While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Pennacook (cognate with Abnaki pěnā-kuk,
or penankuk, 'at the bottom of the of hill or highland.'
Gerard). A confederacy of Algonquian tribes that occupied the basin of
Merrimac river and the adjacent region in New Hampshire, northeast
Massachusetts, and the extreme south part of Maine. They had an
intermediate position between the southern New England tribes, with whom
the English were most directly interested, and the Abnaki and others
farther north, who were under French influence. Their alliances were
generally with the northern tribes, and later with the French. It has been
supposed that they were an offshoot of the
southern tribes, as they spoke substantially the same language as the
Massachusetts and Rhode Island Indians, and are generally classed with the
Mahican.
We know the confederacy only as constituted under the
influence and control of Passaconaway, who probably brought into it
elements from various tribes of the same general stock. The tribes
directly composing the confederacy were: Agawam, Wamesit, Nashua,
Souhegan, Amoskeag, Pennacook proper, and Winnipesaukee. The first three
of these were in Massachusetts, the others in New Hampshire. The Accominta
of Maine and the Naumkeag of Essex co., Mass., were merged in larger
tribes and disappeared at an early period. Besides these, the following
tribes were more or less connected with the confederacy and usually
considered a part of it: Wachuset, Coosuc, Squamscot, Winnecowet,
Piscataqua, and Newichawanoc. Some writers also include the Ossipee,
Sokoki, Pequawket, and Arosaguntacook, but these four tribes had their
closest relations with the Abnaki group. The Arosaguntacook were certainly
connected with the Abnaki confederacy. Pentucket village also belonged to
the Pennacook confederacy, although the Indians there do not seem to have
been designated as a distinct tribe. The Pennacook were reduced by
smallpox and other causes to about 2,500 in 1630, and in 1674 had
decreased to about 1,250.
On the outbreak of King Philip's war the next year the
Nashua and Wachuset joined the hostile tribes, but the greater part of the
Pennacook, under the chief Wannalancet, kept on friendly terms with the
whites until the treacherous seizure of about 200 of their number by
Waldron in 1676.
They then abandoned their country, the greater part
with their chief removing to Canada, while a considerable number fled
westward. The latter were pursued by the English and overtaken at
Housatonic river, and a number of them killed. The survivors escaped to
the Mahican of the Hudson, and were afterward settled at Scaticook,
Rensselaer co., N. Y. Those who had removed to Canada were first
settled near Quebec, but being afterward joined by some of their relatives
from Scaticook, they were given, in 1685, a tract at Cate de Lauzun whence
they removed east in 1700 to St Francis, where they met the Abnaki, who
were also exiles from New England. The St Francis Indians soon became
noted as the bitterest
foes of the English colonies, and so continued until the fall of the
French power in America. Their descendants still reside at the same place.
Soon after their settlement at St Francis they endeavored to persuade
those at Scaticook to join but without success.
The following were Pennacook villages and bands:
