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Encyclopedia entry: Pequot War
- Article from:
- The Oxford Companion to United States History
- Author:
Copyright© The Oxford Companion to United States History 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information)
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Pequot War
(1636–1637).The Pequot War originated in conflicts over trade and colonization in south‐central
New England
. From the early 1620s, coastal Indians supplied wampum (sacred shell beads, polished and strung in strands, belts, or sashes) to Dutch traders who exchanged it with inland natives for beaver pelts. The Pequots attempted in the early 1630s to control this trade but were resisted by the Narragansetts, Mohegans, and Dutch. Politically isolated, the Pequots allied in 1634 with the English colonists of Massachusetts Bay, only to find that the alliance encouraged English settlement in the Connecticut Valley and the formation, in 1636, of a new colony, Connecticut. ...