Quaquequunset

Quaquequunset was the Nipmuc sachem of Quabaug and Pakachoag. A description of him during King Philip's War indicated that he had one leg bigger than the other. It is unclear whether this is reflected in the meaning of one of his several alternative names. Of his family, it is only known that he had at least one son, Squamaug.

When besieged by the Norwottuck in 1648, Quaquequunset sought the protection of the Massachusetts government. In the summer of 1675, Quaquequunset with three other sachems signed a pact assuring the Massachusetts Bay Colony that they would not assist Metacomet in any manner. Despite this pledge, less than a month later, Quaquequunset was among those Indians fighting the English at Menemesit. He was implicated in the attacks on the towns of Brookfield and Mendon and in firing the shot that wounded Edward Hutchinson. However, as the war wound down, Quaquequunset traveled to Boston with a white flag, later betraying both Matoonas and one of his sons, Nehemiah, to English authorities. For this, he and the people of Pakachoag were spared and placed under the guardianship of Captain Thomas Prentice.

During his tenure as leader, Quaquequunset sold various tracts of Quinsigamond land to English colonists in 1665 and 1673 and in 1675 after he had been living with Prentice. Dennis Connole posits that this last transaction, when the extent of land sold amounted to eight miles square, may have been made unwillingly and might have been one of the reasons that he and about two dozen of his followers escaped their confinement the following winter. It was reported that Quaquequunset made his way to French Canada, returning to Massachusetts in 1702.

Connole, The Indians of the Nipmuck Country, 71-2, 113, 149, 151, 162, 165, 172, 177, 208-10, 223-226.