After European contact, Algonquian-speaking people dispersed variously to areas in today’s southeast United States, Ohio River states, Mississippi River states, Nebraska and Texas, and even Mexico. The Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered speakers on the Ohio, the Mississippi River, throughout the plains, and as far as the Two Medicine River in Northwestern Montana.

Algonquian and Algonkian both refer to the Algonquin language or to the group of tribes that speak related dialects. Therefore, the Algonquian tribes (including the Delaware , the Narragansetts , the Pequot , and the Wampanoag) are so called because they all speak the Algonkin or Algonquin language.

Were members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, along with the Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Mi'kmaq, and the Penobscot, adversaries of the Iroquois. England area (of the US) and currently in Quebec, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Algonkinor Algonqiunor Weskarini (water people), Previously of the Ottawa River, now mostly found in Canada.