The approach of Smith and his men was the cause for alarm in the Tockwough settlement and their shallop was soon surrounded by natives in canoes. This area where the Tockwough lived was frequently raided by their enemies, the Massawomecks, Iroquoian speakers from the northwest who made lightning raids in their birchbark canoes. The Tockwoughs responded to being threatened by becoming warlike themselves and by allying themselves with the Susquehannock Indians, a powerful group that lived along the Susquehanna River to the north.

The name Tockwogh may come from the Algonquian word for the edible green arrow arum, a type of root that grows in marshes.