In the New World during the 17th century, battles were raging as colonists struggled against Native Americans. One of the first was known as the Pequot War, which lasted two years from 1634 through 1638.

At the heart of this conflict, the Pequot and Mohegan tribes fought each other for political power and trading capabilities with the newcomers. The Dutch sided with the Pequots and the English with the Mohegans. It all ended with the Treaty of Hartford in 1638 and the English claiming victory

Hostilities on the continent were quelled until King Philip's War broke out in 1675. This, too, was a battle over Native American rights to lands being inhabited by settlers. Both wars would shadow the white and native relationship into a civilization versus savagery debate for two more centuries.

To best understand the Pequot War, one needs to consider the economic, political, and cultural changes brought about by the arrival of the Dutch on Long Island and in the Connecticut River valley at the beginning of the 17th century and of English traders and settlers in the early 1630s.

The struggle for control of the fur and wampum trade in the Connecticut River valley was at the root of the Pequot War. Before the arrival of the English in the early 1630s, the Dutch and Pequot controlled all the region’s trade, but the situation was precarious because of the resentment held by the subservient Native American tribes for their Pequot overlords.

When the English entered upon the scene, those other tribes sought alliance with them, shifting the balance of regional power and bringing about conflict as the competition for control of trade heated up anew.

Among the seminal events was the murder of a trader (John Stone) and his crew on the Connecticut River by the Pequot in early 1634. Although the Pequot provided several explanations for the deaths of Stone and his crew.

All of which suggested that the Pequot viewed their actions as justified—the English felt that they could not afford to let any English deaths at the hands of Native Americans go unpunished. As tensions grew, another trader, John Oldham, was found murdered on a ship off Block Island (now part of the state of Rhode Island) in July 1636.