Nipmuc

Nipmuc Indians (from Nipamaug, ‘fresh-water fishing place’). The inland tribes of central Massachusetts living chiefly in the south part of Worcester county, extending into Connecticut and Rhode Island. Their chief seats were on the headwaters of Blackstone and Quinebaug rivers, and about the ponds of Brookfield. Hassanamesit seems to have been their principal village in 1674, but their villages had no apparent political connection, and the different parts of their territory were subject to their more powerful neighbors, the Massachuset, Wampanoag, Narraganset, and Mohegan, and even tributary to the Mohawk. The Nashua, dwelling farther north, are sometimes classed with the … Read more