Pequttôog

The Pequttôog, or Pequot, were an Algonquian people who dominated central and eastern Connecticut; their name has been read as the destroyers or men of the swamp. The Mohegan were once part of the same people before splitting away in the seventeenth century.

In 1633 the Dutch executed the Pequot sachem Tatobem; an epidemic the same year may have carried off four fifths of the population, leaving the succession to Sassacus. After the colonist John Oldham was killed in 1636, the New England colonies and their allies made war. The Mystic massacre of 1637 broke Pequot power, and captives were enslaved, many sold to Bermuda.

The Treaty of Hartford of 1638 forbade survivors to call themselves Pequot. Small reserves were nevertheless granted at Mashantucket in 1666 and on the Pawcatuck River in 1683, and Christian Pequot families later joined the Brothertown community.