The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. They historically were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and in the interior regions along Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.
Before Europeans came into contact, most Algonquian settlements lived by hunting and fishing, although many of them supplemented their diet by cultivating corn, beans and squash (the "Three Sisters"). The Ojibwe cultivated wild rice.
At the time of the first European settlements in North America, Algonquian peoples resided in present-day Canada east of the Rocky Mountains, New England, New Jersey, southeastern New York, Delaware, and down the Atlantic Coast to the Upper South, and around the Great Lakes in present-day Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The precise homeland of the Algonquian peoples is not known. At the time of the European arrival, the hegemonic Iroquois Confederacy, based in present-day New York and Pennsylvania, was regularly at war with Algonquian neighbours.
The Algonquian peoples include and have included historical populations in:
Mohegan of Connecticut, United States
Chowanoke, formerly of North Carolina
Carolina Algonquian
Roanoke, formerly of North Carolina
Croatan, formerly of North Carolina
Powhatan Confederacy of Virginia
Pamunkey of Virginia, United States
Powhatan people of Virginia, United States
Wampanoag of Massachusetts
Wabanaki of the Maritime provinces/Atlantic provinces in Canada and New England in the United States
Abenaki of Quebec, Canada; historically New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.
Penobscot of Maine
Miꞌkmaq of Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Newfoundland
Passamaquoddy of Maine, United States, and New Brunswick, Canada.