Naumkeag people

In 1639, the Squaw Sachem deeded large tracts of land to the young settlements of Newtowne (later Cambridge) and Charlestown,[4] an area encompassing the present day towns and cities of Cambridge, Newton, Lexington, Brighton, Arlington, Charlestown, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Everett, Woburn, Burlington, Winchester, Wilmington, Stoneham, Somerville, Reading, and Wakefield.

[5] Sea level rise due to the melting of continental ice sheets and disruption of soil layers from extensive development in the Boston area limit the earliest confirmed settlements within Naumkeag territory to the Woodland period beginning 2,000 years ago.

[6] The earliest historical records of the Naumkeag people are from European authors during the contact period from 1600 to 1630, supported by written reminiscences from Indigenous sources at the end of the 17th-century.

[8] A virgin soil epidemic due to an introduced European disease ravaged the populations of the Atlantic coast from 1616-1619 and took a particularly heavy toll with the Naumkeag people.

[11] Wenepoykin or Sagamore George was sachem of the settlement of Naumkeag in present-day Salem by the time English settlers arrived in 1629, but he may have received assistance from an older family member until he came of age.

"[14] This epidemic killed both Montowampate and Wonohaquaham, leaving the Squaw Sachem and Wenepoykin in control of the area from modern day Chelsea to Lowell to Salem.

James Quonopohit or Rumney Marsh was a maternal kinsman of Wenepoykin living in the Natick praying town at the time the sachem entrusted him with title to Naumkeag lands in 1684.

This put a number of established New England settlements in a difficult position to justify their right to occupy land that had been granted under a now invalid charter, and created an opportunity for Quonopohit and his kin to seek payment for their traditional territory.