Massachusett


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.
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.
Missionary John Eliot converted the majority of the Massachusett to Christianity and founded praying towns, where the converted Native Americans were expected to submit to the colonial laws and assimilate to European culture, yet they were allowed to use their language. Through intermediaries, Eliot learned the Massachusett language and even published a translation of the Bible. The language, related to other Eastern Algonquian languages of southern New England, slowly faded, ceasing to serve as the primary language of the Massachusett communities by the 1750s. The language likely went extinct by the dawn of the 19th century.
The last of Massachusett common lands were sold in the early 19th century, loosening the community and social bonds that held the Massachusett families together, and most of the Massachusett were forced to settle amongst neighboring European Americans, but mainly settled the poorer sections of towns where they were segregated with Black Americans, recent immigrants and other Native Americans. Surviving Massachusett assimilated and integrated into the surrounding communities.

Name

Endonyms

The native name is written Massachuseuck —singular Massachusee. It has been translated as "at the range of hills" and as "at the great hill," referring to the Great Blue Hill, located in Ponkapoag.

Exonyms

English settlers adopted the term Massachusett for the name for the people, language, and ultimately as the name of their colony which became the American state of Massachusetts. John Smith first published the term Massachusett in 1616. Narragansett people called the tribe Massachêuck.

Territory

The historic territory of the Massachusett people consisted mainly of the hilly, heavily forested and comparatively fertile coastal plain along the southern side of Massachusetts Bay in what is now eastern Massachusetts. Major watersheds in Massachusett territory included the Charles River and the Neponset River.
The Pennacook and Pawtucket lived north of the Massachusett tribe, the Nipmuc to the west, Narragansett and Pequot to the southwest in Rhode Island and Connecticut, and Pokanoket, now known as Wampanoag to the south. Anthropologist John R. Swanton wrote that their territory extended as far north as what is now Salem, Massachusetts, and south to Marshfield and Brockton. He wrote later they claimed lands in the Great Cedar Swamp, previously controlled by Wampanoag. In contrast, contemporary source Daniel Gookin lumps present day Salem with the Pawtucket, but extends the authority of the Massachusett sachem as far north as Lancaster, Massachusetts and as far west as present day Deerfield, Massachusetts.
By the 1660s the Massachusett moved into praying towns, such as Natick and Ponkapoag.
Swanton lists the following: Massachusett settlements.

Divisions

Massachusett people settled in villages; however, these were organized into larger bands.
Swanton writes about six major bands named for their sachems or leaders.
The appointment of guardians to administer the assets of the Praying Indians and represent them before the colony in 1743 ended the authority of local chiefs and the last vestiges of traditional tribal organization.

Language

The Massachusett language, Massachusee unontꝏwaok, was an important language of New England as it was also the native language of the Wampanoag, Nauset, Cowesset, and Pawtucket people. Due to its similarity with other closely related languages of the region, a simplified pidgin of it was also used as a regional language of trade and intertribal communication. By the 1750s, Massachusett was no longer the predominant language of the community, and by 1798 only one Massachusett elder of advanced age spoke the language at Natick. Factors that led to the decline of the spoken language include the rapid rates of intermarriage with non-Indian spouses outside the speech community in the mid-18th century, the need for English for employment and participation in general society, the lack of prestige regarding the Indian language, and the dissolution of Indian communities and outmigration of people leading to greater isolation of speakers. The Wampanoag on Noepe, with its more secure land base and larger population, held onto Massachusett as the communal language into the 1770s and went extinct with the death of the last Wampanoag dialect — and last speakers of any Massachusett dialect — in the 1890s.
Efforts to revitalize the language include the Wopanaak Language Reclamation Project led by Jessie Little Doe Baird.

