Algonquins

Algonquins, the most prominent of the three aboriginal races (the other two being the Hurons and Iroquois) that occupied the great basin of the St Lawrence at the beginning of the 17th century. In what is now the United States, the Algonquin tribes occupied all the coast-region from the N.E. limit to the James River in Virginia, and were found westward nearly as far as the Rocky Mountains. The Six Nations, and other tribes of Iroquois, were surrounded by Algonquins. The Abenakis, the Micmacs, the Delawares, the Mohegans, the Shawnees, the Pequots, the Ojibways, the Crees, and perhaps also the Blackfeet and Cheyennes, were among the numerous tribes of Algonquin stock. In a much narrower sense, the name is now applied to the relics of an Indian people in the province of Quebec, Canada. See Leland's Algonquin Legends of New England (1884).