Algonquian

Algonquian, most populous and widely distributed of the Native North American linguistic stocks, originally comprising several hundred tribes who spoke nearly 50 related languages. The Algonquian people occupied most of the Canadian region south of Hudson Bay between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean and, excluding certain territory held by Siouan and Iroquoian tribes, that section of what is now the United States extending northward from North Carolina and Tennessee. Algonquian tribes inhabited various isolated areas to the south and west, including parts of what are now South Carolina, Iowa, Wyoming, and Montana. The best-known Algonquian groups include the Algonquin, from which the stock takes its name, Amalecite, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Conoy, Cree, Delaware, Fox, Gros Ventre, Kickapoo, Massachuset, Miami, Mi'kmaq, Mohegan, Mahican, Montagnais, Musi, Narragansett, Naskapi, Nipmuc, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Pequot, Potawatomi, Sac (Sauk), Shawnee, Tête de Boule, and Wampanoag. Some of the principal Algonquian confederacies were the Abenaki, Pennacook, and Illinois. See Native American Languages.