58 ([return])
[ Brodhead, New York, I., 260.]
59 ([return])
[ Mass, Col. Records, I., 170.]
CHAPTER XV
FOUNDING OF CONNECTICUT AND NEW HAVEN
(1637-1652)
The establishment of the new settlements on the Connecticut projected the whites into the immediate neighborhood of two powerful and warlike Indian nations—the Narragansetts in Rhode Island and the Pequots in Connecticut. With the first named there existed friendly relations, due to the politic conduct of Roger Williams, who always treated the Indians kindly. With the latter, conditions from the first were very threatening.
As early as the summer of 1633, Stone, a reckless ship-captain from Virginia, and eight of his companions, were slain in the Connecticut River by some Pequots. When called to account by Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, the Indians justified themselves on the ground that Stone was the aggressor. Thereupon Winthrop desisted, and referred the matter to the Virginia authorities.[1 ] In 1634, when the settlements were forming on the Connecticut, a fresh irritation was caused by the course of the emigrants in negotiating for their lands with the Mohegan chiefs instead of with the Pequots, the lords paramount of the soil.
The Pequots were greatly embarrassed at the time by threatened hostilities with the Narragansetts and the Dutch, and in November, 1634, they became reduced to the necessity of seeking the alliance of the Massachusetts colony. That authority inopportunely revived the question of Stone's death and required the Pequots to deliver annually a heavy tribute of wampum as the price of their forgiveness and protection.[2 ] Had the object of the Massachusetts people been to promote bad feeling, no better method than this could have been adopted.