Eastern Abenaki

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Former residential areas of the Eastern Abenaki

The Eastern Abenaki are the eastern dialect and tribal group of the Abenaki , which differed from the western tribal group, the Western Abenaki , due to their dialect . They were originally located in the extreme northeast of the USA and the adjacent areas of Canada and spoke together with the closely related Penobscot Eastern Abenaki (also Abnaki-Penobscot ), an eastern Algonquin language . They once joined four other neighboring Algonquin tribes in the region to form the Wabanaki Confederation , which was formed in response to the Iroquois League . Today several thousand Abenaki still live in the state of Maine and the neighboring regions of Canada.

Eastern Abenaki tribes

  • Arosaguntacook
  • Kennebec ( called Norridgewock from the 18th century )
  • Pigwacket
  • Penobscot (often viewed as a separate tribe)
  • and a number of smaller strains such as Amaseconti, Arsicantegou, Kwapahag, Ossipee, Rocameca and Wewenoc.
Abenaki couple from Bécancour (18th century)

Language and name

The Abenaki speak Eastern Algonquin, which is different from the Micmac language in the north and the idiom of the New England Algonquin in the south. There is also a difference in dialect between the Eastern and Western Abenaki. The name of the Eastern Abenaki comes from their self-designation Wapanahki and means people of the sunrise or the Easterners . With Wabanaki members of the Confederation were referred to, which also included the Western Abenaki , Maliseet - Passamaquoddy and Micmac . The name Abnaki sometimes appears in the literature and there are also a number of other variants in spelling and pronunciation. The French often called the Eastern Abenaki Loup (German "wolves"). The Penobscot are members of the only division of the Abenaki who survived in their homeland.

residential area

At the beginning of the 17th century, the residential area of ​​the Eastern Abenaki extended over the present-day US states of Maine and New Hampshire , as well as over parts of the neighboring Canadian province of New Brunswick . The indigenous people called their residential area the name of rivers and the borders ran along ridges that separate these rivers from each other. When the first Europeans came to their country, the indigenous peoples had no concept of property that could be compared to European views. Often the boundaries were not clearly defined and merged. The Abenaki called themselves residents of rivers. In the course of time, new groups had emerged on the smaller tributaries of the large rivers, such as the Penobscot River , Kennebec River and Androscoggin River , which went down to the local family group. A confusing number of tribal names emerged, which are mentioned in the ancient sources and make it difficult to assign the individual tribes.

The western Abenaki lived mostly in what is now New Hampshire . Samuel de Champlain noticed interesting cultural differences between them and the Eastern Abenaki. He named the Western Abenaki and their southern neighbors Armouchiquois . Such mix-ups often occurred in earlier times. So he could not exactly distinguish the Maliseet - Passamaquoddy from the Eastern Abenaki. He first met the Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and correctly recognized them as Étchemin, but afterwards he conveniently used the same expression for the Eastern Abenaki as well. Later writers took over the mistake and some current authors mistakenly conclude that the entire area was settled by the ancestors of the Maliseet-Passamaquoddy around 1605.

The Penobscot were the first to benefit from the fur trade with the French, and with the acquisition of European goods and weapons they began to dominate the neighboring tribes in the early 17th century. Their supreme Sagamore Bashabes managed to unite the Eastern Abenaki in an alliance. His name appears in an anonymous description published by Samuel Purchas in 1625, and he was one of 23 Penobscot Sagamores. Purchas also reports on the land of the Abenaki, in which there were villages on Mount Desert Island and on the Penobscot, Orland , Bagaduce , Muscongus , Damariscotta , Sheepscot , Kennebec, Androscoggin, Presumpscot and the upper Saco River . Some rivers, such as the Orland River, are smaller coastal waters that make up the Kennebec and Penobscot drainage basins.

Enmity with the Mi'kmaq on the other side of the bay had existed for some time, but was exacerbated by the fur trade with the French. The Mi'kmaq were called Tarrantiner by writers at the time , and other authors have mistakenly transferred it to the Eastern Abenaki.

