Pocomtuc
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Pocomtuc were a Native American tribe inhabiting the Connecticut River valley from the northern tip of Connecticut, Western Massachusetts, and the tri-state area of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Place names such as Agawam, Norwottuck, and Squawkeag bear to the Pocomtuc presence. Unlike the better-known tribes of eastern Massachusetts, the Pocomtuc spoke an R-Dialect of the Algonquian language, closely related to Mahican, neighbors to the west, and the Mattabesic, a Connecticut tribe to the South. Decimated by introduced diseases, and victims of Iroquois expansion and conflicts between the English and Dutch, the Pocumtuc mostly fled the Connecticut River valley before European settlement in the late 1600s. Most fled with the Mahican and some Nipmuck to Schaghticook on the Hudson River in New York or fled north to join the Sokoki Indians in Québec.
The Pocomtuc were engaged in agriculture along the fertile lands, and also of the great salmon and shad runs of the river. Trade was important, with the Quinnitukqut ("long river," referring to the Connecticut River) providing transport, and also on the Mohawk trail, roughly corresponding to Massachusetts Route 2.
Chief Wawanotewat "Greylock" was a respected and feared warrior after the Pocomtuc had left New England by the late 1700s, but continued to terrorize Western New England. Today, Massachusetts' highest peak (Mount Greylock) bears his English name. The tribe is extinct, although the Abenaki tribes of Canada and Vermont and New Hampshire most likely have Pocomtuc blood amongst them.
