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One of the most hazardous tasks a historian tackles is determining what motivated the actions of a past society. Even for a present-day society, this task is fraught with perils. Are a society's motivations the sum of its adult participants? Do we give special weight to the goals of its leaders? Should we regard the society's stated goals as accurate communications of motivation, discard them as intentionally deceptive, or dissect those statements as indications of deeper desires that are too painful to directly discuss?
Consider the tremendous range of motives ascribed to the United States for its involvement in Southeast Asia in the period 1954 - 75. Now, consider what happens when we add the complexity of examining the motives of a society no longer present, and which had far less complete records than are normally kept by governments today. A paucity of evidence can provide a rich opportunity for ideologues to ascribe any motive that they find convenient. The purpose of this paper is to examine the motivations behind the Pequot War; see how well the evidence matches up to the various theories of intent currently popular in the academic community; and suggest an alternative theory in which the English are not the protagonists, but pawns of intertribal warfare. There are at least three theories of motivation for the Pequot War. The oldest theory, reflecting a traditional view of white and Indian relations, is that the Pequots, who had recently arrived in Connecticut, were "a more fierce, cruel, and warlike People than the Rest of the Indians, ...
and became a Terror to all their Neighbors... " After repeated atrocities committed against both Indians, Dutch, and English settlers, the English and their Indian allies insisted that the Pequots turn over the killers of one Captain John Stone; once battle with the Pequots was fully engaged, it became necessary to burn their fortifications at Mystic, Connecticut, causing an enormous loss of life. [ 1 ] According to this view, the Indian allies of the English had their own grievances against the Pequots, but the driving force behind the war was the English colonists. As early as 1856, historians began to argue a different theory of motivation that was not prepared to accept the Pequot War as a "just war" against an aggressive and dangerous tribe, [ 2 ] and saw the English colonists as a group almost as savage in their actions as the Pequots against whom they fought. As an example of how pervasive this attitude has become, a recent American history textbook asserts that "the Puritans took advantage of old hostilities between Indian tribes, " and describes the conflict between Puritans and Pequots as though the English were entirely the aggressors. Significantly, it implies that the Narragansetts, the principal English allies against the Pequots, were a passive participant, rather than a major actor in this conflict. [ 3 ] The most recent theory of motivation, increasingly propounded since the 1960 s, sees the Pequot War as motivated by the desire of the English colonists -- primarily those of Massachusetts Bay -- to acquire more favorable trading conditions with other Indian tribes, [ 4 ] or to acquire Pequot lands. Francis Jennings' The Invasion of America argues that Pequot extermination was a goal of the war, both to acquire Pequot land, and to assert Massachusetts Bay political domination over the settlements led by Thomas Hooker, who had moved south of the Massachusetts Bay colony's boundaries in 1636. [ 5 ] What motivated the Pequot War? Why did it happen, and what was the intent of the various individuals and groups that led up to the gruesome burning of Fort Mystic on May 26, 1637? [ 6 ] All sources agree that hundreds of Pequot men, women and children died by fire, or were cut down as they fled.
It is not a proud moment in American history, but we must make an honest attempt to understand why it happened, and not let later wars between colonists and Indians unduly influence our understanding of it. A total of four English settlements played a part in the drama of the Pequot War: Massachusetts Bay colony; Plymouth colony; Thomas Hooker's settlement in Connecticut; and Roger Williams' Rhode Island exile, to the east of Connecticut. The major English players in the motivational drama were: John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts (1629 - 34 and 1637 - 40); Sir Henry Vane, governor of Massachusetts (1636 - 7); Edward Winslow, governor of Plymouth colony (1633 - 4 and 1636 - 7); William Bradford, governor of Plymouth (1635 - 6 and 1637 - 8); [ 7 ] Roger Williams; John Winthrop, Jr. , nominally governor of Connecticut colony; [ 8 ] John Mason, Lion Gardener, and John Underhill, military commanders involved in the attack on Fort Mystic, or the mopping up operations against the surviving Pequots. The Indian tribes who played a significant role are the Pequots, the Narragansetts (occupying Cape Cod and modern Rhode Island), the Niantics (tributaries of the Pequots), the Mohegans (Pequot in culture, but politically independent), and the Block Islanders (tributaries of the Narragansetts). The major Indian personalities were: Units, the sachem of the Mohegans; Miantonomo, one of the prominent Narragansett sachems; and Sassacus, sachem of the Pequots.
