Today is Indigenous Peoples Day in the United States, by Presidential proclamation.
I make my home on the Berkshire plateau, ancestral hunting lands of the Pocumtuc and Nipmuc. These lands formed a pre-settlement tension zone between northern tree species (beech-birch-maple-spruce-fir) and central-US tree species (oak-hickory-pine). This transition zone remains today after the forest recovered from settlement clearing for sheep and cow pastures. The blue jays and others are doing their job of planting acorns in areas with few or no oak trees, enabling the northward migration of tree species as the globe warms from human carbon emissions.
Several small bands of Nipmuc peoples remain in New England today. Based mostly around the colonial-era “praying towns” in central Massachusetts, northern Connecticut, and the Connecticut River valley, the Nipmuc may have travelled as far west as the Berkshire Plateau for seasonal hunting. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts recognizes the Nipmuc tribe and requires state agencies to work with the Hassanamisco Nipmuc on matters relating to the Nipmuc peoples. Federal recognition was denied to the Nipmuc Nation in 2004.
The Pocumtuc, another Algonquian-speaking people, lived in the river valleys of the Connecticut, Deerfield, and Westfield rivers, using the adjacent highlands as hunting grounds. Many Pocumtuc people died of smallpox after the Europeans arrived and brought that disease to these shores. After the Pocumtuc joined the Wampanoag confederacy and fought to defend their lands against English settlers in King Philip’s War, the survivors moved west to Shaghticoke, where they stayed until the Seven Years’ War forced them north to join the Abenaki or further west. Neither the Commonwealth nor the USA recognizes any existing Pocumtuc polity.
