Pequot War and Connecticut Colony, 1636–1638

Trade rivalry, territorial expansion, contested killings and unstable alliances contributed to war between the Pequot and English colonies. Mohegan and Narragansett forces allied with the English for their own strategic reasons, making the conflict more complex than a simple division between settlers and Indigenous peoples.

The attack on the fortified Pequot settlement at Mistick in 1637 killed hundreds, including many non-combatants. Surviving Pequot people were dispersed, enslaved or incorporated into other communities, and the 1638 Treaty of Hartford attempted to suppress Pequot political identity.

Hartford places a family of mixed English and Pequot connections inside this violence. The novel’s Christian themes turn on betrayal, forgiveness and the contradiction between religious profession and conquest carried out by colonial societies.