Way of life and culture at the beginning of the 17th century

Hunt and gather

According to Samuel de Champlain and John Smith , the indigenous people of northern New England horticulture, but only as far as the Saco River in Maine . The land of the Abenaki was covered by white pines, hemlocks and deciduous trees near the coast and switched to the inland to pine and spruce forests. The climate was unsuitable for the crops available at the time until the fur trade made it possible to overwinter in large villages and, if necessary, made it possible to buy additional food in years of poor harvests.

The annual cycle of the Eastern Abenaki began in spring with leaving the winter villages and migrating to the sea. Spring was spent on the coast and caught herrings, salmon, rams, eels, smelts and other fish with hooks, spears, traps and nets. Some fish were hunted with harpoons, especially sturgeon, which was lured to the surface by torches at night. Lobsters and crabs were speared in shallow water from a canoe. Edible mussels were gathered in large quantities at certain times of the year and were considered a staple food. In spring and summer, the diet was supplemented by various berries, cherries, grapes and other wild fruits, such as the earth pear (Apios americana), a hard, potato-like tuber that was prepared and eaten like this. In spring, the Abenaki tapped maple trees in order to obtain the tasty sap, which after the introduction of metal pots was also processed into maple syrup and sugar.

In the summer months, the Abenaki hunted seals, dolphins and various water birds on the coast. In autumn the move took place inland and the cold season was spent in winter camps, later also in larger villages. From here they went hunting and killed elk, deer, caribou and bear with spears and bows and arrows, while beavers, muskrats, otters and other fur-bearing animals were caught in traps. The winters were hard and snowy and the hunt required great agility, which was achieved with snowshoes and sledges.

Equipment and tools

To equip a Abenaki hunter belonged arrow and bow , a long spear, a knife and a game bag with a lighter, which consisted of pyrite and round stones with a rough surface. Canoes were an important means of transport, made from birch bark, and were spacious enough to accommodate a family of five to six with their dogs and all their belongings. There were large, collapsible bark containers which, like canoes, were sewn with tough, thin cedar roots and decorated with white or colored porcupine bristles. The Abenaki carved dinnerware, spoons and bowls from wood, they made baskets from ash shavings and they made round or conical jugs from clay. Smoking pipes were made of clay and stone, but many of the small utensils were soon replaced by European merchandise.

The Abenaki's crooked knife evidently evolved from a beaver incisor, but around 1610 it was already equipped with a metal blade. Dogs were kept as pets and used to track game rather than pulling or carrying loads, as was practiced by other tribes. According to old custom, the first game of the hunting season was given away, and this also happened with a boy's first hunt.

Abenaki wigwam

Houses

There were two different types of houses among the Eastern Abenaki: they were either semicircular with a circular or pyramidal shape with a rectangular floor plan. They had a central post, which was protected from the nearby fire by a stone slab, and were covered with birch bark. The house had two doors, one of which was always left open so that the smoke could escape through the draft at the top of the house. They were so well insulated that they stayed warm in winter and served as sweat lodges in summer.

marriage and family

The bride's family received a bride price from the new husband's family , the amount of which depended on the attractiveness of the bride and the status of her father. Polygamy was restricted to the Sagamore. There was a practical reason for this, because a man with several wives and many children, for example, was better able to organize large parties.

When her child was born, the woman left the wigwam, kneeled down and some older women helped her. Infant mortality was high in the winter months because the newborns could not be adequately protected against the bitter cold.

guide

Indian leaders were never absolute rulers, but could only acquire and maintain their office through special achievements, courage, wise decisions and care for their tribal members. The chieftainship was usually conferred on a respected man who possessed the necessary qualifications. There was a patrilineal tendency for leadership to be passed on, although it was fundamentally not hereditary. A Sagamore usually had a large family and tried to grow them by marrying as many women as he could adequately support. He developed personal relationships with relatives and other families in order to expand his influence. There were Sagamors who were also shamans and thus could considerably increase their charisma and influence. Bashabes was an exceptional example of a leader whose authority had extended over all Eastern Abenaki and only after his death could the local Sagamore decide freely again. Lifetime appointments were abolished by annual elections in 1866.

