Claims of the Dutch in New England: Sassacus and Pequods

Sassacus sate sullenly and stately in his embowered dwelling, when the remnant of his warriors, who escaped from the citadel, came to tell him of the great disaster. They charged the whole of the misfortunes of the day to his haughtiness and misconduct. Tearing their hair, stamping violently, and with fierce gestures, they threatened to destroy him, and doubtless they would have executed the menace had not the blast of a trumpet startled them. From the head-waters of the Mystic came almost two hundred armed settlers from Massachusetts and Plymouth to seal the doom of the Pequods. The question, Shall we fight or flee? was soon answered at the court of Sassacus, for there was little time for deliberation. After a strong and hot debate, it was determined to flee. They set fire to their wigwams and the fort, and with their women and children hurried across the Thames and fled swiftly westward, with the intention of seeking refuge with the Mohawks beyond the Hudson.

The English hotly pursued the Pequods, with despairing Sassacus at their head. As the chase was kept up across the beautiful country bordering on Long Island Sound, a track of desolation was left behind, for wigwams and cornfields were destroyed, and helpless men, women and children were put to the sword. At last the fugitives took refuge in Sasco Swamp, near Fairfield, where they all surrendered to the English excepting the sachem and a few followers, who escaped to the Mohawks. A blow had been destroyed in a day. But few of the once-powerful Pequods survived the national disaster. The last representative of the pure blood of that race was, probably, Eunice Mauwee, who died at Kent, in Connecticut, about the year 1860, at the age of one hundred years. The proud Sassacus, haughty and insolent in his exile, fell by the hands of an assassin among the people who had opened their arms to receive him; and his scalp was sent to the English, whom he hated and despised. He was the last of his royal line in power excepting Uncas, who now returned to the land of his fathers and became a powerful sachem, renowned in war and peace. He remained a firm friend of the English, and was buried among the graves of his kindred near the falls of the Yantic, in the City of Norwich, where a granite monument, erected by the descendants of his white friends, marks the place of his sepulchre.