While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Sassacus (perhaps the equivalent of Massachuset
Sassakusu, 'he is wild' (untamed), 'fierce.' Gerard). The noted and
last chief of the Pequot tribe while yet in their integrity; born near
Groton, Conn., about 1560, killed by the Mohawk in New York, June 1637. He
was the son and successor of Wopigwooit the first chief of the tribe with
whom the whites had come in contact, who was killed by the Dutch, about
1632, at or near the site of Hartford, Conn., then the principal Pequot
settlement.
Soon after assuming the chiefship, in Oct. 1634
Sassacus sent an emissary to the governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony
to ask for a treaty of friendship, offering as an inducement to surrender
all the rights of the Pequot to the lands they had conquered, provided the
colonists would settle a plantation among his people, an offer which he
must have known he could not carry out, and perhaps had no intention of
trying to fulfill, as he nourished bitter enmity toward the whites. This
proposal had the effect of turning against him
Uncas, the Mohegan chief, who was
related to him by both blood and marriage. The domain of the Pequot during
Sassacus's chiefship extended from Narragansett bay to Hudson river,
including the larger part of Long id., and it is said that at the height
of his prosperity no fewer than 26 sachems were subordinate to him.
Because of his depredations, especially on the neighboring tribes, the
colonists decided in 1636 to make war on the Pequot. The name of Sassacus
had inspired such terror among the surrounding tribes that the Indian
allies of the whites could not believe the latter would dare to make a
direct attack on the stronghold of this wily chief. The war was soon
ended, and Sassacus, having suffered defeat and the loss of a large
portion of his people, fled with 20 or 30 of his warriors to the Mohawk
country. Even here he found no safety, for before the close of 1637 his
scalp and those of his brother and five other Pequot chiefs were sent to
the governor of Massachusetts by the Mohawk.
As Sassacus had carried with him in his flight a large
quantity of wampum, a desire on the part of the Mohawk to possess this
treasure may have led to the death of himself and his followers. Sassacus
was spoken of by the commissioners in 1647 as "the malignant, furious
Piquot," while, on the other hand, De Forest styles him "a renowned
warrior and a noble and high-spirited man."
Consult De Forest, Inds. Conn., 1852; Stone, Uncas and
Miantonomoh, 1842; Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1st s., ix, 1804; Drake, Inds.
N. A., 1880.