Abenaki in historical costume

dress

Abenaki men and women dressed similarly in fringed deerskin and animal skins , which were worn with the fur on the outside or inside. Beaver skins were used for loincloths, and long sleeves and leggings were worn in cold weather . Both sexes wore leather moccasins , usually went without headgear, and painted their faces and bodies. Sagamore sometimes wore crowns made of red deer bristles or white feathered bird skins .

Healing art

The sick were sent to the sweat lodge to cure the ailment. Shamans administered various laxatives, tea, and ointments. Other illnesses required magical remedies and the shaman tried to blow the illness away or dance. On a rock near Solon , Maine, one can still spot magical signs painted on a sick man to heal him. If a patient was obviously terminally ill, he was no longer given anything to eat to hasten his death. A dying man distributed most of his property to relatives and what was left was buried with him.

history

Early colonial period

First European contacts

After Sebastian Cabot visited the Maine coast in 1497, European fishing boats came regularly to the North American east coast. The next known explorer was Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 , who named the Penobscot River Norumbega . David Ingram came up with a fantastic story about this place 60 years later, but Ingram's imaginary fairyland never existed, but in 16th century Europe the rumor circulated about a mighty kingdom on the east coast of North America, similar to the Seven Cities of Cibola in the southwest that the Spanish conquistadors had been so magically drawn to. The Europeans did not find Nurembega, but they discovered another treasure in the lucrative fur trade.

In 1604 Samuel de Champlain visited Kenduskeag and in 1605 the Kennebec River. The Eastern Abenaki showed keen interest in the fur trade with the French. Champlain and Pierre de Monts built Fort St. John at the mouth of the St. Croix River in 1604 , but they chose a poor location. The residents held out for a year despite various floods, freezing cold and famine. Then they gave up and drove across the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal in Nova Scotia. Although this area belonged to the Mi'kmaq, the Abenaki were still trading partners of the French.

The French showed a better feeling for dealing with the indigenous people than the English. In 1605, for example, George Weymouth led an English expedition to the Abenaki, kidnapped five men and took them to England. Ferdinando Gorges received approval to colonize the area and two years later sent George Popham and Raleigh Gilbert with one of the Abenaki captured from Weymouth to set up a colony. Relations with the Indians remained tense, and there was also hunger and bitter cold, so that the experiment had to be broken off in 1608.

Tarrantine War (1607-1615)

The enmity between the Penobscot and the Mi'kmaq had existed for a long time, but was exacerbated by the fur trade with the French. Around 1607 this situation led to the Tarrantiner War between the Penobscot Confederation under Bashabes on the one hand and the Mi'kmaq and the Maliseet allied with them on the other. The war lasted a total of eight years with interruptions, during which Mi'kmaq warriors migrated south and raided Abenaki villages. Jesuit missionaries came to Port Royal in 1610 and immediately began their missionary work with the neighboring Mi'kmaq. Regardless of the war, the French priests built a mission and trading post for the Penobscot in 1613 near what is now Bar Harbor in Maine. But it only had a short existence, because it was destroyed in the same year not by Indians but by Englishmen from Jamestown in Virginia . In 1615 the Micmac won the war after killing Bashabes in a raid on Mawooshen . For the next two years the victorious Mi'kmaq moved south down the coast to Massachusetts , leaving death and destruction behind. Here they faced a more dangerous opponent - European diseases, against which they had no defenses and which followed them home. Between 1616 and 1619 they were struck by three dire epidemics that spread across New England and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, killing nearly 75 percent of the entire Native American population in the region.

