Sassacus


 * Sassacus is also a genus of jumping spiders.

Sassacus (Massachuset:  Sassakusu (fierce), c. 1560 – June 1637, born near present-day Groton, Connecticut) was a Pequot sachem.

He became grand sachem after sachem Tatobem was killed in 1632. Under the sachem Uncas, the Mohegan rebelled against domination by the Pequot. Sassacus and the Pequot were defeated by the English along with their Narragansett and Mohegan allies in the Pequot War.

Sassacus fled to what he thought was safety among the Iroquois Mohawk in present-day New York, but they murdered him. They sent his scalp to the English as a symbolic offering of friendship with the Connecticut Colony.