A New Project

 

"Lion Gardiner in the Pequot War," Charles Stanley Reinhart

 

On September 1st, on their Patreon Discord, Little Wars TV kicked off their 3rd annual "Fall Army Painting Challenge (APC)."  The challenge has inspired me to start a new project, which, in turn, inspired me to dust off "Lost in the Grants" again.

The theme for this season's APC is "Forgotten Wars."  The goal is to paint up an army and/or terrain representing a war that is sort of forgotten in history or overshadowed by larger more popular topics like the American Civil War or World War 2.  Basically, any conflict that doesn't get a lot of love amongst the masses interested in such things.

I quickly decided that pretty much any conflict in North America that took place before the French & Indian War falls into the "Forgotten" category.  These are conflicts that aren't covered much, if at all, in modern classrooms, and if they are touched upon, it generally seems to be generalized as whites killing natives for little or no reason.

For this project, I've settled on the Pequot War that took place in New England in the early 1600s.

The what war?  Yeah, that's why it's forgotten.

In the 1630s, in what is now Connecticut, a series of skirmishes took place between the Dutch, English, and several native tribes, culminating in the Mystic Massacre in 1637 in which the Pequot Indian tribe was basically wiped out by English colonists and their Narraganset allies.  One of my ancestors, Captain John Underhill, is often credited with instigating the massacre.  Another of my ancestors, Barnabas Davis, is said to have been drafted by the colony of Connecticut to fight in the war.  Thus, I do have a somewhat personal, though distant, connection with the conflict.  As I've been studying the battles, and the politics behind them, I'm finding that, like most of history, things aren't as black and white as they are often made out to be.  Did the English wipe out the Pequots?  Yes.  With help.  Was it racially motivated?  No.  It was a war of several opposing nations.  Was it horrific?  Absolutely. On all sides.

As I progress through this project, I'll try to share my research and thoughts on this particular forgotten conflict.  Though short, it's an interesting period of history to study, with a few first person accounts left by the English that give a feel for the battles and the reasons for the conflicts.