Editing Pequots (section)

===Etymology===
''Pequot'' is an [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian]] word whose meaning is disputed among language specialists.  Considerable scholarship on the Pequot claims that the name came from ''Pequttôog'', meaning "the destroyers" or "the men of the swamp".  [[Frank Speck]] was a leading specialist of the [[Mohegan-Pequot language]] in the early twentieth century, and he believed that another term was more plausible, meaning "the shallowness of a body of water", given that the Pequot territory was along the coast of [[Long Island Sound]].<ref>Frank Speck, "Native Tribes and Dialects of Connecticut: A Mohegan-Pequot Diary", ''Annual Reports of the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology'' 43 (1928): 218.</ref><ref>"The Pequot Relationships, as Indicated by the Events Leading to the Pequot Massacre of 1637 and Subsequent Claims in the Mohegan Land Controversy", ''Archaeological Society of Connecticut Bulletin'' 21 (1947): 26–33.</ref>

Historians have debated whether the Pequot migrated about 1500 from the upper [[Hudson River]] Valley toward central and eastern [[Connecticut]]. The theory of Pequot migration to the [[Connecticut River]] Valley can be traced to Rev. William Hubbard, who claimed in 1677 that the Pequot had invaded the region sometime before the establishment of [[Plymouth Colony]], rather than originating in the region.  In the aftermath of [[King Philip's War]], Hubbard detailed in his ''Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New-England'' the ferocity with which some of [[New England]]'s tribes responded to the English. Hubbard described the Pequot as "foreigners" to the region; not invaders from another shore, but "from the interior of the continent" who "by force seized upon one of the goodliest places near the sea, and became a Terror to all their Neighbors."<ref>William Hubbard, ''The History of the Indian Wars in New England'' 2 vols. (Boston: Samuel G. Drake, 1845), vol. 2, pp. 6–7.</ref>

Much of the archaeological, linguistic, and documentary evidence now available demonstrates that the Pequot were not invaders to the Connecticut River Valley but were indigenous in that area for thousands of years.<ref>For archaeological investigations disproving Hubbard's theory of origins, see Irving Rouse, "Ceramic Traditions and Sequences in Connecticut," ''Archaeological Society of Connecticut Bulletin'' 21 (1947): 25; Kevin McBride, "Prehistory of the Lower Connecticut Valley" (Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1984), pp. 126–28, 199–269; and the overall evidence on the question of Pequot origins in Means, "Mohegan-Pequot Relationships," 26–33. For historical research, refer to Alfred A. Cave, "The Pequot Invasion of Southern New England: A Reassessment of the Evidence," ''New England Quarterly'' 62 (1989): 27–44; and for linguistic research, see Truman D. Michelson, "Notes on Algonquian Language," ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 1 (1917): 56–57.</ref>  By the time of the founding of [[Plymouth Colony|Plymouth]] and [[Massachusetts Bay]] colonies, the Pequot had already attained a position of political, military, and economic dominance in central and eastern Connecticut. They occupied the coastal area between the [[Niantic people|Niantic]] tribe of the [[Niantic River]] of Connecticut and the [[Narragansett (tribe)|Narragansett]] in western [[Rhode Island]]. The Pequot numbered some 16,000 persons in the most densely inhabited portion of southern New England.<ref name="snow">Dean R. Snow and Kim M. Lamphear, "European Contact and Indian Depopulation in the Northeast: The Timing of the First Epidemics," ''Ethnohistory'' 35 (1988): 16–38.</ref>

The [[smallpox]] epidemic of 1616–1619 killed many of the Native Americans of the eastern coast of New England, but it did not reach the Pequot, Niantic, and Narragansett tribes. In 1633, the Dutch established a trading post called the House of Good Hope at [[Hartford]]. They executed the principal Pequot ''sachem'' Tatobem because of a violation of an agreement. After the Pequot paid the Dutch a large ransom, they returned Tatobem's body to his people. His successor was [[Sassacus]].

In 1633, an epidemic devastated all of the region's tribes, and historians estimate that the Pequot suffered the loss of 80 percent of their population.  At the outbreak of the [[Pequot War]], Pequot survivors may have numbered only about 3,000.<ref>Refer to Sherburne F. Cook, "The Significance of Disease in the Extinction of the New England Indians," ''Human Biology'' 45 (1973): 485–508; and Arthur E. Spiro and Bruce D. Spiess, "New England Pandemic of 1616–1622: Cause and Archaeological Implication," ''Man in the Northeast'' 35 (1987): 71–83.</ref>