Massachusett

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 an outbreak of leptospirosis circa 1619, which had mortality rates as high as 90 percent in these areas. This was followed by devastating impacts of virgin soil epidemics such as smallpox, influenza, scarlet fever and others to which the Indigenous people lacked natural immunity. Their territories, on the more fertile and flat coastlines, with access to coastal resources, were mostly taken over by English colonists, as the Massachusett were too few in number to put up any effective resistance. Epidemics during the early 17th century caused severe population losses among the Massachusett and other coastal peoples. English settlement subsequently restricted their access to land and coastal resources. During the missionary work of John Eliot, many Massachusett joined Christian communities at Natick and Ponkapoag. The Massachusett-language translation of the Bible produced through Eliot's mission became an important early work of Indigenous-language printing in colonial North America. The Massachusett language, related to other Eastern Algonquian languages of southern New England, slowly...