The Tarrantines were a band of the
Mi'kmaq tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confl ...
of
Native Americans inhabiting northern
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian province ...
, particularly coastal Maine. The name ''Tarrantine'' is one of the words the
Massachusett people used to refer to the ''
Mi'kmaq'' people.
In the first three decades of the 17th century, the Tarrantines had a warlike reputation with their southwestern neighbors. The Tarrantines were spared the epidemic of 1617 that devastated the Native American populations to their south, leaving the neighboring tribes greatly outnumbered. Due to their proximity to fur traders of Maine and Quebec, the Tarrantines had access to firearms, giving them a technological advantage as well.
See also
*
Penobscot
The Penobscot (Abenaki: ''Pαnawάhpskewi'') are an Indigenous people in North America from the Northeastern Woodlands region. They are organized as a federally recognized tribe in Maine and as a First Nations band government in the Atlantic ...
References
Native American tribes in Maine
First Nations in Atlantic Canada
Mi'kmaq in the United States
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