Early subsistence

The Massachusett occupied fertile flatlands. Men and women cleared fields first by burning trees, then by removing stumps. Women grew food crops, but men were involved in tobacco cultivation. Women used clamshell hoes. Women cultivated crops such as northern flint corn, called weachimineash in Massachusett, a variety of brands, squashes, and pumpkins. They planted corn in mounds, then planted beans that grew up the cornstalks, and finally the cucurbits, which protected roots and discouraged weeds. This companion planting method is called the Three Sisters.
Other regional plant foods included grapes, strawberries, blackberries, currants, cherries, plums, raspberries, acorns, hickory nuts, chestnuts, butternuts, and leafy greens and pseudocereals such as chenopods. Some of the most well known foods eaten were Nasaump which was a cornmeal porridge.
Massachusett people lived in conditional sedentary villages built along rivers. Families lived in domed houses, called wétu in Massachusett. The base structure of curved wooden support beams was covered with woven mats in the winter or chestnut bark in the summer. Inside, possessions were stored in hemp dogbane bags and baskets of all sizes. Men carved wooden bowls and spoons as dining utensils.
Water transport was by both either carved dugout canoes and birchbark canoes.

History

European exploration of the 16th century

The first known European encounter may have been in 1605 when French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in Boston Harbor. Champlain met with Massachusett leaders on several of the Boston Harbor Islands and anchored off Shawmut to conduct trade. Champlain was accompanied by an Algonquin guide and his "Massachusett-speaking"—wife who helped translate. Despite mapping the region to promote French interest, colonization support was deterred by the dense population and resistance to contact by some of the Massachusett leaders The region was later mapped as "New England" by John Smith who followed in many of Champlain's footsteps, but also made landfall at Wessagusset and Conohasset where he conducted trade and met with the chiefs, and helped promote further English colonial settlement in the region.

17th-century epidemics

With increasing levels of contact with European fishermen and explorers, the Massachusett and neighboring tribes were increasingly affected by infectious diseases. With minimal livestock, Indigenous peoples of the Americas lacked immunity to many zoonotic diseases carried by Europeans and the animals they brought. These introduced diseases quickly became a series of virgin soil epidemics that devastated populations. Up to an estimated 90 percent of the Native population of the Massachusetts Bay Colony may have been killed by infectious diseases, known as the "Great Dying," in the early 17th century.
The deadly epidemic of 1616 through 1619 may have been caused by leptospirosis, a lethal blood infection, likely spread by invasive black rats. This epidemic killed between 33 and 90 percent of the Native American population of New England.
The Massachusetts smallpox epidemic of 1633 further decimated Native populations, as did subsequent smallpox outbreaks, occurring almost every decade.
Devastation by disease and European encroachment upset political balances among New England tribes.

Relations with the Plymouth Colony (1620–1626)

English settlers established their first permanent foothold in New England with the founding of the Plymouth Colony by Pilgrims in 1620 near the site of the former Wampanoag village of Patuxet, just a short distance south of the historic boundary with the Massachusett. In 1621, the Pilgrims, led by Myles Standish, met Obbatinewat, a local sachem loyal to Massasoit. The colonists signed a peace treaty with Obbatinewat, who in turn, introduced the Pilgrims to the Squaw Sachem of Mistick, another leader.
The Wampanoag chief Massasoit decided to ally with the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims also met with Chickatawbut, the most powerful Massachusett leader of the time. Unlike Massasoit, who favored increasing ties with the new English settlers to help assist against increasing power struggles with the Pequot and the Narragansett, Chickatawbut and other Massachusett leaders were wary of the Pilgrims and their intentions.
Chickatawbut's fears were confirmed when the Plymouth Colony expanded to Wessagusset, in Massachusett territory, with the arrival of a new ship of colonists. The new settlers were ill-prepared, even more so than the first Pilgrims, and quickly resorted to trading supplies with the Massachusett. As their situation worsened, the Pilgrims began raiding Massachusett villages for food and supplies. To prevent an attack, Standish ordered a preemptive strike in 1624, which led to the deaths of Pecksuot, Wituwamat, and other Massachusett warriors who were lured under the pretense of peace and negotiation to meet with the colonists. Standish further angered the Massachusett when he led his men deep into their territory to suppress the nascent colony of Merrymount, which had been established by Thomas Morton and which had friendly relations with neighboring Indian tribes. These activities caused the Massachusett to halt trade with the Pilgrims for many years.