We start out this effort with a number of serious disadvantages. Foremost among these is that only the English and Dutch left written records. This is a serious handicap, because it means that we are relying on information supplied by parties with an interest in justifying their actions, either before the outbreak of hostilities, or afterwards, when gentler souls on the English side may have reconsidered to what extent the English actions were justified. Given that the records are all from one side, can a historian therefore consider them to be untrustworthy? If the historian discards all accounts of the 1637 Pequot War as partisan, he is left with nothing but archaeological evidence, which is completely inadequate for ascertaining something as tenuous as motivation.
The historian is therefore left with at least three possible responses: abandon motivations as the quarry; recognize that these one-sided accounts are our only source of information, biased or inaccurate though they may be; or read into the evidence what he desires to find. As we will see when we examine Invasion of America's treatment of the Pequot War, this last, least intellectually desirable approach, seems to have been taken up by Francis Jennings. The evidence that we will examine contains a great many assertions of fact. Some of these facts reflect poorly on the motivations and actions of the colonists who fought against the Pequots; others cast a positive light. If we desire to use the negative facts contained in these narratives to cast doubt on the colonial motives and actions, it implies that these narratives are sufficiently trustworthy to be used as evidence. Similarly, we must be prepared to accept that statements of fact that show positive colonial motives and actions are trustworthy as well.
If we deny the essential accuracy of these narratives except when convenient, we find ourselves confronting the epistemological and logical paradox of the man who says, "I am lying. " He says he is lying -- but how do we know he is lying, other than the word of a self-described liar? In the absence of evidence that shows intentional deception, we must assume that discrepancies reflect honest mistakes; in the absence of evidence that shows it is in error, we must assume that a primary source is accurate. The case can be made that the narratives we have available to us reflect an intentional effort to portray the actions of the colonists in the best possible light, without directly lying. This is certainly a possibility that must be seriously considered. Yet, if the descriptions of the Pequot War provided to us have been shaded or altered in such a way as to hide actions that were considered shameful by the narrators, we should expect that the narratives would provide a highly sanitized description of the war -- and as we will see, there is nothing sanitized about the description of the frightful and bloody slaughter that took place.
Indeed, expressions of remorse, or at least regret, appear in a number of the primary sources. As with many wars, a series of incidents preceded the Pequot War that created animosity and suspicion among the English, Dutch, and Pequots. The primary and early secondary sources on the Pequot War are careful to blame all three for these provocations, thus making it impossible to reduce the problem to a simple issue of racism. The first incident that led to war was the death in 1634 of Captain John Stone, "who came occasionally with a Bark into the River to Trade" with the Pequots. [ 9 ] Stone was described by Puritans as "a drunkard, lecher, braggart, bully, and blasphemer. " He was a smuggler, a privateer, and it was rumored that he had engaged in cannibalism while shipwrecked in the Caribbean. [ 10 ] Stone was in continual legal trouble with both Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, and was finally banished on penalty of death. [ 11 ] As an indication of how pivotal an event Stone's death was in leading to war, the question, "Who killed John Stone?" remains sufficiently important that Alfred Cave devoted an entire paper to answering this question. Cave devotes considerable energy and ink to defending the position -- recently unfashionable -- that the Pequots did, in fact, kill Stone and his associates as retribution for the murder of the "Pequot grand sachem Tatobem" by the Dutch. Tatobem's death was, in turn, Dutch retaliation for the murder of other Indians ("most probably Narragansetts") on their way to the Dutch trading post at Good Hope (near present-day Hartford, Connecticut) in late 1633 or early 1634.
Cave sees the death of Stone and his crew as a result of Pequot misunderstanding of European practices regarding revenge and warfare. Cave has the advantage of access to Dutch records of these incidents, that were unavailable to the English colonists. [ 12 ] John Mason, one of the captains whose two narratives of the war will figure prominently in our later analysis of the actions taken against the Pequots, asserted that the killers of Stone "were not native Pequots; but had frequent recourse unto them... "[ 13 ] Governor John Winthrop asserted that the Pequots admitted causing Stone's death, but claimed it was in self-defense. Since Mason's statement is not an eyewitness account, it is no more persuasive of a piece of evidence than Winthrop's reporting of Pequot claims. Mason's assignment of blame to non-Pequots has been used by Jennings to discredit Winthrop's statements, not only as inaccurate, but intentionally deceptive, [ 14 ] but Cave shows that not only in Winthrop's later, alterable journals, but in his correspondence from 1634, Winthrop's assertion of the Pequot claim of self-defense appears. [ 15 ] If Winthrop intended, as early as 1634, to falsify records so as to justify a war waged several years later against the Pequots, why record that the Pequots had given a valid excuse for Stone's murder? If deception was really the goal, why didn't Winthrop record that the Pequots denied the murder completely (thus making them appear to be liars), or record that the Pequots were haughty and proud in their crimes? Additional evidence given by Cave to argue against fabrication by Winthrop is that there are discrepancies in the various accounts of Stone's death.
