The Ponkapaug are a group of Massachusetts Native people whose historical territory lies in the Blue Hills of Massachusetts. Their winter home was the village of Ponkapaug ("a spring that bubbles from red soil") and in the summer they lived around the mouth of the Neponset River. After European settlement, English authorities established the Ponkapaug Plantation as an Indian Praying Town in 1654.
Orphaned by the epidemics that ravaged New England in the early 17th Century, John Sassamon [Wasassman] (c. 1620-1675) was a Massachusett from Ponkapoag who grew up in an English household, possibly the home of Richard Calicot. He accompanied Calicot into service during the Pequot War and acted as an interpreter for John Underhill and his men. Afterward, he may have married one of Sassacus' daughters, a Pequot captive.
Nishacow was either from Natick or Punkapoag. In 1676 he was one of several petitioners for the release of his relative, Peter, a captive Indian, in 1676.
John Hunter was a Christian Indian of Punkapoag with familial ties to Wecopemsitt. During King Philip's War, he served as a scout and fought at Mt. Hope in 1675. After the battle, Hunter was among those Indians who brought in Indian scalps to Massachusetts Governor John Leverett for a reward. For his service to the English, Philip had ordered him to be captured or put to death.
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William Ahaton, alias Quaanan, was one of the sons of the Punkapoag leader Ahaton. He served as a teacher and preacher at the Indian Praying village at Punkapoag (1674-1717). He was imprisoned at Deer Island at the start of King Philip’s War but released to become one of Major Thomas Savage’s guides. After the war, Ahaton continued as the leader of the Punkapaog by successfully negotiating for the release from captivity of several of his tribal family and by monitoring land sales of tribal land. He was survived by a son Amos. Alonzo Lewis, Th
