The Eastern Woodland Indians inhabited a wide area in the eastern part of the United States
that extended eastward from the Mississippi River, through the Great Lakes region, to the
Atlantic Ocean. The inhabitants in this region were forest dwellers living in a vastly wooded
area that extended, not only from Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean, but south from Canada
into the southern states of Kentucky and Virginia.
Many tribes were found within this area. Among them were tribes that made up the great Iroquois confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora), as well as the Algonquian which included the Abenaki, Massachusett, Wampanoag, Narragansett, Pequot and Montauk tribes. Later peoples of the Eastern Woodlands included the Illinois, Iroquois, Shawnee and a number of Algonkian-speaking peoples such as the Narragansett and Pequot. Southeastern peoples included the Cherokee, Chocktaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Natchez and Seminole.
Though many languages and dialects were spoken by the inhabitants, these groups shared many cultural traits based on their common life style that was common to living in the forest. Living and learning from the land, they learned to use wood and wood products as the basic raw materials in their lives. This region is noted for ample rainfall, numerous lakes, streams, and rivers and the Woodland Indians tended to live near water in the forested areas.