Description
The Nipmuc had contact with traders and fishermen from Europe prior to the colonization of the Americas. The first recorded contact with Europeans was in 1630, when John Acquittamaug took maize to sell to the starving colonists of Boston, Massachusetts. The colonists carried diseases, such as smallpox, to which the Native Americans had no immunity, and tribes in New England suffered high mortality rates to these infectious diseases. In 1675, though they were unable to defeat the colonists, many of the Nipmuc were interned on Deer Island in Boston Harbor and died of disease and malnutrition, while others were executed or sold into slavery in the West Indies.
Language
The Nipmuc historically spoke an Eastern Algonquian language.
Culture
Their subsistence was based on hunting, fishing, and the cultivation of maize. They moved seasonally between fixed sites to exploit these food resources. The Nipmuc were divided into territorial bands, or groups of related families living in one or more villages; each village was ruled by a sachem, or chief. The many Nipmuc villages were not united politically; rather than forming a pan-Nipmuc alliance, each village allied with its more powerful neighbours, such as the Massachuset, Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Mohegan.