Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/54

It is probable that the Wapanaki nation was founded by a band of Ojibwas who separated from the main tribe, travelled eastward and settled on the western slopes of the Adirondacks, from which they were driven by the Iroquois when those fierce and valorous warriors immigrated thither from the southwest. The Ojibwas retired eastward and the Connecticut river was fixed as the western limit of their territory.

This band of Ojibwas were the progenitors of the large and powerful tribe which the Europeans found in control of the country between the Connecticut and the Piscataquis, including both banks of both rivers. This tribe was known to the early writers as the Nipmuks, though they are sometimes called Pannacooks, from the name of their principal encampment, Pennacook, which was situated where Manchester, N. H., now stands and where resided their head chief Passaconnoway. The Mohegans or Mohicans were of the Wapanaki race, but whether they were recognized as a separate tribe or were under Nipmuk government is not definitely known, though the weight of evidence favor the latter conclusion.

The other tribes originated thus. First a band wandered off from the Nipmuk country and settled on the Saco, where they eventually organized an independent tribe—the Sakoki. Later a detachment from the Saco established a separate tribe on the banks of the Androscoggin, and from them sprang directly both the Wawenocks and the Kenebeks. The latter in turn provided the nucleus for the Penobscot tribe, and from the Penobscot camp went the braves who set up their wigwams on the banks of the St. John and became the founders of the people whom we now know as the Maliseets.

Just when this separation took place is not known, but it must have been some time before they were