Hammonasset people
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The Hammonasset people were Eastern Woodland Indians who had their "digging grounds" from the west bank of the Connecticut River to the
Hammonasset River The Hammonasset River is formed about southeast of Durham, Connecticut along a gully on the north end of Bunker Hill at about a half mile northeast of the junction of Route 148 and Bunker Hill Road. The river travels for U.S. Geological Survey. ...
in Connecticut.


Culture

They spoke an Algonquian language. In the Eastern Woodlands Algonquian society, patrilineal clans with names appointed by animal totems made up the village-bands. The indigenous people who settled in the area named it ''Hammonasset'', which roughly translates to “where we dig the ground.” They subsisted by fishing and hunting, and raised corn, beans, and squash. The Hammonasset River was one of the few to have salmon runs. The first colonists arrived in the area in 1639. In 1640, Uncas,
sachem Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Al ...
of the
Mohegan The Mohegan are an Algonquian Native American tribe historically based in present-day Connecticut. Today the majority of the people are associated with the Mohegan Indian Tribe, a federally recognized tribe living on a reservation in the east ...
, added Sebequanash of the Hammonassets to his several wives . This marriage gave Uncas some type of control over their land which he promptly sold to New England colonists. The Hammonassets moved and became Mohegans. They were once a band of
Quinnipiac Quinnipiac is the English name for the Eansketambawg (meaning "original people"; ''cf.'' Ojibwe: '' Anishinaabeg'' and Blackfoot: ''Niitsítapi''), a Quiripi-speaking Native American nation of the Algonquian family who inhabited the ''Wamp ...
people, who were recorded living near
Guilford, Connecticut Guilford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, that borders Madison, Branford, North Branford and Durham, and is situated on I-95 and the Connecticut seacoast. The population was 22,073 at the 2020 census. History Guil ...
. Their leader was named Sebequnash, or "The Man Who Weeps." In 1730, the band's population was 250 to 300 people. By 1774, they were reduced to only 38 people. They moved to
Farmington, Connecticut Farmington is a town in Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The population was 26,712 at the 2020 census. It sits 10 miles west of Hartford at the hub of major I-84 interchanges, 20 miles ...
, to live among the
Tunxis The Tunxis were a group of Quiripi speaking Connecticut Native Americans that is known to history mainly through their interactions with English settlers in New England. Broadly speaking, their location makes them one of the Eastern Algonquian ...
in 1768.


References

Native American history of Connecticut New Haven County, Connecticut Algonquian ethnonyms Native American tribes in Connecticut {{NorthAm-native-stub