This is the third and final edition of a series on Norwich founder John Mason and his controversial conquest of the once dominant Connecticut Indian tribe, the Pequots.

Major John Mason continues to be a controversial historical figure more than 300 years after he played a central role in the Pequot War that decimated the Pequot Tribe while establishing colonists as the dominant force in southeastern Connecticut.

Ledyard archaeologist Kevin McBride and City of Norwich Historian Dale Plummer. a descendent of Mason, previously have covered how initial relations between Europeans and New England tribes began as an amenable trading partnership, with the powerful Pequot tribe’s control of coastal shellfish beds allowing them to manipulate and dictate the flow of wampum, reinforced by their prowess militarily and politically.

That monopoly was ultimately broken by the English alliance with inland tribes like the Mohegans, and with river tribes rival to the Pequots, along with the powerful Narragansetts of nearby Rhode Island.

Mason was a military maverick commissioned by the General Court of the fledgling Connecticut Colony to end the “menace of the hostile Pequots,” in the wake of the tribe’s reaction to the ravaging of one of their villages by an English commander sent to Connecticut by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

That attack sent the Connecticut colonies into a panic, with Mason appointed to end the threat. Mason did so with the aid of Native allies, culminating with the violent destruction and burning of a major, fortified Pequot village in Mystic, and followed by an ill-fated pursuit by tribal warriors from another stronghold. In a single day’s time, over 500 Pequot warriors had lost their lives, breaking the tribe as the mightiest military force in the region.

Prior to the night of May 26, the Colony of Connecticut had been losing the eight-months war; now the Pequots struggled to regroup in the wake of a 50 percent loss of their primary fighting force. Mason and a reduced number of combined English soldiers and Native allies made their way through ambushes back to the Thames shoreline in Groton, most of them boarding the boats awaiting their retreat. Mason and a number of his more able soldiers (along with Uncas and their Native allies) marched another 20 miles all the way back to the refuge of Fort Saybrook ... victorious. But that was not the end of it.

“Mason actually went back into Pequot territory to prevent the surviving warriors from regrouping,” said McBride. “Despite the losses they suffered from the burning of the Mystic fort, and especially their losses to musket fire during the English withdrawal, the Pequots were still a threat. Mason wanted to put an end to that entirely. So instead of going on to Windsor, he stayed and rested at Saybrook for a couple days, then gathered up some of his healthier soldiers — along with Uncas and his Mohegans, and the local Wangunks too — to deal with the remaining Pequots.”

McBride also explained how this was indicated in old records, and from the discovery of artifacts — like musket balls and even Wangunk arrow points found during his team’s excavations. Many of the artifacts of battle activity and signs of past existing villages were unearthed by McBride and his team, usually via metal detectors, a lot of it not far beneath the surface, sometimes no more than 6 to 9 inches.

Their remarkable findings in literally digging up the long ago past of over three-and-a-half centuries were practically right at their feet.

This is our regional history buried there.

“Based on the unique design of Wangunk arrow points embedded in the skeletal remains of Pequots — remains excavated locally a century ago” — McBride explained, “we can deduce that not only did these two tribes fight against each other, but that the Wangunks fought for Mason. The trail of musket balls uncovered in regions of Mystic, Bluff Point, and in Poquonnock verify Mason’s return to Pequot territory.”

McBride adds that the Pequots did not leave their homeland entirely for several more weeks.

“Pequot men were also rounded up in areas like Mamacoke and in what is now Fort Trumbull — and then drowned,” Plummer added.

Ultimately the tribe fled the region for the west end of Connecticut, the Pequot’s Great Sachem Sassacus heading to Quinnipiac (now New Haven) — after leaving the women and children safely in Schaghticoke (now Kent) — where it is said he was ambushed and killed by the Mohawk tribe, eager to appease the victorious English.

“Sassacus had wanted to continue the war,” said Plummer, the Norwich historian, with McBride adding, “Many Pequots held him responsible and accountable for the disastrous end to it.”

The rest of the Pequot Tribe wound up in Fairfield Swamp where they made their last stand. McBride and Plummer both describe that final battle as “an intense and bloody one that lasted a good 24 hours.”

McBride explained that the cornered Pequots had fought valiantly until only the few remaining finally resigned themselves to their end by sitting upright, robes pulled over their heads, as the English shot them.

“It was an ugly finish,” said McBride. “Mason had been present at this final battle and had allowed Thomas Stanton, an interpreter. to first enter the swamp and escort the women and children out safely, while the Pequot men remained, opting to fight it out.”

“A number of Pequots were later shipped down to the West Indies where they were sold as slaves,” said Plummer. “The Pequots were no longer considered a tribe and were placed under the dominion of either the Mohegans or the Narragansetts.”

John Mason himself rose in prominence within the structure of the Connecticut colonies, which also benefitted Uncas and his Mohegans for their role in helping overthrow the Pequots. A fair number of the once dominant but now defeated tribe were sent to the Mohegans’ main village of Shantok, while others were placed at Nameag — known as the “Fishing Land” — also under Sachem Uncas.

“Uncas’ numbers absolutely swelled after the Pequot War,” said McBride, and it grew all the more as he married a number of prominent women from the once dominant tribe, raising his own influence among them. There were still about 2,000 Pequots living in the southeastern Connecticut region.”

Among the Pequots who dwelled in Nameag was a young sachem named Cassasinamon who, despite Uncas’ insistence on subservience, had attained a role of leadership within a tribe that had supposedly been stripped of its identity.

“Uncas had known of Cassasinamon and sent him on a mission to obtain a select Pequot woman serving in the Massachusetts home of John Winthrop Jr. — son to the governor of that colony, John Winthrop Sr.,” said McBride. “And there, a strong friendship formed between the younger Winthrop and Cassasinamon, one that would ultimately benefit the remaining Pequots.”

Named “Robin” Cassasinamon by Winthrop Jr. – who would also keep Uncas from adding the woman from his Massachusetts household to the Mohegan sachem’s growing number of influential wives — the young sachem of the Nameag Pequots was returned to Connecticut after serving in the Winthrop home. The younger Winthrop ultimately fell into conflict with Mason, who had been promoted to the rank of major and was also a United Colonies of New England Commissioner. The two quarreled over Winthrop’s granting land in Noank to the Pequots … and with it, autonomy from Uncas.

Mason’s bond with the Mohegan Sachem would last a lifetime. Winthrop Jr. would go on to start the Pequot Plantation in the Nameag region, which became the city of New London in 1658. John Mason’s role in the Connecticut Colonies would continue to rise, though his memorial burial site lies in a remote cemetery in Norwich.

As for the Pequots, Connecticut Governor John Winthrop Jr. returned them to their ancestral “Much Wooded Land” in Mashantucket, survivors of the Pequot War.

New London’s Nicholas Checker is an author and playwright.