Tatobem, a principal Pequot sachem, had boarded a Dutch vessel to trade in 1634, but instead of conducting trade, the Dutch had seized the sachem and demanded a substantial ransom for his safe return.

The Pequot had quickly sent a bushel of wampum, and received Tatobem's corpse in return.

John Stone, a privateer from the West Indies who had been banished from Boston for malfeasance, had set sail from Boston and was in the process of kidnapping women and children of the Western Niantic, tributary clients of the Pequot, to sell as slaves in the Virginia Colony when he is killed, along with seven of his crewmen, near the mouth of the Connecticut River.

Colonial officials in Boston had protested the killing.

The Pequot sachem, Sassacus, refuses the colonists' demands that the Western Niantic warriors responsible for Stone's death be turned over to them for trial and punishment.