1.6: Uncas, Mohegan of the Connecticut River Valley

Conflict between Indigenous tribes and European settlers is a consistent theme in America's colonial era.  Such conflicts often centered around the land: who lived there, who used it, and how it was used.  The Pequot War, centered in New England's Connecticut River Valley during the mid-1600's, was no exception.  However, like other conflicts, and often to the surprise of  modern observers, it did not solely pit Indigenous fighters against their European counterparts as tribes were willing to ally with the English for a variety of reasons.  Uncas, Sachem of the Mohegan, consistently aligned his people with colonial interest in New England during this conflict, and continued to do so for the following four decades.  This episode of History: Beyond the Textbook focuses on the life of Uncas and demonstrates the lengths that leaders went to ensure the survival of their people in colonial America.

Key People
Uncas, Mohegan Sachem
Miantonomi, Narragansett Sachem
John Mason, English soldier

Key Events
Pequot War
King Philip's War

The third season of History: Beyond the Textbook focuses on the stories of individuals who shaped "America's Crucial Years" of 1783-1790, and runs from October 8-December 24. Catch up on Season One, "America's Colonial Era," and Season Two, "America's Revolution," wherever you listen to your podcasts!

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Transcript

It was a war that pitted the Pequots against the English settlers and their Mohegan and Narragansett allies.  Wait a minute…Native peoples were willing to ally with the English against other Native nations?  The genesis of this episode stems from an episode of a History Channel mini-series that I have routinely viewed with my students called 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America.  The episode is called Massacre at Mystic, and it focuses on the destruction of a Pequot fort along the Mystic River in modern-day Connecticut, as well as the unfortunate slaughter of the vast majority of the Pequot who lived there.  Understandably, much attention is given to the contrasting ways of the Pequot and the English, but one of the presenters mentions that the Mohegan and Narragansett were willing to make an alliance with the English to take on the Pequot.  These allies are only referenced in terms of their participation in the conflict, but not given much attention beyond that.  Hearing this certainly piqued my interest: what factors would compel an individual to ally with someone whose victory may not be in their best interest?  Perhaps English victory was in the best interest of their Indigenous allies.  This curiosity led me to today’s subject: Uncas, Sachem of the Mohegans for a large portion of his life.  He not only allied with the English during the Pequot War, but he struggled to maintain his Sachemship, personally participated in the Massacre at Mystic, was present at, and participated in, the negotiations that ended the war, and set the stage for another conflict in which the English would intervene…and he still had another four decades of life ahead of him!  On today’s episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, we explore the life of Uncas, the mighty Mohegan of the Connecticut River Valley. 

Act One: Uneasy Coexistence

So, what actually led to the conflict known as the “Pequot War,” the one that involved ever-shifting political alliances, as well as brutality usually not displayed in warfare within Southern New England up to this time?  And what role did Uncas, the Mohegan sachem, play in all of this and beyond?  We’ll begin our account with what we know about the tribe for whom this war is named: the Pequot.  The Pequot are an Algonquin-speaking people whose territory in the early 1600’s included coastal regions of Southern New England.  This territory was mainly centered along the Mystic River Valley, as well as the Thames and Pawcatuck River in modern-day Connecticut, and they bordered the Narragansetts (who bordered the Wampanoag on whose territory Plymouth colony was established).  As Algonquin, they would have shared linguistic and cultural characteristics with the Powhatan of the Chesapeake region, whom we met back in episode 1.2.  Regarding social and political structures, the Pequot were organized into villages that were led by a sachem (a position that Uncas will come to hold for the Mohegan).  These villages were held together by kin relationships, and villages would occasionally band together for protection, which was a concept that the English inherently understood.  However, these relationships were neither fixed nor permanent, for the forging of these relationships was to be reciprocal: for a sachem to earn the right to lead and sustain alliances, he would need to provide…well, food, protection, and additional material goods procured through established trade networks.  This was not an absolute relationship like in Europe where blind obedience to a monarch was expected; similar to the Wampanoag, alliances could shift at will.  During this time, the Pequot numbered about 30,000 and controlled the trade of furs and wampum that had been popularized by the Dutch; with regards to the Connecticut Valley, the Pequot were the metaphorical “big kid on the block.”

