Fire Before Dawn - May 26, 1637

On May 26, 1637, English soldiers and their Native allies burned the Pequot village at Mystic, Connecticut, killing hundreds of women, children, and elders before dawn. What most history leaves out is the story of the Narragansett and Mohegan nations, who had their own reasons for being at that perimeter, and a Dutch trade dispute that set the whole mechanism in motion years before any torch was lit. This is not a clean story of colonizers and victims. It is a story about how alliances are made, how legal pretexts are constructed, and what it costs a people when their very name is outlawed.