Moswetuset Hummock | |
Location | E. Squantum Street, near jct. with Quincy Shore Drive, Quincy, Massachusetts |
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Coordinates | 42°17′22″N71°1′18″W / 42.28944°N 71.02167°W |
NRHP reference No. | 70000094 |
Added to NRHP | July 01, 1970 |
Moswetuset Hummock is a Native American site and the original name of the tribe (Mosetuset) in the region named Massachusetts after them. The wooded hummock in Squantum, Massachusetts, is formally recognized as historic by descendants of the Ponkapoag people.
The location was the seat of the ruling Moswetuset Sac'hem (Native American chief) Chickatawbut. During the warm season he conducted tribal council here. Members of the Moswetuset (Massachusett) tribe for centuries made the shore of Quincy Bay their seasonal home.
Moswetuset Hummock is understood to be the site where Chickatawbut negotiated with Plymouth Colony commander Myles Standish and Tisquantum, a Patuxet tribe guide. In 1617 an epidemic, probably an infectious disease brought by sailors on a visiting European ship, ravaged the native population here and along the New England coastline. Estimates are that 80% of the people died. By the time of King Philip's War, 1675–77, the numbers of the Moswetuset tribe had drastically declined in the town. But, descendants of these original inhabitants still live in the general area today.
In his 1747 volume A History of New-England, historian Daniel Neal described Moswetuset Hummock as the origin of the name of the indigenous Massachusett tribe. The colonists named the Commonwealth of Massachusetts after them: [1] [2]
The Sachem or Sagamore who governed the Indians in this part of the country when the English came hither, had his seat on a small hill, or hummock, containing perhaps an acre and a half, about two leagues to the southward of Boston, which hill or hummock lies in the shape of an Indian's arrowhead, which arrow-heads are called in their language MOS, or MONS, with O nasal, and hill in their language is WETUSET hence, this great sachem's seat was called Moswetuset, which signifies a hill in the shape of an arrow's head, and his subjects, the Moswetuset Indians, from whence with a small variation of the word, the Province received the name MASSACHUSETTS.
Moswetuset translates to 'shaped like an arrowhead'.
In 1970 Moswetuset Hummock was formally recognized and added to the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts. [3] The historic site is also recognized by the Native American descendants known as the Ponkapoag people. Moswetuset Hummock is located on East Squantum Street, the northern end of Wollaston Beach, Quincy Bay.
A hummock is a geological term: by definition they are small and less than fifty feet in height. Earth hummocks, in contrast to ice hummocks, are also known as a small rounded knoll, mound of land, or a hillock. Hummocks are believed to be relict features that were formed under colder conditions when permafrost was likely present in the ground. [4]
Quincy is a city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Greater Boston, being Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 101,636, making it the seventh-largest city in the state. Known as the "City of Presidents", Quincy is the birthplace of two U.S. presidents—John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams—as well as John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence and the first and third governor of Massachusetts.
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The Massachusett language is an Algonquian language of the Algic language family that was formerly spoken by several peoples of eastern coastal and southeastern Massachusetts. In its revived form, it is spoken in four Wampanoag communities. The language is also known as Natick or Wôpanâak (Wampanoag), and historically as Pokanoket, Indian or Nonantum.
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Praying Indian is a 17th-century term referring to Native Americans of New England, New York, Ontario, and Quebec who converted to Christianity either voluntarily or involuntarily. Many groups are referred to by the term, but it is more commonly used for tribes that were organized into villages. The villages were known as praying towns and were established by missionaries such as the Puritan leader John Eliot and Jesuit missionaries who established the St. Regis and Kahnawake and the missions among the Huron in western Ontario.
Wollaston Beach is the largest public beach in the Boston Harbor. The beach is located parallel to Quincy Shore Drive in North Quincy, Massachusetts, which was constructed to provide access to the bay beach for Greater Boston. Wollaston beach expands Quincy Bay forming part of Boston Harbor. The northern end of the beach is the Native American historical site, Moswetuset Hummock which is where the original Moswetuset Sac'hem (Chief) had a tribal council.
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Chickatawbut was the sachem, or leader, of a large group of indigenous people known as the Massachusett tribe in what is now eastern Massachusetts, United States, during the initial period of English settlement in the region in the early seventeenth century.
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