The Pequot, along with their Mohegan rivals, also considered balance to be a paramount element of their daily lives.  As was the case with so many Indigenous nations at this time, the Three Sisters of corn, beans, and squash made up a significant portion of the diet of the Pequot, and it was also supplemented by fish and hunting that would net protein to get everyone through the lean winter months…until the spring thaw occurred, and the cycle would continue.  There was balance to be found not only in the cycle of the seasons, but also in the gender roles that governed Pequot life.  Women tended to the crops, sowing and harvesting them while also raising the children of their village.  Meanwhile, the men would generally work on tasks that would assist in procuring meat for everyone; in other words, women created and cultivated life, while men ended it, albeit not for sport.  These roles were wholly unfamiliar to the English settlers, who began to flood into Pequot, and thus, Eastern Algonquin territory, throughout the early 1600’s.  Along with their misunderstandings about the way of life of those they encountered, the settlers also brought disease with them.  An epidemic in the early 1630’s began to decimate the coastal population of Southern New England’s Indigenous nations.  Shamans, holy men who held great sway within Pequot villages, failed to prevent further death, and began to lose their credibility.  The Pequot lost 4,000, leading the nearby English to assume that “Divine Providence” was at play, and to subsequently suggest to the Pequot that they acknowledge English superiority and allow them to settle on their lands: the Pequot refused.  The English kept coming, misinterpreting Pequot life, and encroaching on Pequot land, while the Pequot understandably refused to yield.  Something had to give.

In selecting a starting point for the outbreak of the Pequot War, it makes sense to begin with the murder of trader John Stone along the Connecticut River in 1634 by the Pequot and their allies; Stone had an exceptionally shady reputation and was already in the process of forced migration to Virginia, but the murder of an Englishmen, especially by anyone Indigenous, couldn’t go unnoticed.  In 1636, tensions continued to rise when fur trader John Oldham was murdered by tributaries of the Narragansett, another nation that served as rivals to the Pequot.  Ultimately, the Pequot were blamed for it.  An expedition to seek  their version of justice resulted in the sack of a Pequot town…after they admitted that they had nothing to do with Oldham’s murder.  John Winthrop, still in charge of Massachusetts Bay Colony, appealed to Plymouth for help fighting this perceived enemy; militarily, the English could have gone to war with the Pequots, whose land they desired, or the Narragansetts, whose lands they also desired, but whose tributaries had actually killed Oldham.  Colonial leaders chose the Pequot, and they began to gather their allies.

Act Two: Uncas and Mystic

We’ve focused a lot on the Pequot, the English, and even the Narragansett.  But what of the Mohegans, whose eventual sachem, Uncas, is the focus of this episode?  We’re not sure of the exact date that Uncas was born, but it was probably somewhere at the end of the 1500's, so he came of age in a world where interaction with Europeans was somewhat normalized, if not more sporadic than it was for those on the coast.  The Mohegans (not to be confused with the Mohicans, the focal nation of the book and eventual movie The Last of the Mohicans) were very similar to the Pequot in terms of their language and culture, and Uncas would hold the title of Sachem to the Mohegans in the geographic region known as the Eastern Woodlands.  In addition to the way of life we learned about in our previous act, the Mohegan attempted to integrate themselves into the sprawling cross-cultural economic exchanges involving Dutch and English traders.  The primary contribution of the Mohegans was their manufacture of wampum, small purple and white beads that derived from small clam shells.  Wampum was used in alliance-building and diplomatic endeavors along the eastern seaboard, but Europeans came to interpret this commodity as a currency.  So, the Mohegans, and on a larger scale, the Pequot and Narragansetts, exchanged wampum, along with furs and foodstuff, in return for European metal goods.  To enter this trade, Uncas’s father, the Mohegan sachem Owaneco, proposed that his eldest son (Uncas’s older brother) marry the daughter of the great sachem of the Pequot.  His brother died before the marriage could proceed, so Uncas took his place…and his father died a short time later, leaving Uncas to take his place as sachem.  Again, since the Pequot were the dominant power in the region, they also made scores of enemies, such as the Mohegans, and Uncas came to understand that he needed access to European traders, so he essentially had to become a tributary of his father-in-law, the Pequot sachem Tatobem.  Mohegan numbers had been greatly reduced due to disease, so Uncas did what he could to access material possessions while he bided his time.

So we’ve got cultural, political, and economic issues that are contributing to tensions in Southern New England, not only between English settlers and Indigenous nations, but also between these Indigenous nations.  When Uncas had to essentially submit to the Pequot, war was not inevitable, and the Dutch were the only European traders on the market. A prominent Sachem along the Connecticut River also appealed to Governors William Bradford of Plymouth and John Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay (two names we’ve heard before) in 1631 and offered trade goods in exchange for English settlers to prevent them from being forced to deal with the Pequots for exclusive trading purposes.  This allowed the English to eventually become more prominent trade partners, but they viewed the material wealth of the Pequot, namely the land they occupied, as a hindrance to their continued expansion in North America.  These two factors explain why the English began to concentrate their forces against the Pequot throughout the early 1630’s.  Relations deteriorated in the mid-1630’s when the aforementioned murders of traders John Stone and John Oldham occurred, and the English prepared for war.  They wanted to prevent further Pequot raids on their trading positions, so they decided to engage in an overland attack. 

