After landing the troops on shore, Mason and Underhill marched their forces approximately twenty miles towards Fort Mystic (present-day Mystic) and led a surprise attack before dawn........................................ (The Mystic massacre ) ...................................... Believing that the English had returned to Boston, the Pequot sachem Sassacus took several hundred of his warriors to make another raid on Hartford. Mason had visited and recruited the Narragansett, who joined him with several hundred warriors. Several allied Niantic warriors also joined Mason's group. On May 26, 1637, with a force up to about 400 fighting men, Mason attacked Misistuck by surprise. He estimated that "six or seven Hundred" Pequot were there when his forces assaulted the palisade. As some 150 warriors had accompanied Sassacus to Hartford, so the inhabitants remaining were largely Pequot women and children, and older men. Mason ordered that the enclosure be set on fire.

Justifying his conduct later, Mason declared that the attack against the Pequot was the act of a God who "laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to scorn making [the Pequot] as a fiery Oven... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling [Mystic] with dead Bodies."[16] Mason insisted that any Pequot attempting to escape the flames should be killed. Of the estimated 600 to 700 Pequot resident at Mystic that day, only seven survived to be taken prisoner, while another seven escaped to the woods.

The Narragansett and Mohegan warriors with Mason and Underhill's colonial militia were horrified by the actions and "manner of the Englishmen's fight... because it is too furious, and slays too many men.The Narragansett left the warfare and returned home.

Believing the mission accomplished, Mason set out for home. Becoming temporarily lost, his militia narrowly missed returning Pequot warriors. After seeing the destruction of Mystic, they gave chase to the English forces but to little avail.
War's end

The destruction of people and the village of Mystic broke the Pequot and deprived them of their allies. Forced to abandon their villages, the Pequot fled—mostly in small bands—to seek refuge with other southern Algonquian peoples. Many were hunted down by Mohegan and Narragansett warriors. The largest group, led by Sassacus, were denied aid by the Metoac (Montauk, or Montaukett) from present-day Long Island. Sassacus led roughly 400 warriors west along the coast toward the Dutch at New Amsterdam and their Native allies. When they crossed the Connecticut River, the Pequot killed three men whom they encountered near Fort Saybrook.

In mid-June, John Mason set out from Saybrook with 160 men and 40 Mohegan scouts led by Uncas. They caught up with the refugees at Sasqua, a Mattabesic village near present-day Fairfield, Connecticut. Surrounded in a nearby swamp, the Pequot refused to surrender. The English allowed several hundred, mostly women and children, to leave with the Mattabesic[citation needed]. In the ensuing battle, Sassacus broke free with perhaps 80 warriors, but 180 Pequot men were killed or captured. The colonists memorialized this event as the Great Swamp Fight, or Fairfield Swamp Fight in its modern interpretation.

Sassacus and his followers had hoped to gain refuge among the Mohawk in present-day New York. However, the Mohawk instead killed Sassacus and his warriors. They sent Sassacus' scalp to Hartford as a symbolic offering of Mohawk friendship with the Connecticut Colony. English colonial officials continued to call for hunting down what remained of the Pequot months after war's end.
Aftermath

In September, the victorious Mohegan and Narragansett met at the General Court of Connecticut and agreed on the disposition of the Pequot and their lands. The agreement, known as the first Treaty of Hartford, was signed on September 21, 1638. About 200 Pequot "old men, women, and children" survived the war and massacre at Mystic. Unable to find refuge with a neighboring tribe, they finally gave up and offered themselves as slaves in exchange for life
“ There were then given to ONKOS, Sachem of MONHEAG, Eighty; to MYAN TONIMO, Sachem of NARRAGANSETT, Eighty; and to NYNIGRETT, Twenty, when he should satisfy for a Mare of Edward Pomroye’s killed by his Men. The Pequots were then bound by COVENANT, That none should inhabit their native Country, nor should any of them be called PEQUOTS any more, but MOHEAGS and NARRAGANSETTS for ever.[20]:18 ”

Other Pequot were enslaved and shipped to Bermuda or the West Indies, or were forced to become household servants in English households in Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay. Colonists appropriated Pequot lands under claims of a "just war"[citation needed]. They essentially declared the Pequot extinct by prohibiting speaking the name of the people. The few Pequot who managed to evade death or slavery later recovered from captivity by the Mohegan and were assigned reservations in Connecticut Colony.

