Susquehannock

The Susquehannock people, also called the Conestoga (by the English) were Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries from its upper reaches in the southern part of what is now New York (and the lands of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy), through East-central and central Pennsylvania (West of the Poconos and the Delaware nations), with lands extending beyond the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland along the west bank of the Potomac at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay. Evidence of their habitation has also been found in West Virginia. The Cumberland Narrows pass, later called the Nemacolin Trail, abutted their range and it was likely navigable through valleys from their large settlement at Conestoga, Pennsylvania.

Names and endonym

As Europeans penetrated the interior from the coastal areas dominated by Algonquian-speaking tribes, they usually learned the names of new tribes by what the first groups called them. The Europeans adapted or transliterated these names according to their own languages and spelling systems, trying to capture the sounds of the names. In their own language, the Susquehannock identified as the Andaste, which is the most likely endonym. The exact pronunciation was likely some similar sequence of phonemes which referred to their palisade-style of construction.