This entire time, Uncas had been officially submitted to Pequot rule, but he began attempting to undermine the authority of Sassacus, the primary Pequot Sachem who succeeded his father Tatobem.  Uncas toed the line with Tatobem …not so with Sassacus.  Remember, Uncas is the brother-in-law of the Sachem, so killing him and leaving his sister a widow would strain family relations and wreak havoc on the current political situation.  Uncas was greatly weakened by his challenges to Sassacus, and these setbacks left him with few fighting men at his disposal and a dwindling acreage of Mohegan lands.  Call it political acumen, diplomatic pragmatism, or perhaps the simple chance to enhance Mohegan standing along Connecticut River Valley…all of the following have been provided as explanations for why Uncas decided to begin cultivating relationships with leaders of the Connecticut colony.  One of the most important, and lasting, relationships he fostered was with Captain John Mason, an English soldier who was a hardened veteran of England’s campaign in the Netherlands.  These men would be political, military, and personal allies for nearly four decades, and it was to colonial leaders such as Mason that Uncas would immediately lay the blame for Stone’s death on the Pequots (he wasn’t wrong about this, but his willingness to seemingly sell out those whom he was supposed to pay tribute to was unsettling).

The main English attack on the Pequot occurred at a fortified hilltop village along the Mystic River.  It was here that several hundred men, women, and children had gathered in the fortified village for safety, and on the night of May 26, 1637, the allied force of English, Mohegan, and Narragansett (who had allied with the English aby this time and also sought to break the Pequot monopoly on trade) made their move.  The Massachusetts soldiers, along with the Narragansett, were led by Captain John Underhill, while Uncas and Mason led the Mohegans and the Connecticut troops (although use of the words “soldiers” and “troops” aren’t always the most accurate since those who accompanied Mason and Underhill didn’t possess a wealth of combat experience).  By this time, Uncas had proven himself to be a true English ally by burning a Pequot prisoner alive in front of English witnesses, so he was integral in leading this assault.  He also informed Mason and Underhill that he did not trust the Narragansetts, which may help explain why, prior to the attack on the fort, the Mohegans were provided with yellow cloths to tie around their heads to easily identify them as English allies, while not all Narragansetts received them.  Uncas silently led the allied force to the fort, where the Mohegans encircled the fort, while the English overwhelmed the Pequot guards and charged inside the fort.  The resistance was immediate and stiff, given that barking dogs alerted the warriors on the inside to an attack, so Captain Mason, who entered from the north, declared “we must burn them” to quickly end the conflict.  Uncas and Underhill came to the same conclusion as they entered from the south, and the Pequots that escaped the enflamed fort were cut down by Mohegan forces.  Few survived, and four hundred Pequot men, women, and children lay dead.  The Narragansetts who witness the carnage exclaimed “Mach it,” mach it!” which means “it is naught, it is naught” to express their disdain for the slaughter.  There were even questions among the English as to whether they went too far, but the damage was done…and as leader of this massacre, Uncas solidified himself as a firm ally of colonial New England.

Act Three: Fallout from the Pequot War

So in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the Mystic fort, four hundred Pequots lay dead, although some estimates place the number as high as 700…compared to 2 English, and only 20 wounded.  There were also some Narragansetts who were injured because they were not wearing the yellow bands that marked them as English and Mohegan allies.  Uncas and his Mohegan fighters actually covered the evacuation of the English forces as they made their way to Pequot Harbor.  Pequot warriors that were nearby were obviously enraged by what had happened, and the Mohegans not only kept these pursuers at bay, but carried exhausted and injured English fighters to safety.  The forces that didn’t escape by boat were led by Uncas in a grueling twenty-mile march back to safety.  In short, as much as the attack at Mystic was a tactical victory for the English and their allies, they likely would not have survived the retreat without the guidance of Uncas and those same allies.  However, the events he just participated in certainly affected Uncas psychologically: total war undertaken to obliterate an opponent enjoyed precedent in Europe, as there were some members of the force that attacked Mystic who participated in the ghastly Thirty Years’ War on the European continent.  However, this style of warfare was completely unheard of and incomprehensible in Southern New England: Uncas was shocked by the carnage he witnessed, but also understood what would happen to the Mohegans if he were to ever cross the English.  This experience convinced him that he needed to remain a staunch ally of the English to prevent a similar fate, but also that he would need to do this through demonstrations of sheer power and strength.

