The bloody surprise attack by Puritans on Mystic Fort in 1637resulted in the wanton slaughter of hundreds of Pequot. The Puritanshailed the decimation as an act of God that saved the English colonyfrom the depredations of savage heathens. In 1889 a heroic statue toJohn Mason, the Puritan commander, was erected in the Connecticuttown of Mystic. A century later, Indian activists and their allies succeeded in removing the offensive monument. This essay makes twopoints. First, the Puritan slaughter in the brutal tradition of Europeanreligious wars was an archetype of racial hegemony and ethnic cleansing that began in the colony of Connecticut and unfolded across thecontinent. Second, the removal of the Mason statue in 1995 marked aremarkable shift in historical commemoration, one that had celebratedextensive killing, particularly of Pequot women and children.