Pequot 

Highly-organized, aggressive and warlike, the Pequot dominated Connecticut before 1637, a pattern continued later by the closely related Mohegan. As were their neighbors, the Pequot were an agricultural people who raised corn, beans, squash, and tobacco. Hunting, with an emphasis on fish and seafood because of their coastal location, provided the remainder of their diet.

Clothing and housing were also similar - buckskin and semi-permanent villages of medium-sized longhouses and wigwams. For this reason, it is difficult today to distinguish between the site of a Pequot village and that of another tribe. The main difference being that Pequot villages were almost always heavily fortified. The Pequot were not that much larger than the tribes surrounding them, but they differed from other Algonquin in their political structure. Highly organized, the strong central authority exercised by their tribal council and grand sachem gave the Pequot a considerable military advantage over their neighbors. In this way, the Pequot were more like the Narragansett of Rhode Island and the Mahican of New York's Hudson Valley (with whom they are frequently confused).  

Pocumtuc 

Like other New England Algonquin, the Pocumtuc were an agriculture people who lived in one of the most fertile farming areas in New England. Their homeland also abounded with game, and during the spring they were able to take advantage of large fish runs up the Connecticut and its tributaries. Besides the obvious north-south transportation provided by the Connecticut River (Quinnitukqut "long river"), the Pocumtuc homeland sat astride several important east-west trade routes, including the Mohawk Trail, which linked Native Americans in the interior with those on the Atlantic coast.   

Potawatomi 

The Potawatomi name is a translation of the Ojibwe "potawatomink" meaning "people of the place of fire." Similar renderings of this are: Fire Nation, Keepers of the Sacred Fire, and People of the Fireplace - all of which refer to the role of the Potawatomi as the keeper of the council fire in an earlier alliance with the Ojibwe and Ottawa.