Pennacook

The Pennacook, also known by the names Penacook, and Pennacock, were a North American people of the Wabanaki Confederacy that primarily inhabited the Merrimack River valley of present-day New Hampshire and Massachusetts, as well as portions of southern Maine. They are also sometimes called the Merrimack people. An Algonquian-speaking tribe, they were more closely related to the Abenaki tribes to the west, north and east such as the Penobscot, Piguaket or Pawtucket than to the other Algonquian tribes to the south, such as the Massachusett or Wampanoag. This similarity was both linguistic and cultural. However, during the time of early European settlement, the Pennacook were a large confederacy that were politically distinct and at odds with their northern Abenaki neighbors.

History

One of the first tribes to encounter European colonists, the Pennacook were decimated by introduced diseases. In a weakened state, they were subject to raids by Mohawk and Micmac tribes, taking an additional toll of lives. Chief Passaconaway, despite his military advantage over the New England colonists, decided to make peace with them rather than lose even more lives through warfare. King Philip's War, however, would make their numbers fall even further. Although Wonalancet, the chief succeeding Passaconaway, tried to maintain neutrality, western bands in Massachusetts did not.