This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2022) |
Total population | |
---|---|
extinct as a tribe | |
Regions with significant populations | |
northeastern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire [1] | |
Languages | |
possibly Algonquian language | |
Religion | |
Indigenous religion | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Naumkeag people, Pennacook [1] |
The Pawtucket tribe were a confederation of Eastern Algonquian-speaking Native Americans in present-day northeastern Massachusetts and southeastern New Hampshire. They are mostly known in the historical record for their dealings with the early English colonists in the 17th century. Confusion exists about the proper endonym for this group who are variously referred to in European documents as Pawtucket, Pentucket, Naumkeag, Wamesit, or Mystic Indians, or by the name of their current sachem or sagamore.
Pawtucket, meaning "at the falls," [3] was a location in the Merrimack Valley of northeastern Massachusetts and southeastern New Hampshire, at the Pawtucket Falls in what is now Lowell, Massachusetts. [1] In the early 1600s, the Pawtucket sachem held authority over the Pennacook (present-day Concord, New Hampshire), Agawam (present-day Cape Ann, Massachusetts), Naumkeag (present-day Salem, Massachusetts), Pascataway, and Accomintas peoples according to late contemporary source Daniel Gookin, but this authority waned after an epidemic in 1612-1613. [4]
At the time of contact with Europeans, Nanepashemet was a sachem of the group, [5] controlling lands from the present-day Charles River north to the Piscataqua River and west to the present-day Concord River. He was killed in 1617 in present day Medford, Massachusetts, in conflict with the Tarrantines, an Eastern Algonquian exonym for Miꞌkmaq, where his burial place was found by Edward Winslow in a scouting party from Plymouth. [6] After his death, leadership of the group passed to his wife, known only to history as the Squaw Sachem of Mystic, who administered the region jointly with their three sons Wonohaquaham or "Sagamore John," Montowampate or "Sagamore James," and Wenepoykin or "Sagamore George." [2]
Passaconaway was also recorded as being a Pawtucket chief sachem, who also held authority with the Wamesit, Pascataqua, and Pennacook peoples. [1]
In December 1633, a smallpox epidemic killed both Wonohaquaham and Montowampate along with a large portion of the tribe, [7] leaving Wenepoykin and the Squaw Sachem as the leaders of a much smaller group. When the Squaw Sachem died in roughly 1650, Wenepoykin became sole sachem of territory extending from present-day Winthrop to Malden, North Reading, Lynn, or even Salem. However, his attempts to assert his claim to these lands through the settlers' legal system were largely ineffective. During the next two decades, the size of the group further declined as the British Long Parliament and the Massachusetts General Court worked to relocate Native Americans into praying towns such as Natick, drawing some converts from within Wenepoykin's family.
In 1675, Wenepoykin and some of the remaining Pawtucket joined Metacomet in King Philip's War, which was a stark turning point in the history of Native Americans in New England, and for the Pawtucket/Naumkeag in particular. Wenepoykin was taken captive the next year in 1676 and sold into slavery in Barbados. During this same time, over 1,000 nonbelligerent Praying Indians, some of them originally Pawtucket, were interned on Deer Island, but only 167 survived to return to praying towns.
After eight years of slavery in Barbados, Wenepoykin returned to Massachusetts through the intercession of John Eliot, where he joined some remaining family members in Natick but died later the same year, leaving his lands to a maternal kinsman, Quonopohit, alias James Rumney Marsh, [8] though by this time most of the hereditary territory of the sachem was occupied by English settlers. Quonopohit and other kinsmen successfully pushed for payment for Pawtucket/Naumkeag lands in what is now northeastern Massachusetts in the 1670s and 1680s. [8]
At this point, the history of the Pawtucket blends with the history of other native groups who joined together in the remaining praying towns of Wamesit and Natick, as well as others who may have gone north to join the nascent Wabanaki Confederacy, which had been more successful in the northern theater of King Philip's War, also known as the First Abenaki War, in pushing back European settlement along what is now the coast of Maine.
Wonalancet (c.1619—1697) — also spelled Wannalancet and Wannalancit and probably Wanaloset and Wanalosett — was a sachem or sagamore of the Penacook Indians. He was the son of Passaconaway.
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.
The Massachusett were a Native American tribe from the region in and around present-day Greater Boston in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name comes from the Massachusett language term for "At the Great Hill," referring to the Blue Hills overlooking Boston Harbor from the south.
Passaconaway was a 17th century sachem and later bashaba of the Pennacook people in what is now southern New Hampshire in the United States, who was famous for his dealings with the Plimouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies.
