Pocumtuck

The Pocumtuck were an Algonquian people of the upper Connecticut River valley, whose main stockaded village stood on the site of Deerfield. Around them stood a loose confederacy of related bands. They spoke an R-dialect of Eastern Algonquian, and lived by farming, fishing and hunting.

Early contact brought smallpox that cut their numbers heavily. In the colonial wars they joined the Wampanoag confederacy against the English in King Philip’s War of 1675 to 1676, fighting at Bloody Brook and elsewhere. After defeat most survivors took refuge at Schaghticoke, and when the Seven Years’ War began in 1754 many moved again and merged into the Abenaki of Quebec.

The best-remembered Pocumtuck was the war leader Wawanotewat, known as Gray Lock, who led Abenaki raids deep into Massachusetts in the 1720s. Mount Greylock in the Berkshires is named after him.