Susquehannock

Susquehannock

Distribution of the Susquehannock language
Total population
Extinct as tribe
Regions with significant populations
New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland
Languages
Susquehannock
Religion
Native
Related ethnic groups
Iroquois (Haudenosaunee), Erie people, Neutral Nation, Huron peoples (Wyandot), Tabacco peoples, Tuscarora, & Cherokee

Susquehannock people, also called the Conestoga (by the English) were Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries ranging from its upper reaches in the southern part of what is now New York (near the lands of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy), through eastern and central Pennsylvania West of the Poconos and the upper Delaware River (and the Delaware nations), with lands extending beyond the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland along the west bank of the Potomac at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay. Evidence of their habitation has also been found in northern West Virginia and portions of southwestern Pennsylvania, which could be reached via the gaps of the Allegheny or several counties to the south, via the Cumberland Narrows pass which held the Nemacolin Trail. Both passes abutted their range and could be reached through connecting valleys from the West Branch Susquehanna and their large settlement at Conestoga, Pennsylvania.

Susquehannock were an Iroquoian-speaking people and little of the Susquehannock language has been preserved, but this fact alone announces they were at odds with the Algonquian-speaking Delaware peoples to the east. The chief source is a Vocabula Mahakuassica compiled by the Swedish missionary Johannes Campanius during the 1640s. Campanius' vocabulary contains about 100 words, and is sufficient to show that Susquehannock was a northern Iroquoian language, closely related to those of the Five Nations. Unfortunately peace with the Iroquois was as elusive to the tribe as it was with the Delaware.