View source for Sassacus

:''[[Sassacus (spider)|Sassacus]] is also a genus of [[jumping spiders]].''
{{Infobox Native American leader|name=Sassacus|tribe=[[Pequot]]|predecessor=Tatobem|birth_date={{circa|1560}}|death_date=June {{death year and age|1637|1560}}
| term_start       = 1632
| term_end         = June 1637
|death_place=Present-Day [[New York (state)|New York]]|death_cause=[[Murder]]ed by the [[Mohawk people|Mohawk]] Tribe|battles={{plainlist|
*[[Pequot War]]
*[[Fairfield Swamp Fight]]
}}}}
'''Sassacus''' ([[Massachusett language|Massachusett]]: ''''' Sassakusu''''', "fierce") ({{circa|1560}} &ndash; June 1637) was a [[Pequot]] ''[[sachem]]''<ref>{{cite news | title=Pequot Indian Chiefs and Leaders | url =http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/algonquian/pequotchiefs.htm | work =Handbook of American Indians | access-date = 2007-02-21 }}</ref> who was born near present-day [[Groton, Connecticut]]. He became grand sachem after his father, Tatobem, was killed in 1632. The [[Mohegan]]s led by ''sachem'' [[Uncas]] rebelled against domination by the [[Pequots]].<ref>Oberg, p. 48</ref>  Sassacus and the Pequots were defeated by [[New England Colonies|English colonists]] allied with the [[Narragansett people|Narragansett]] and Mohegans in the [[Pequot War]].

Sassacus fled to what he thought was safety among the [[Iroquois]] [[Mohawk people|Mohawks]] in present-day [[New York (state)|New York]] state, but they murdered him and then sent his head and hands to the [[Connecticut Colony]] as a symbolic offering of friendship.<ref>Vaughan, Alden T. (1995). ''New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians, 1620–1675'', p. 150. University of Oklahoma Press. {{ISBN|0-8061-2718-X|978-0-8061-2718-7}}.</ref>

Sassacus possibly had a brother who married [[Ninigret]]'s daughter, and his sister-in-law may have married [[Harman Garrett]].<ref>Glenn LaFantasie, ''The Correspondence of Roger Williams,'' (1988) 311-312</ref><ref>Pulsief, ed., Acts of the Commissioners, I, 100, 169</ref>

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
* Oberg, Michael Leroy, ''Uncas, First of the Mohegans'', 2003, {{ISBN|0-8014-3877-2}}
* Vaughan, Alden T. (1995). ''New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians, 1620-1675'', p.&nbsp;150. University of Oklahoma Press. {{ISBN|0-8061-2718-X|978-0-8061-2718-7}}

[[Category:1560s births]]
[[Category:1637 deaths]]
[[Category:17th-century Native American leaders]]
[[Category:Murdered Native American people]]
[[Category:People from Groton, Connecticut]]
[[Category:People murdered in New York (state)]]
[[Category:Pequot people]]
[[Category:People from colonial Connecticut]]
[[Category:Native American people from Connecticut]]
[[Category:People murdered in 1637]]
[[Category:People murdered in the Thirteen Colonies]]


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