Massachuset
- An early tribe of Algonquian Indians who occupied the site of the present
city of Boston. They are mentioned by Captain John Smith in 1614
as having eleven villages on the coast. They caused the early colonists
little trouble. When disease had almost wiped them out, the remaining
few joined the "Praying Indians," or Christian converts, at Natick, Nonantum,
and Ponkapog where they were no longer known by their tribal name.
Crispus Attucks, of mixed negro - Massachuset
ancestry, who was killed in the Boston Massacre, is believed to have been
the first victim of the Revolutionary War. The name of the tribe
has been preserved in that of the state of Massachusetts and of Massachusetts
Bay.
Related Information
within this Site
[ Eliot
Bible ][ Praying Indians
]