Editing Northampton, Massachusetts (section)

=== Early settlement ===
Northampton was known as "Norwottuck", or "Nonotuck", meaning "the midst of the river",<ref>{{cite web |author=languagehat at |url=http://www.languagehat.com/archives/002846.php |title=Norwottuck |publisher=Languagehat.com |date=August 19, 2007 |access-date=November 20, 2011}}</ref> named by its original [[Pocumtuc]] inhabitants. According to various accounts, Northampton was given its present name by John A. King (1629–1703), one of the first white settlers in Northampton, or possibly in King's honor, since it is supposed that he came to Massachusetts from [[Northampton|Northampton, England]], his birthplace.<ref>(Allen 9, Dwight 10, Leach 124)</ref>

The Pocumtuc confederacy occupied the [[Connecticut River]] Valley from what is now southern Vermont and [[New Hampshire]] into northern [[Connecticut]]. The Pocumtuc tribes were [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] and traditionally allied with the [[Mahican]] confederacy to the west. By 1606 an ongoing struggle between the Mahican and [[Iroquois]] confederacies led to direct attacks on the Pocumtuc by the Iroquoian [[Mohawk nation]].<ref name="dickshovel.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.dickshovel.com/pocu.html |title=Pocumtuc |publisher=Dickshovel.com |access-date=November 20, 2011}}</ref> The Mahican confederacy had been defeated by 1628, limiting Pocumtuc access to trade routes to the west. The area suffered a major [[smallpox]] epidemic in the 1630s following the arrival of Dutch traders in the [[Hudson Valley]] and New England settlers in the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] during the previous two decades. It was in this context that the land making up the bulk of modern Northampton was sold to settlers from [[Springfield, Massachusetts|Springfield]] in 1653.<ref name=Trumbull/>{{rp|5–12}}

On May 18, 1653, a petition for township was approved by the general court of Springfield.<ref name=Trumbull/>{{rp|7}} While some settlers visited the land in the fall of 1653, they waited till early spring 1654 to arrive and establish a permanent settlement.<ref name="Trumbull" />{{rp|15–16}} <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chronos-historical.org/highway/maps/map07.jpg |title=Map of history of political boundaries, plantation period |access-date=November 20, 2011}}</ref> The situation in the region further deteriorated when the [[Mohawk people]] escalated hostilities against the [[Pocumtuc]] confederacy and other [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] tribes after 1655, forcing many of the plague-devastated Algonquian groups into defensive mergers.<ref name="dickshovel.com"/> This coincided with a souring of relations between the [[Wampanoag people|Wampanoag]] and the Massachusetts Bay colonists, eventually leading to the expanded Algonquian alliance, which took part in [[King Philip's War]].