The Nipmuc Indians are the original people of Worcester, Worcester Country and much of the central New England area. In the language Nipmuc Indians spoke ‘Neepmuck’ means ‘Fresh Water People’ and the Nipmucs lived along or near to the lakes, rivers and streams throughout the Worcester area. Nipmuc Indians called their territory ‘Nipnet.’ Scientists reviewing archeological records have proven that Indians had been occupying Nipnet for over 10,000 years before European people first came to Massachusetts.

Nipmuc Indians lived by hunting animals, gathering fish, farming and trading with other Indians.. Nipmucs were noted for their ability to grow corn. They used to trade their corn with Indians from other parts of New England. Large Nipmuc cornfields occupied huge parts of the land, like the important Nipmuc growing field extending miles from the Brookfields in Massachusetts all the way to Woodstock in Connecticut.

Around the time that Europeans came to this area, approximately 3,000 Nipmuc Indians lived in 39 encampments or ‘villages.’ Clan mothers, or older, experienced women and ‘sagamores’ ruled smaller groups or ‘villages.’ The ‘sagamores’ or sub-chiefs, together, served as advisors or councilors for the Sachem or Grand Chief of the Nipmuc Tribe. One of the more famous Nipmuc sachems was named Nashawonan or Sholan who, in the 1600’s, ruled the Nipmuc Tribe from his residence near Washakem Lake in Sterling.

English people arrived at Plymouth in 1620 and in the 1630’s settled the areas around Boston. The English learned about the Nipmucs and their lands. In fact, during a time of famine in Boston in the 1630’s, Nipmucs from Woodstock, Connecticut brought wagons of corn into Boston to help feed the starving English population. However, few English people from their coastal settlements at Boston, Gloucester or Plymouth had come in contact with the Nipmucs.

The first real knowledge about the Nipmucs and Nipnet came to English through John Eliot. Eliot was a university-trained English minister responsible for bringing Christianity to the Indians of this region. Before coming to the land of the Nipmucs, Eliot had converted Indians closer to the coast. He had persuaded his Christian Indians to live in ‘Praying Villages’ or ‘Indian towns’ at Natick or Punkapoag, the present Canton.

In 1651 Eliot wrote ‘There is a great country lying between Connecticut and Massachusetts, called Nipnet, where there be many Indians dispersed, many of whom have sent to our Indians desiring that some may be sent unto them to teach them how to pray to God.’ Through his efforts ‘Praying Villages’ of Nipmucs would be set up at Hassanamesit (Grafton), Packachoag (Auburn), Quabog (Brookfield), Waentug (Uxbridge), Quinshepauge (Mendon), Manchaug (Sutton), Chaubunagungamaug (Webster) and Wabaquasset (Woodstock CT.). Christianized Nipmucs moved into these ‘Praying Villages’ and obeyed rules Eliot gave the communities: Indian clothing could not be worn, the Native language could not be spoken, a man could only have one wife, families could not move from the villages without permission and Christian Nipmucs were to avoid contact with non-Christian Nipmucs.

In 1675 Indian opposition to loss of their lands exploded into conflict, The King Phlilip, directed Metacomet or King Philip, the chief of Wampanoag Indians living near New Bedford. Nipmucs and other Indians in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island joined a conspiracy to ‘drive the English into the sea.’ During the year-long conflict small English settlements like Worcester and Brookfield were burnt to ground or abandoned along with many other places in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Although not directly involved in the fighting, Christian Nipmucs joined other Indians rounded up and forced to live on Deer Island in the Boston Harbor. A combined European military force made of volunteers from Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island pursued Indians, defeating them one group after another.

With the end of the King Philip War, many Nipmucs had died at Deer Island (where spent the winter of 1675 without housing), numerous Nipmuc men were killed during the fighting, and as Nipmucs surrendered many were executed in Boston or sold as slaves and shipped to Caribbean islands.

Also, within the decade following the King Philip War, Nipmucs would ‘sell’ most of their ancestral homeland in Worcester County. In exchange for ‘giving away’ all of this land, Nipmucs were guaranteed by the Massachusetts legislature two large reservations. The first of these reservations was at Hassanamesit and what is now the entire town of Grafton and the second of these at Dudley, along the Massachusetts and Connecticut borders.

Massachusetts Indians did not become citizens of the Commonwealth until 1869. Until then all Indians were ‘wards of the Commonwealth,’ under the supervision of state-appointed guardians. Through the actions of the guardians, all of Grafton (minus 1,000 acres divided among Nipmuc families) was sold to English settlers and by 1869, a five-square mile reservation at Dudley had been reduced to 26 acres.

However, even though Nipmuc people lost their land in many questionable and possibly illegal transactions, the Nipmuc Tribe survived. Many Nipmucs fought for the English during the 18th century French and Indian wars. Crispus Attucks, who died in the Boston Massacre, was the son of Nanny Perrattuckus, a Nipmuc woman from Framingham. Numerous Nipmucs volunteered as soldiers during the Revolutionary War. And, although not citizens, other Nipmucs volunteered to fight for the North in the Civil War, including two Nipmucs from the Dudley Reservation who died, in the South, at the infamous Andersonville prisoner of war camp.

Today, there are approximately 2,000 men, women and children who are the blood descendants of the original Nipmuc Tribe. The largest concentration of these individuals lives in the greater Worcester area.

©1996, Thomas L. Doughton