The first peoples of Southern New England was essentially unified by a single cultural group. The lives of these American Indians would be radically altered during the 17th century as their culture came into conflict with that of the Europeans. This paper examines that original culture of the area, then looks at what made this region attractive to the Europeans who displaced the natives and then explores how the final outcome of European incursions into this area was the result of the traditional native settlement patterns and the ways in which these interacted with the specific goals of the Europeans. While the displacement (and often murder) of Native Americans by European and later white Americans tends to be treated as if it were all a single phenomenon, in fact the displacement of natives by whites varied from place to place and across time depending on the specific cultures that came together with the desire to occupy the same land.
Indigenous Culture of Southern New England
At the time of earliest European contact with Indians in the 16th and 17th century, Southern New England was a distinct cultural zone set off from its neighbors. Tribes to the north of this region were substantially less invested in horticultural practices (and so less inclined toward an entire range of cultural and political practices associated with horticulture). Moreover, the entire cultural group was marked by speaking one of five Eastern Algonquian languages, and so were distinctly set off from their Abenaki-speaking neighbors inland (Trigger, 1978, p. 160).
Members of this cultural group certainly used the resources of forests, lakes and rivers as well as those of sea and wetlands to provide food and other basic raw materials and relied as well upon hoe cultivation. Deer were caught in traps and snares and some large sea mammals were also hunted. Whales stranded on shore were butchered and some offshore whaling was probably done as well in add...