Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/41

 DELAWARE COUNTY. 17 and governor had been so instrumental in their reverses four years before. They c(5ntinued to harass the French settle- ments^ and held the bloody tomahawk extended over Quebec for a period of nearly a hundred years. The number of Indians east of the Mississippi^ although, as we before remarked, not definitely known, are not supposed to have exceeded two hundred thousand at the time the first settlements were eff"ected by the whites upon their shores, and although the various historians have attributed to them a vast number of dialects, yet radically distinct, there are only eight. The Algonquin, which was the language of a vast number of tribes, was spoken in variated forms from the Carolinas on the south to the St. Lawrence on the north. They are thus enu- merated by the antiquarian : The Micmacs, who inhabited Nova Scotia, and a few adjoining islands, and who lived principally by fishing, in Newfoundland. The Abenakis, who inhabited the upper counties of the Penobscot, Kennebec, and Androscoggin rivers, in Maine. The Echemins, who had by numerous conquests possessed themselves of the whole Atlantic coast, from Passamaquoddy bay to the mouth of the Kennebec river. They were particu- larly fond of sailing and other aquatic sports ; from which characteristic the neighbouring tribes gave them the appella- tion of Canoe-men. The Sokokis lay still farther south, principally in the valley of the Saco. Adjoining them on the south and west, were the Pawtuckets, who included within their territory the river Merrimac and most of its tributaries. The Massachusetts occupied the territory around the bay of the same name. South of them lay the Pokanokets, a branch of which tribe dwelt on the island of Martha's Vineyard ; they also occupied Bristol county, in Rhode Island. The Naraghansetts occupied the part of Rhode Island west 2>k