In connection to their land claims, the Pequots also received support from the state of Connecticut.
Their efforts were rewarded and their reservation lands now total 1,250 acres. With the assistance of the Native American Rights Fund and the Indian Rights Association, the tribe filed suit in 1976 against neighboring landowners and the state of Connecticut that lands had been illegally obtained in 1856.
The day after the massacre, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, William Bradford, wrote that each annual day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanks giving for subduing the Pequots and for the next 100 years, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a Governor was “in honor of the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won.”