The colonists attributed the success of end of the 'murderous aggression' of the Pequot tribe to an act of God:
“ Let the whole Earth be filled with his glory! Thus the lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their Land for an Inheritance. ”

This was the first instance wherein Algonquian peoples of what is now southern New England encountered European-style warfare. The idea of "total war" was new to them.After the Pequot War, there were no significant battles between native peoples and colonists for about 38 years. This long period of peace came to an end in 1675 with King Philip's War.
Historical accounts and controversies

The earliest accounts of the Pequot War were written by the victors within one year of the war. Later histories, with few exceptions, recounted events from a similar perspective, restating arguments first used by the war's military leaders, such as John Underhill and John Mason, as well the Puritan divines Increase Mather and his son Cotton Mather.

Recent historians and other specialists have reviewed these accounts. In 2004, an artist and archaeologist teamed up to evaluate the sequence of events in the Pequot War. Their popular history took issue with events, and whether John Mason and John Underhill wrote the accounts that appeared under their names.The authors have been adopted as honorary members of the Lenape Pequot.

Most modern historians such as Alfred A. Cave, a specialist in the ethnohistory of colonial America, do not debate questions of the outcome of the battle or its chronology. However, Cave contends that Mason and Underhill's eyewitness accounts, as well as the contemporaneous histories of Mather and Hubbard, were more "polemical than substantive.The causes of the outbreak of hostilities, the reasons for the English fear and hatred of the Pequot, and the ways in which English dealt with and wrote about the Pequot, have been re-evaluated within a larger context than daily colonial life.

Historians have placed the background of the Pequot War within the context of European history, in which religious wars gave rise to increased violence, and Dutch and English colonization in North America, as well as the geopolitical ambitions and struggles of contending Native peoples during the first half of the 17th century. Such historians have doubts about traditional histories, characterizing them as hegemonic narratives that valorize Puritans at the expense of a "demonized" Native population. Alden T. Vaughan, a noted historian of colonial America, at first was a critic of the Pequot. Later he wrote that the Pequot were not "solely or even primarily responsible" for the war. He went on, "The Bay colony's gross escalation of violence ... made all-out war unavoidable; until then, negotiation was at least conceivable.

13/08/2023

The Migration of the Angles and Saxons to Britain in the 5th c. AD.

📷: mbartelsm

11/08/2023

New Episode: Before Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, there was Rhode Island Versus Providence Plantations.

In the final episode of our Rhode Island trilogy, Roger Williams seeks a unified colony known as

10/08/2023

Our 5th Vice President gets a bad rap and should be known for more than Gerrymandering

The Vice Presidency of Elbridge Gerry

10/08/2023

Poor Anne Hutchinson exiled from Massachusetts walks to Providence 8 months pregnant for her "strange" beliefs spurring the settlement of English on the actual island of Rhode Island. New Episode out now!
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/osoa/episodes/Anne-Hutchinson-and-Portsmouth-1638-1643-e27m73t

03/08/2023

Huguenot Street is lined with stone houses built in the 1600s.

31/07/2023

Dutch overseas territories throughout history.

21/07/2023

How do you draw a map?

In 1670 the Treaty of Madrid was signed by England and Spain to settle any disputes in the New World. You would think that this would finally make it very clear where everyone's territories began and ended.... but no that's too easy!

Spain walked away from the treaty believing that any territory below South Carolina was theirs.

England walked away believing that any territory north of St Augustine was "up for debate."

Hmm... not sure this is going to end well.....

Friends of Fort Frederica

21/07/2023

4th VPOTUS and 1st Governor of the State of NY: George Clinton. New episode of Our Vices out now

The Vice Presidency of George Clinton

20/07/2023

New Episode: Roger Williams flees into the wilderness to escape deportation to England, with help from the Natives he founds Providence, a place for anyone seeking freedom of conscience.

Roger Williams, ill and alone, wanders the winter wilderness of New England until finding Ousamequin of the Wampanoag who offers him shelter. Exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony Williams plans to make the most radical settlement in the New World.