This strength was on display throughout the next month as Uncas and the English hunted down the Pequots who were not killed at Mystic; “hunted down” is also not hyperbole.  Uncas led the pursuit of Pequots who fled west, and declared that any Pequot Sachems and warriors should be killed, but women and children would be adopted: that is, absorbed into Mohegan communities.  The use of the word “tribe” isn’t always illustrative of the population of these communities because Uncas would absorb defeated members of his rivals under his rule.  Therefore, a “Mohegan” community could be populated by just as many Pequots as actual Mohegans; this helps explain why Uncas’s support doubled in the months following Mystic.  Miantonomi, a Narragansett Sachem, tried to accomplish the same task.  Neither of these men wanted the Pequot completely eradicated, as did the English: they wanted to use the survivors to beef up their own numbers and gain access to the resources and trade goods that the Pequot had controlled for so long.  Uncas was tenacious about this process, and considered it his right to do so.  When Roger Williams sent a message to Uncas demanding that he deliver all Pequots in his sphere to Massachusetts Bay, Uncas viewed it as an insult.  Through his actions, he vowed protection for these new Mohegans…simply another way he demonstrated his strength.  

With his good standing in Connecticut solidified, Uncas journeyed to Hartford to negotiate the terms that would formally conclude the fighting.  Massachusetts Bay had already declared their intentions to lay claim to Pequot lands in their jurisdictions, and Connecticut was seeking to do the same.  Both were using the justification of “right of conquest,” and we know that Uncas saw firsthand what the English would do if they didn’t get their way.  Uncas represented the Mohegans, while Miantonomi represented the Narragansetts.  When all parties arrived, it would be an understatement to say that Uncas and Miantonomi didn’t like each other: they refused to shake hands, they each accused the other of treachery towards the English, and they refused to share a meal together.  A treaty was finalized and signed as a result of this meeting: it was declared that the Pequots, in the exact wording of the treaty, “shall no more be called Pequots but Narragansetts and Mohegans.  This is not a surprise as each Sachem sought to beef up the number of their supporters.  Each agreed to not trespass on the lands of the other, refrain from providing shelter to any enemies of the English , nor mess with any English livestock.  This last one was an issue going back to the earliest English settlement, so it’s clear that each man understood that they would be forced to live among English domesticated animals.  Interestingly enough, the wording of the treaty makes it clear that the English considered the Mohegans as their tributaries…and Uncas signed off on it.  This meeting that was marked by the animosity between Uncas and Miantonomi ended with Uncas’s acknowledgement of Mohegan subordination to the English.

Or perhaps this is simply an extension of the astute pragmatic nature of Uncas.  Connecticut clearly favored Uncas and enjoyed the relationship they had developed with the Mohegans, and they in turn became the new power in the region.  He and Miantomoni continued to antagonize one another, with Uncas often telling English officials that the Narragansett were harboring their former Pequot enemies.  Uncas appears to have acknowledged that the English were going to remain in Southern New England and so he learned to live with them and get what he needed from them.  Miantonomi went a different route…he sent out feelers to Indigenous villages and suggested a somewhat radical idea: an alliance that would serve as a military counterweight to the English.  An alliance of often conflicting Native American nations that shared a common purpose of keeping their land and way of life had never really been attempted, and would not seriously gain traction for another 150 or so years (meaning: it isn’t going to get off the ground now).  Meanwhile, Miantonomi sought to capture Pequot rebels under Uncas’s protection and turn them over to English officials.  Uncas, however, was one step ahead of him: he went directly to John Winthrop and informed him that the Narragansett were considering an attack.  Throughout the early 1640’s Miantonomi was summoned to testify before Puritan officials about reports that he was plotting against the English.  The final time followed an attempt on Uncas’s life in 1643 after which the assailant fled to Narragansett lines, and Winthrop decided to turn Miantonomi over to Uncas for punishment.  THe Mohegans and Narragansetts went to war, and to simplify what happened, Uncas captured his enemy and turned him over to the English, who in turn sentenced him to death…by the hands of the Mohegans.  Seemingly not wanting to have blood on their hands, and truly without much jurisdiction or precedent, Miantonomi became a Mohegan prisoner.  As Uncas marched Miantonomi towards Mohegan territory in August 1643, he gave his brother a signal, and a tomahawk was planted in the back of Miantonomi’s skull.  The Narragansetts soon signed a treaty with Hartford, and Uncas, the man who two decades earlier had only double-digit followers to his name and submitted to the Pequots, was now the paramount Sachem in all of Southern New England.  

