United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
The destruction of the Pequots as a nation was complete. All the
captive men, women, and children were made slaves, some being kept in
New England and others sent to the West Indies,[13] and there remained
at large in Connecticut not over two hundred Pequots. September 21,
1638, a treaty was negotiated between the Connecticut delegates and
the Narragansetts and Mohegans, by the terms of which the Pequot
country became the property of the Connecticut towns, while one
hundred Pequots were given to Uncas, and one hundred to Miantonomoh
and Ninigret, his ally, to be incorporated with their tribes.[14]
So far as the whites of Connecticut were concerned the effect of the
war was to remove all real danger from Indians for a period of forty
years. Not till the Indians became trained in the use of fire-arms
were they again matched against the whites on anything like equal
terms. Among the Indian tribes, the result of the Pequot War was to
elevate Uncas and his Mohegans into a position of rivals of
Miantonomoh, and his Narragansetts, with the result of the overthrow
and death of Miantonomoh. In the subsequent years war broke out
several times, but by the intervention of the federal commissioners,
who bolstered up Uncas, hostilities did not proceed.
On the conclusion of the Pequot War the freemen of the three towns
upon the Connecticut convened at Hartford, January 14, 1639, and
adopted "the Fundamental Orders," a constitution which has been justly
pronounced the first written constitution framed by a community,
through its own representatives, as a basis for government. This
constitution contained no recognition whatever of any superior
authority in England, and provided[15] that the freemen were to hold
two general meetings a year, at one of which they were to elect the
governor and assistants, who, with four deputies from each town, were
to constitute a general court "to make laws or repeal them, to grant
levies, to admit freemen, to dispose of lands undisposed of to several
towns or persons, call the court or magistrate or any other person
whatsoever into question for any misdemeanor, and to deal in any other
matter that concerned the good of the commonwealth, except election of
magistrates," which was "to be done by the whole body of freemen."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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