Nauset

The Nauset Indian tribe were the original inhabitants of the Cape Cod peninsula, in Massachusetts. Like their neighbours, the Wampanoag and Narraganset peoples, the Nauset spoke an N-Dialect of the Algonquin language. With a similar culture and language, very little distinguishes the Nauset except for perhaps their heavier reliance upon the ocean. Their location on the Cape made them easy targets to European slave raids, often kidnapped and sold into the Carribbean. When Samuel de Champlain encountered the Nauset Indians, they were expectedly very hostile. The Pilgrims made contact with the Nauset during their initial landing near modern-day Provincetown, and stole maize. Their isolation proved beneficial, as they were not subject to the purges following King Phillip's War, but many were decimated to diseases introduced by the Europeans. The Nauset eventually merged into the Wampanoag tribe. The town of Mashpee, whose native inhabitants are considered Wampanoag, probably are more likely descended from members of the Nauset tribe, and number around 1,100 people. The area known as Hyannis is named after the Nauset sachem Iyannough.