The Sakonnet people are

Native Americans in the United States Native Americans (also called American Indians, First Americans, or Indigenous Americans) are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of the United States, particularly of the Contiguous United States, lower 48 states and A ...

, related to the

Wampanoag people The Wampanoag, also rendered Wôpanâak, are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands currently based in southeastern Massachusetts and formerly parts of eastern Rhode Island.Salwen, "Indians of Southern New England and Long Isl ...

who spoke a dialect of the

Massachusett language The Massachusett language is an Algonquian languages, Algonquian language of the Algic languages, Algic language family that was formerly spoken by several peoples of eastern coastal and southeastern Massachusetts. In its revived form, it is s ...

. The tribal name was applied to

Little Compton, Rhode Island Little Compton is a coastal town in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, bounded on the south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by the Sakonnet River, on the north by the town of Tiverton, Rhode Island, Tiverton, and on the east by the t ...

Sakonnet River The Sakonnet River is a tidal strait in the state of Rhode Island which flows approximately between Mount Hope Bay and Rhode Island Sound. It separates Aquidneck Island from the eastern portion of Newport County. Etymology "Sakonnet" is ...

, Sakonnet Harbor, and other geographic features.Such as Sakonnet Cove in

Mount Hope Bay Mount Hope Bay is a tidal estuary located at the mouth of the Taunton River on the Massachusetts and Rhode Island border. It is an arm of Narragansett Bay. The bay is named after Mount Hope, a small hill located on its western shore in what is ...

, Sakonnet Point, and much later to

Sakonnet Light Sakonnet Light, built in 1884, is a sparkplug lighthouse near Sakonnet Point, Little Compton, Rhode Island, on the eastern side of the state. The light was deactivated in 1954 after Hurricane Carol and was going to be destroyed, but local cit ...

Alternate spellings

The spelling "Sakonnet" has become accepted because of long use on maps, but the name is sometimes written as 'Sekonnet', 'Seaconnet', 'Sakonnet', 'Saconnet', 'Sakonett', or 'Segonet'.

References

Algonquian peoples Native American tribes in Rhode Island {{NorthAm-native-stub