The Tarrantines were a tribe

Tribe

A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...

 of Native Americans

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 inhabiting northern New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

, particularly coastal Maine. The name Tarrantine is the word the Massachusett

Massachusett

The Massachusett are a tribe of Native Americans who lived in areas surrounding Massachusetts Bay in what is now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in particular present-day Greater Boston; they spoke the Massachusett language...

 tribe used to refer to the Abenaki people.

In the first three decades of the 17th century. the Tarrantines had a warlike reputation with their southwestern neighbors. The Tarrantines were spared the epidemic of 1617 that devastated the Native American populations to their south, leaving the neighboring tribes greatly outnumbered. Due to their proximity to fur traders of Maine and Quebec, the Tarrantines had access to firearms, giving them a technological advantage as well.