The Pennacook, also known by the names Penacook and Pennacock, were Algonquian indigenous people who lived in what is now Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and southern Maine. They were not a united tribe but a network of politically and culturally allied communities. Penacook was also the name of a specific Native village in what is now Concord, New Hampshire.
Praying towns were settlements established by English colonial governments in New England from 1646 to 1675 in an effort to convert local Native Americans to Christianity.
Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms from different Eastern Algonquian languages. Some sources indicate the sagamore was a lesser chief elected by a single band, while the sachem was the head or representative elected by a tribe or group of bands; others suggest the two terms were interchangeable. The positions are elective, not hereditary. Although not strictly hereditary the title of Sachem is often passed through the equivalent of tanistry.
The Nashaway were a tribe of Algonquian Indians inhabiting the upstream portions of the Nashua River valley in what is now the northern half of Worcester County, Massachusetts, mainly in the vicinity of Sterling, Lancaster and other towns near Mount Wachusett, as well as southern New Hampshire. The meaning of Nashaway is "between," an adverbial form derived from "nashau" meaning "someone is between/in the middle" = adverbial suffix "we" Gustafson, Holly (2000), "A Grammar of the Nipmuc Language," University of Manitoba.</ref>
Nanepashemet was a sachem and bashabe or great leader of the Pawtucket Confederation of Abenaki peoples in present-day New England before the landing of the Pilgrims. He was a leader of Native peoples over a large part of what is now coastal Northeastern Massachusetts.
Naumkeag is a historical tribe of Eastern Algonquian-speaking Native American people who lived in northeastern Massachusetts. They controlled most of the territory from the Charles River to the Merrimack River at the time of the Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640).
Native American tribes in Massachusetts are the Native American tribes and their reservations that existed historically and those that still exist today in what is now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A Narragansett term for this region is Ninnimissinuok.
The Agawam were an Algonquian Native American people inhabiting the coast of New England encountered by English colonists who arrived in the early 17th century. Decimated by pestilence shortly before the English colonization and fearing attacks from their hereditary enemies among the Abenaki and other tribes of present-day Maine, they invited the English to settle with them on their tribal territory.
Montowampate, was the Sachem of the Naumkeag or Pawtucket in the area of present day Saugus, Massachusetts at the time of the Puritan Great Migration. The colonists called him Sagamore James. He was one of three sons of Nanepashemet, the sachem of the entire region occupied by tribes of the confederation.
The Massachusett dialects, as well as all the Southern New England Algonquian (SNEA) languages, could be dialects of a common SNEA language just as Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible languages that essentially exist in a dialect continuum and three national standards. With the exception of Massachusett, which was adopted as the lingua franca of Christian Indian proselytes and survives in hundreds of manuscripts written by native speakers as well as several extensive missionary works and translations, most of the other SNEA languages are only known from fragmentary evidence, such as place names. Quinnipiac (Quiripey) is only attested in a rough translation of the Lord's Prayer and a bilingual catechism by the English missionary Abraham Pierson in 1658. Coweset is only attested in a handful of lexical items that bear clear dialectal variation after thorough linguistic review of Roger Williams' A Key into the Language of America and place names, but most of the languages are only known from local place names and passing mention of the Native peoples in local historical documents.
Wenepoykin (1616–1684) also known as Winnepurkett, Sagamore George, George No Nose, and George Rumney Marsh was a Native American leader who was the Sachem of the Naumkeag people when English began to settle in the area.
Wonohaquaham also known as Sagamore John was a Native American leader who was a Pawtucket Confederation Sachem when English began to settle in the area.
Squaw Sachem of Mistick a. k. a. "Massachusetts Queene" was a prominent leader of a Massachusett tribe who deeded large tracts of land in eastern Massachusetts to early colonial settlers.
Daniel Takawambait was likely the first ordained Native American Christian pastor in North America, and served the church in the praying town of Natick, Massachusetts from 1683 to 1716. Takawambait also advocated for indigenous land rights in colonial Massachusetts, and authored at least one publication.
Quonopohit, also known as James Quannapowit, James Quanophkownatt, and James Rumney Marsh, was the successor to whom Wenepoykin, sachem of the Naumkeag people, willed his territories in modern day northeastern Massachusetts at the time of his death in 1684. He is known for deeding these lands to a number of Massachusetts towns in the 1680s, including Marblehead (1684), Lynn, Saugus, Swampscott, Lynnfield, Wakefield, North Reading, and Reading (1686), and Salem (1687). He is the namesake of Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
The Praying Indians of Natick were a community of Indigenous Christian converts, known as Praying Indians, in the town of Natick, Massachusetts, one of many Praying Towns. They were also known as Natick Indians.