Native American Population

Before European settlement, the native population between the Appalachians and the Atlantic was estimated at over 1 million*.  By the time the Mahicans settled in Stockbridge in 1734, the Native American population in Massachusetts was all but gone.  What happened?  A losing battle against European pathogens and European land hunger.

Smallpox Epidemic

In 1617-1619 a smallpox epidemic had swept through the original inhabitants of Massachusetts wiping out – by some estimates – as much as 90% of the population.  The only thing that might have spared the Native Americans of the Berkshires would have been their limited contact with Europeans.

This now sparse native population plus a Puritan commitment to christianize the Indians, kept relations largely peaceful until 1638 and the Pequot wars.

Early Peace Followed by Unequal War

By 1638 the English settlers (Puritan and otherwise) had found their way to what is now Boston, Provincetown, Long Island and New Haven. Despite the handsome fort pictured above, the Pequots were massacred by the combined English and Mahican forces,

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