14/07/2023

New Episode: Rev. John Wheelwright tells the Massachusetts Bay Colony to go to Hell.

John Wheelwright leads an Exodus of his flock from Lincolnshire to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, only to then condemn the colony and accuse their clergy of being Anti-Antichrists. Banished, he must now search for a new place to settle during the cold winter of 1637.

10/07/2023

Aaron Burr takes his shot at being VP

The Vice Presidency of Aaron Burr

05/07/2023

The English Civil War enables George Cleeve to split Maine into two. New Episode out now!

The English Civil War manifests itself in New England where Royalist Maine is reduced by the creation of Parliamentarian Lygonia, both of which will have to stave off the northern advance of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A three way conflict for legitimacy in a chaotic world.

05/07/2023

Year(s) Discussed: 1773-1797 As the Revolution against Great Britain kicks off, John Adams assumes office in the Continental Congress where he makes a…

01/07/2023

Countries Which Have At Some Point Claimed To Be Rome’s Successor. Source: buff.ly/3Nm7riT

01/07/2023

All the British-controlled territories throughout history.

Hi-Res: https://i.redd.it/8y5gw4ohdnp51.jpg

30/06/2023

Episode 2 is out!

The Vice Presidency of Thomas Jefferson

30/06/2023

New episode out, did you know New Hampshire had a sister colony?

For most the history of Maine begins with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, however another Maine existed long before. This Maine would be split in two, one half becoming New Hampshire, the other becoming its' forgotten sister colony of New Somersetshire. All the while, the owners of these Colonies,....

18/06/2023

A little youtube content between episodes

Our Vices: a program focused on each Vice President addressing three specific questions.1. How did they become Vice President?2. What did they do while in of...

17/06/2023

HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA — Pioneering colonist Ferdinando Gorges (1565-1647) was a British naval, military commander, was a key figure and major promoter of ...

17/06/2023

HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA — The Plymouth Company was chartered by King James in 1606 with responsibility for colonizing the northern east coast of America. Th...

17/06/2023

HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA — The Popham Colony—also known as the Sagadahoc Settlement—was the vanguard of a new colonization model for the English, the result ...

17/06/2023

HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA — The Sagadahoc Settlement or Popham Colony was the vanguard of a new colonization model for the English, the result of rights strip...

17/06/2023

HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA — The exact site of the Popham Colony was lost until 1888 when a plan for the site was found in the General Archives in Spain. This ...

23/05/2023

22/05/2023

Saturday, May 27 – Artist Demonstration: Hand Tooled Leatherwork with Seneca artist Cliff Redeye III. Cliff creates hand tooled leather wallets, purses, hats, bolos, moccasins, and belts and custom commissions.

These events are made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum & Library Services, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and friends and members of the Iroquois Museum. For more information contact: [email protected].

22/05/2023

FREE BOOKS: First person to leave a comment wins these books (US only)

10/05/2023

New Episode: Thomas Morton leads a rebellion of indentured servants and creates a den of hedonism to the north of the Plymouth Colony, who look on in horror as the "Lord of Misrule" reigns.

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/osoa/episodes/Mount-Wollaston--Merrymount-and-the-Lord-of-Misrule-1624-1630-e23pn8c

29/04/2023

New Episode: The colonies of Massachusetts before the Bay Company. Nantasket, Cape Anne and Naumkeag Colonies: The Old Planters (1622-1628).

Plymouth castaways, fishermen and farmers, find refuge to the North of the Plymouth Colony, creating small autonomous settlements along the coast. Unknowingly, their assistance to the Dorchester Company would redraw the maps for the Natives and the Old Planters as they laid the foundation for a "Cit...

14/04/2023

New Episode: The Governor-General has arrived to rule New England as a unified colony

Plymouth and the scattered fishing camps to the north owe their tenuous legal existence in the English world to The Council for New England. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, President of the Council, has a grand vision for New England: of feudal estates, worked by sturdy pheasants, worshiping in proper Anglic...

08/04/2023

My first attempt at making content specifically for the social studies classroom.

My first attempt at some content for the social studies classroom. The secret ways Martin Van Buren, a much maligned president, is actually still an influent...