1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pequot

PEQUOT, an Algonquian tribe of North-American Indians, a branch of the Mohicans. They occupied the coast of Connecticut from Niantic river to the Rhode Island boundary. Together with their kinsmen, the Mohegans, they formed a powerful and warlike people, bitterly hostile to the early settlers. In 1637 the Pequots were surprised by the whites at their fort on the Mystic river, and suffered so completely a defeat that the tribe was broken up, and its remnants took refugee with neighbouring tribes. The Pequot country passed under the control of the Mohegans. At the height of their power the Pequots numbered, it is estimated, some 3000.