Pequawket

Pequawket
	Approximate original location of the Pequawket (Pigwacket) and other Abenaki groups, ca.
Total population
	extinct as a tribe in the early 19th century
Regions with significant populations
	New Hampshire, Maine
Religion
	Indigenous religion
Related ethnic groups
	Other Abenaki peoples

The Pequawket were a Native American band of Abenaki people. In the 18th century, they lived in New Hampshire and Maine.^[2]

Territory

The Pequawket lived near the headwaters of the Saco River and near what is now Carroll County, New Hampshire^[2] and Oxford County, Maine. Their primary town, also called Pequawket, was near Fryeburg, Maine.^[2]

Name

The etymology of Pequawket is disputed but might come from pekwakik, which translates "at the hole in the ground".^[2]

Their name is also spelled 'Pigwacket and many other spelling variants, and Dean Snow suggests it may have come from Eastern Abenaki apíkwahki, "land of hollows").^[3]

History

18th century

On April 16, 1725, the Pequawket fought the Battle at Pequawket against Captain John Lovewell and 50 English troops. The Pequawket killed Lovewell; however, the British killed Chief Paugus. After that skirmish, the Pequawket and the Arosaguntacook withdrew to the Connecticut River. The Arosaguntacook migrated north to Canada, where they settled in Saint-François-du-Lac, Quebec, while the Pequawket stayed there through the American Revolutionary War. Some returned to their homeland in the late 18th century.^[2]

Notable Pequawket

Nescambious, an 18th-century Pequawket chief
Molly Ockett (ca. 1740–1816), herbal healer and craftswomen^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b "Molly Ockett and Her World". Bethel Historical Society. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Hodge, Frederick Webb (1907). Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico: N-Z. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. p. 229.
^ Snow, Dean R. 1978. "Eastern Abenaki". In Northeast, ed. Bruce G. Trigger. Vol. 15 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pg. 146

[ockett-1] "Molly Ockett and Her World". Bethel Historical Society. Retrieved 2017-11-12.

[hodge-2] Hodge, Frederick Webb (1907). Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico: N-Z. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. p. 229.

[3] Snow, Dean R. 1978. "Eastern Abenaki". In Northeast, ed. Bruce G. Trigger. Vol. 15 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pg. 146

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