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The Nipmuc Indians were the original inhabitants of the Massachusetts central plateau, with their territory extending from Rhode Island to Connecticut. At time of first European contact their were between three and ten thousand Nipmuc. The name ‘Nipmuc’ can be translated as ‘fresh water people.’ The Nipmuc spoke the L-dialect of the Algonquin language. Rather than referring to a specific tribe the classification Nipmuc is used with reference to those groups of native Americans who resided in central Massachusetts. These people lived in about forty different villages.
The Nipmuc generally made their villages along the edges of rivers and small lakes. As with most other eastern tribes they were agricultural in the summer period and hunters over the winter time. Main crops harvested were corn, beans, squash and tobacco. The bands lived as independent units, with each village being overseen by a sachem.
The Nipmuc were a relatively peaceful people. Prior to the arrival of the white man they had made pacts of peace with the Pequot, Narragansett and Pennacook tribes. With the arrival of the English at Plymouth in 1620, white contact was almost immediate. As the English spread west, their influence and control over the Nipmuc grew. In 1643 the English began making formal purchase of the tribal lands of the Nipmuc. The Lancaster Purchase of that year, followed by further purchases in 1644 and 1655 steadily ate away at the land of the Nipmuc. What was left to the Indians was further diminished by the actions of illegal squatters who claimed the best agricultural lands for themselves. This had the effect of leaving the Nipmuc with little decent land on which to plant their crops. The result was that the Nipmuc found it extremely difficult to feed themselves.
Christianity came to the Nipmuc in 1640 when John Eliot and other missionaries began their work among them. Within thirty years seven Nipmuc villages were converted into what were known as ‘praying villages.’ These new English converts were overly grateful to the English for saving their souls and showed their appreciation by joining the uprising against the American’s in King Philip’s War of 1675. The Nipmuc warriors fought valiantly at Brookfield, Deerfield and the Battle at Bloody Brook. Those few Nipmuc who maintained neutrality during the war were sent by the English to camps of confinement. King Philip entered the territory of the Nipmuc and began raiding English settlements. But Philip was soon killed and the English retaliation against the Nipmuc began. Many of the Indians, who had been coerced into the war by the British, were hunted down and killed. Some, however, managed to escape north where they joined with the St. Francois Indians and became allies of the French.
Other Nipmuc joined the Mahican Indians and moved west to the Susquehana Valley of Pennsylvania and from there to Ohio. Others joined the Munsee Delaware Indians in northern New Jersey. Those few Nipmuc who remained in New England were organised by the English Puritans into praying towns. Others were confined to reservations. The warfare of the late 17th Century, combined with ravages of several epidemics had reduced the numbers of the Nipmuc by as much as ninety percent. The English herded the survivors of the various tribes into mixed villages and individual tribal identity was lost from about 1680 onwards. Even the Reservation lands of the New England Indians was soon being eaten away by the English. In 1728 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts purchased the 8,000 acres of the Hassanamesit Reservation. The proceeds of the sale were to be held in trust for the Nipmuc in a bank in Boston. The Indians, however, never got any of this money.
Two identifiable groups of Nipmuc have survived into modern times. The Hassanamisco Nipmuc have about 2,500 people who live on just two acres on the Hassanamesit resevation in Grafton Massachusetts. The Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuc live in a ten acre reservation located in northeast Connecticut. There are several other bands of Nipuc elsewhere in New England. In total there about 14,000 Nipmuc living in the United States today. However, neither of the two groups mentioned above have yet received Federal recognition, despite attempts to gain this acknowledgement.
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