Massachusett

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The Massachusett were an Indigenous tribe of the Northeastern Woodlands whose historic homeland encompassed much of present-day Greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts, particularly the watersheds of the Charles and Neponset rivers and the coast of Massachusetts Bay. The English name Massachusett derives from an Indigenous place-name commonly interpreted as referring to the Great Blue Hill. The colony and later the Commonwealth of Massachusetts were named after the people. Before sustained European settlement, Massachusett communities lived in politically autonomous villages led by sachems. Their economy combined the cultivation of maize, beans and squash with fishing, shellfishing, hunting and the collection of wild plants. They spoke Massachusett, an Eastern Algonquian language also used in several neighboring Indigenous communities. As some of the first people to make contact with European explorers in New England, the Massachusett and fellow coastal peoples were severely decimated from...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Nikater; adapted to English by Hydrargyrum, CC BY-SA 3.0