The Wappinger were a confederacy of eleven tribes and fifteen other subtribes living on the eastern side of the Hudson River from the Bronx to Poughkeepsie and east to the Housatonic River in Connecticut, numbering around 8,000 people in the early 17th century. Their name means “easterners,” appeared in several spellings, and because they were of the Wolf Clan, the French called them loup, or wolf. They spoke an Algonquin language with an R dialect. The main tribes included the Kitchawank of Croton, the Nochpeem of Kent and Carmel, the Sintsink of Ossining, the Siwanoy, who originated in Scarsdale and moved to Yonkers, the Weckquaesgeek of Tarrytown, the Apawamis of Mamaroneck, the Candatowa of Ridgefield, Connecticut, the Cantitoe of Bedford, the Mattawan of Fishkill, and the Wappinger of Wappingers Falls. After John Underhill burned 500 Weckquaesgeek and Caniccy Indians alive at Pound Ridge in 1644, the Taquam moved toward Patterson and Pawling. In the late 1690's, Wappinger tribes from the lower Hudson Valley moved into Pennsylvania, while tribes from the upper Hudson Valley moved north to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1754 with Chief Daniel Nimham. Today they are known as the Mohican Nation of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band and live in Wisconsin. Many warriors led by Nimham fought for the British in the French and Indian War. Chief Daniel Nimham and his son Abraham died at the battle of Cortland's Ridge in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx on August 31, 1778, and were known as the Indian Company of 1778. Several smaller groups of Wappinger remained in the Hudson Valley and intermarried with European settlers.