If every report matched exactly, we would suspect a common source -- either factual or fictional. The discrepancies in Winthrop and Underhill's accounts suggest that each received his account from different witnesses to the event, and indeed, Winthrop claimed his account came from Pequot ambassadors in Boston in 1634, while Underhill's report came from "the Pequot 'ambassador' who parleyed with John Endecott... in 1636... " In addition, the account recorded by Underhill describes Stone killed while in a drunken stupor. [ 16 ] If Stone's death was falsely blamed on the Pequots as a justification for war, why fabricate such an unattractive account of the condition of the victim? Examination of Winthrop's History of New England shows that the Pequot claim of self-defense "was related with such confidence and gravity, as, having no means to contradict it, we inclined to believe it. " While the Pequot ambassadors said that the issue of extradition of the killers for trial would require approval of their sachem, Winthrop's history asserts that at a meeting the next day, the ambassadors agreed to deliver the two men to the English. [ 17 ] The two differing results are presented on the same page, with no explanation of the discrepancy. Winthrop's letter to his son later that year also asserts that the final treaty included surrender of the killers. [ 18 ] Jennings sees this discrepancy as evidence of deception by Winthrop, but the fact that they appear on the same page suggests that Winthrop believed that the matter had been resolved after the Pequot ambassadors had a chance to discuss the subject in private. [ 19 ] We do not know for sure if the Pequot ambassadors made an agreement that they could not persuade their sachem to ratify, or if Winthrop misunderstood the treaty that was made, or even if the Pequots made such an agreement, and changed their minds later. There is no evidence, however, to establish any intentional deception on Winthrop's part, and his correspondence strongly suggests that such a deception must have been planned far in advance, and included misleading his son in private letters -- a most implausible explanation.
Another provocation for the conflict to come (at least, indirectly) was the death of John Oldham, apparently murdered in 1636 at Block Island, off the coast of the present-day Connecticut-Rhode Island border. About Oldham's death we have far fewer details, but like Stone, there is some dispute about which tribe was responsible for his death. Cave argues that the death of Oldham was at the hand of "Block Islanders tributary to the Narragansetts, " but Cave does not tell us his source for that claim. [ 20 ] It would appear that Lion Gardener's account of the Pequot Wars is the source. Unfortunately, Gardener provides us with little information with which to judge the accuracy of this claim.
Gardener tells us, "The Narragansets that were at Block-Island killed him, " but offers as evidence only that they "had [sterling] 50 of gold of his... " Mere possession of Oldham's effects is not sufficient reason to assume their complicity in his death, since Gardener also tells us that some Dutchmen had some of Oldham's gold, acquired by trade with the Narragansetts. [ 21 ] John Underhill's account of the Pequot War also claims that the Block Islanders killed Oldham, and asserts that Oldham's death alone was the cause of the war. [ 22 ] To Underhill, Stone's death, and the Pequot guilt for harboring Stone's killers, is an afterthought; the expedition against the Pequots was simply an appendix to punishing the Block Islanders. [ 23 ] This position seems hard to defend, for without the expedition against the Pequots for Stone's killers, this paper wouldn't be about the Pequot War, but about the Block Islander Skirmish, and all the shorter for that reason. William Bradford's second-hand account of Oldham's death seems to imply that the killers were not Pequots, but were harbored by the Pequots. [ 24 ] Church's account of the death of John Oldham provides us details of the recapture of Oldham's vessel, with Oldham's "head cleft to the brains, " and tells us that some of the Indians aboard the vessel were captured. Church also seems to hold that either the Pequots were responsible for Oldham's murder, "or at least the murderers were sheltered by them. "[ 25 ] It is possible that the presumptions of guilt were derived from the tribal membership of the Indians found aboard Oldham's ship. Yet another accusation came from Roger Williams, recorded several months after the major battles of the Pequot War had concluded. Williams claimed that Pequots indeed murdered Oldham, and were sheltered by "one Wequashcuck" a Niantic sachem. [ 26 ] (Since Williams' accu...
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Research essay sample on Massachusetts Bay Colony Theory Of Motivation
