Naumkeag

Naumkeag was an Indigenous settlement on the peninsula that became Salem, on the Massachusetts coast. The Naumkeag people held territory between the Merrimack and Mystic rivers. War and epidemics in the early seventeenth century greatly reduced their population, including the loss of their powerful sachem Nanepashemet, before English settlers first arrived in the area.

In 1626 Roger Conant led a group of English fishermen from Cape Ann to settle at Naumkeag. The settlement was renamed Salem and grew into a trading port. In 1692 accusations of witchcraft led to trials in which nineteen people were hanged and Giles Corey was pressed to death after refusing to plead. Salem later prospered through maritime commerce, with ships carrying goods across the Atlantic and beyond.