Act Four: Building a legacy

This is the part of the episode where we generally address what our focal individual has done beyond the topic that they are traditionally associated with, in this case, the Pequot War.  I suppose we have already done this in acknowledging that he killed his enemy after convincing the English that he should be allowed to do so, but Uncas will live another three decades beyond this particular event.  We’ll certainly summarize how he continued his life and how he is, or perhaps should be, remembered, but at least one of the conflicts in which he was involved will be the subject of a future episode, so we won’t give too much away.

By the mid-1640’s, Uncas had the leaders of Connecticut on his side, as well as leaders of what was called the United Colonies (basically, Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, as well as Connecticut).  He had worked well with John Winthrop, Sr., but John Winthrop, Jr., appears to have had mixed feelings about the Mohegan Sachem.  The younger Winthrop formed an alliance with a man named Robert Cassacinamon, a Pequot leader of a community that was supposed to be subordinate to Uncas based on the terms of the Treaty of Hartford.  Refugee Pequots had been migrating to the settlement, and there was even a group of English settlers that began to establish a base in the region.  None of this sat well with Uncas, who considered the land to be his, so he led a raid on the Nemeag settlement…an action for which the English implied heavily that he would need to cease in the future if he was to remain in their good graces.  Uncas wished to remain on good terms for the purposes of trade and diplomacy, so he explained himself to English commissioners at New Haven.  The commissioners ruled that Cassacinamon would have to pay tribute to Uncas and agree to not antagonize him; Uncas got off fairly easily, demonstrating the power and sway he still held among the English.

As the years wore on, Uncas acted similarly: he raided rival settlements, was reprimanded by English commissioners, and went on his way.  However, as the 1640’s turned into the 1650’s, and eventually, the 1660’s, the political reality began to shift.  Always the keen observer, Uncas even realized that it would not work to have an Indigenous translator when he appeared before the English leaders, so on at least one occasion he asked his good friend and Pequot War ally John Mason to accompany him.  Wampum, which had been used as a currency in economic transactions for decades, was demonetized in the early 1660’s, meaning that this would no longer be the medium of exchange in official trade deals.  This served to cut out the Algonquin peoples of the coastal regions as middlemen, and forced individuals from these communities to find work in an English-dominated economy.  Uncas had already ceded tracts of Mohegan land to prevent the worst effects of English domination, as had befell some of his rivals, but the influx of settlers that now surrounded his lands became almost too much to bear.  Even worse, Indigenous peoples were increasingly forced to follow English laws which were entirely foreign to them: Uncas had enough influence in colonial governments that he could wiggle around some of these issues, but inevitable change was certainly on the horizon. 

The “last gasp” of Uncas came during a conflict in New England that posterity has remembered as “King Philip’s War.”  To simplify, and amplify, the role that Uncas played in this war, we arrive at a case of true irony: for years, Puritan officials had attempted to make it more difficult for the Mohegans to wage war on their enemies in the interest of stabilizing the frontier and encouraging settlers to arrive and practice agriculture.  With Uncas placing his support on the side of the English, now found himself well-armed and encouraged to wage war.  Now in his 70’s, Uncas personally led his men at times, but his role as an informant was more beneficial to the colonials against their Wampanoag and Narragansett enemies.  Of course Uncas would jump at the opportunity to fight Narragansetts once again!  King Philip’s War lasted from 1675-1676, with Uncas formally pledging friendship to the English two years later.  However, this wasn’t enough for a population that had come to view Indigenous nations as hindrances to claiming fertile land and viewed them with outright hostility.  Uncas spent his remaining years attempting to solidify the borders of Mohegan lands to guarantee sustainability for his people once he died, while also giving away pieces of land to those who were loyal to him over the years.  We know that in 1684, one of Uncas’s sons identified himself in an official document as the son of Uncas whom he said was “deceased.”  No pomp, no circumstance, no write-up about the extraordinary life of this man: just a mention in a deed.  His official burial site is unknown, but he would have been buried in a ritual consistent with his status.  160 years later, in 1842, a monument to Uncas was completed, and still stands in Norwich, Connecticut.  It features an obelisk, with the name “Uncas” inscribed at the bottom.  How ironic that a simple monument was erected to honor a man whose life was wrought with such complexity.  Uncas was a Sachem who understood the political landscape, worked with the English to preserve the land and way of life of the Mohegans, and advocated for them until the bitter end.  

Join us next week on History: Beyond the Textbook as we learn about the Haudenosunee, sometimes known as the Iroquois Confederacy, and their adept and shrewd methods of warfare and diplomacy through the eyes of the Mohawk-Dutch leader, Chief Canaqueese.