- Hits: 865 The Algonquin Indians (also spelled Algonkian) are
the most populous and widespread North American Native groups,
with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds and speaking
several related dialects. They inhabited most of the Canadian
region south of Hudson Bay between the Rockies and the Atlantic
Ocean and, bypassing select territories held by the Sioux and
Iroquois, the latter of whom had driven them out of their
territory along the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers in the 17th
and 18th centuries. Algonquin (or Algonkin) are used in
reference to the tribes, but Algonquian either refers to the
Algonquin language or to the group of tribes that speak related
dialects. The word "Algonquin" means "At the place of spearing
fishes and eels". Because the Northern climates made agriculture
difficult, the Algonquin were a semi-nomadic people, moving
their encampments from one place to the next in search of food,
which came from hunting, trapping, fishing and the gathering of
various plant roots, seeds, wi