The tribe of the Narragansets held their chief seat on the island of the Canonicut, in the bay called after their name. Here, also, their grand sachem resided. They extended west of the Pawcatuck river, where they came into the neighborhood of the Pequods. The Pokanokets bordered them on the east. They occupied a beautiful country, and happily adapted to their mode of life, which was fishing and hunting. Their disposition was more mild and peaceable than usually appeared in the Indian character. When the English arrived in that region, they found there Canonicus, the grand sachem of the tribe, who proved a benefactor of Rhode Island.
The tribe of Pequods were seated in the eastern part of Connecticut, having the Narragansets on their eastern border. They were a fierce and warlike race. Their grand sachem, Sassacus, resided on the heights of Groton, near the river called by their name, now the Thames. Sassacus held the Mohegans subject to his authority. These were a tribe occupying the place where Norwich now stands. Uncas, the leader of the latter, joined the whites in their war with the Pequods. These several tribes, at the period referred to, were singularly diminished in number and power, on account of a wasting sickness, which had been sent among them a few years before.
In the northern portion of New England, roved the Indians whose general name was that of Tarenteens, or Abenakis. They inhabited the coast of Maine throughout, and extended into New Hampshire. Their character was ferocious, and the settlers suffered severely from their wars, murders, and depredations. Stealing in, at the dead of night, upon the villages or dwellings, they burned and plundered, indiscriminately, whatever came in their way—butchering men, women, and children, without mercy.
The five tribes, or nations, that spread out east of Lake Erie, and south of Lake Ontario, were the Iroquois, or Mengwe, who had become thus divided, in consequence of being pressed by the Hurons, and one or two other tribes, inhabiting the St. Lawrence. They were called the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks. They at length became a powerful race in their new abodes, and not only overcame the Hurons, but made war upon the Delawares, and were objects of dread far and near. The most warlike community of the whole was said to be the Mohawks. Their power and exactions reached east and south, to a great distance.
The Indians, in the southerly portion of the country, were of course earlier known to the English, than those already mentioned—this was true of the tribes at least that inhabited Virginia, of which there were more than forty in number, in 1607. The nucleus of an entire confederacy, inhabiting the territory from the sea-coast to the falls of the rivers, was the Powhatan nation. This confederacy included no less than thirty tribes, and the number of warriors was estimated at eight thousand. The chief of the same name, who figures so much in the history of Virginia, was the great sachem of the confederacy. The seat of the hereditary dominions was near the present site of the city of Richmond. Here the noble Pocahontas was born, and passed her early, uncultivated life.
The Indians who dwelt on the highlands, between the falls of the rivers and the mountains, were divided into two confederacies, not long after the arrival of the English. One division consisted of the Monahoaks, in the eight tribes, on the north. The other consisted of the Monacans, in five tribes, stretching on the south into Carolina. The latter went under the name of Tuscaroras, and connected with the Iroquois.
Of the Indians in the southern extremity of the country, the principal confederacies were the Creeks, whose locality was mostly in Georgia—the Cherokees, who inhabited the mountainous back country—and the Choctaws and Chickasaws, who dwelt in the region between the mountains and the Mississippi. Two or three other tribes occupied particular localities, which need not be indicated.[16]
