Notes on the Ceania of New England Indians. By Lucien Care. 



According to the earliest writers, New England, or at least, all that portion of it 

 lying between the Hudson river and the Saco, was inhabited by " five principal nations of 

 Indians." Of these, it may be roughly said that : 1st, the Pequots, or Mohegans, held the 

 gfreater part of Connecticut, with their principal town at, or near, the site of the present 

 city of New London ; 2d, the " Narragansitts " occupied what is now known as Rhode 

 Island; 3d, the Pawkannawkuts, or Wampanoags, lived in southeastern Massachusetts; 

 4th, the Massachusetts were just north of them '' in the bay of that name and the adja- 

 cent parts," and 5th, the Pawtucketts lived still farther to the north, "with their dominion 

 reaching so far as the English jurisdiction, or colony of the Massachusetts doth now 

 extend."^ Beyond this limit and within the confines of the present state of Maine, there 

 were to be found the Penobscots and Norridgewocks and kindred tribes, or Abenakis ^ as 

 they were called by the French, and still farther to the east and north, the dreaded Tar- 

 rantines, whom Schoolcraft identifies with the Micmacs. With this latter group, however, 

 I am not now concerned, and shall confine my observations to the five principal " Sa- 

 chemships" of New England. These were subdivided into a number of smaller tribes, or 

 to quote the precise words of the old chronicler, they "had dominion over," or "had 

 under them many other petty governours" or "Sagamores." Although thus divided and 

 subdivided, and not unfrequently engaged in internecine strife, there appears to have 

 been but little if any difference between them, judging from what we are told of their ap- 

 pearance and language, their manners and customs, as well as of their mode of life and 

 form of government.^ Indeed we may even go a step farther, and basing our conclusion 

 upon the, vocabularies that have come down to us, declare with Mr. Gallatin, that the 

 Indians from the Saco river to the Hudson belonged to the Algonkin-Lenapg family.* 



1 Gookin's History of the Indians of New England, pub- Description of New England ; Brereton's Discovery of the 

 lished in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical So- North Part of Virginia, &c., &c. These have all been re- 

 ciety. Vol. I, first series, p. 147 e< se^. Archaeologia Amer- published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Histor- 

 icana. Vol. ii, p. 33. ical Society. 



2 Schoolcraft. Vol. v, p. 218. * They " spoke, though with many varieties, what may be 

 8 Consult Description of New England, by Capt. John considered as the same language, and one of the most exten- 



Smith; History of the Indians of New England, by Daniel sively spoken of those of the Algonkin-Lenape Family." 

 Gookin ; Josselyn's Two Voyages to New England ; Gorges' Archaeologia Americana, Vol. ii, p. 36. 



