Massachusett

The Massachusett group is made up of the Eastern Algonquian peoples of southern New England: the Massachusett, Wampanoag, Pequot, Narragansett, Quiripi and Pocumtuck. Their villages lay between fishing stations and fields of corn, beans and squash.

An epidemic in 1616–1619 killed most of the Wampanoag, and the Pilgrims founded Plymouth in 1620. The Pequot War of 1636–1638 ended with the Pequot nation broken. The minister John Eliot founded the praying town of Natick in 1651 and printed an Indian Bible in 1663. King Philip's War of 1675–1676, led by the Wampanoag sachem Metacom, destroyed the praying towns and cost most of the peoples their lands.