Epidemics in New England

epidemic year
unknown disease 1616-1619
smallpox 1631, 1633, 1639
unknown disease 1646
flu 1647
smallpox 1649
diphtheria 1659
smallpox 1670
flu 1675
smallpox 1677, 1679
Smallpox and measles 1687
smallpox 1691, 1729, 1733, 1755, 1758

Change through trade

There was a rapid change in the material culture of the Abenaki when the French and later the English goods appeared around 1620. They exchanged useful things such as iron axes, knives, rifles, glass beads, needles and woolen fabrics for furs. The corresponding self-made utensils of the indigenous people quickly disappeared.

By 1626 the English colonists in Plymouth traded regularly with the Eastern Abenaki. The English had access to goods such as corn and wampum in southern New England and could trade them for furs. Wampum, which was easier to produce after the introduction of metal drills, became an important means of payment in the exchange of goods and was an important symbol in the political and social sphere. Within a few years, the settlers followed the traders to the tidal area of ​​Maine west of the Penobscot River. They received so-called quitclaims (land transfer documents), which were later treated as deeds. The Indians did not understand that under European law they no longer owned the land.

The former life of the Abenaki had changed with the fur trade. There were fewer villages now as the surviving residents of older communities banded together. The plight of the entire inland population in winter was a thing of the past. Obtaining furs for trade was more important now than hunting for survival until spring.

With Maine and Canada's maritime provinces exposed to frequent British attacks, the French began dismantling most of their trading posts from 1610. Around 1616 only Port Royal and a small post at the mouth of the Penobscot River handled the trade with the Abenaki and Mi'kmaq. The Abenaki first experienced English settlers in 1607 when the Plymouth Company failed to establish a colony on the Kennebec River. Seven years later, Captain James Smith met the Abenaki while exploring and charting the coast of northern New England.

The Abenaki will probably have noticed with astonishment that the English and the French fought for their land in several wars. In 1628 destroyed an English fleet under David Kirke French ships in the port of Port Royal when unloading supplies, the French settlement burnt down and then drove the Saint Lawrence River up to Quebec to conquer. The British ruled Canada for four years until they had to return it to France in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1632 . In the meantime English traders from Boston had set up a trading post near Machias in northern Maine for the fur trade with the Abenaki. The French immediately destroyed this trading post and asked the British traders to limit their activities to the area south of the Kennebec River in the future. As a countermeasure, the British asked French merchants from Acadia to stay north of the St. Croix River. The result of this conflict, however, was that only a few traders visited the Abenaki who lived between these two rivers.

The French were no longer really interested in the Abenaki furs because they got the goods they needed from the Hurons on the Great Lakes. In order to trade with the French in Québec, the Abenaki had to pass through an area controlled by the Montagnais and required customs to pass them through. The British occupied Port Royal a second time in 1654 and held it until 1667, with the result that the Abenaki could not expect any help from the French in Acadia. At first, Boston dealers supplied the Abenaki and made good profits. This trade soon ended, however, because the British conquered New York, then Nieuw Amsterdam , from the Dutch in 1664 and concluded a trade and assistance treaty with the Mohawks . Most of the Boston merchants then moved to Albany and cut ties with the Abenaki.

Eastern Abenaki Wars

Wars Duration English contracts American treaties
Tarrantine War 1607-1615
King Philip's War 1675-1678 1676, 1678, 1685
King William's War 1688-1699 1690, 1693, 1699, 1701
Queen Anne's War 1702-1713 1703, 1713, 1714, 1717
That was stupid 1721-1725 1725, 1726, 1727
King George's War 1745-1748 1749, 1752
Seven Years War in North America 1755-1759 1762
American War of Independence 1775-1782 1786, 1796, 1818, 1820, 1833

Baron de Castin

In the meantime, the Mohawk resumed their attacks against the Eastern Abenaki in Maine, which were only supplied by the French from Quebec. The French trader Baron Jean-Vincent de Castin settled with the Penobscot and in 1678 married the daughter of Sagamore Madockawando . After his death, Castin took over the post of chief, but had to travel back to France, so that his eldest son Bernard-Anselme was given the office. A permanent trading post and Jesuit mission were established in what is now Castine , Maine. Castin and his son were implacable enemies of the British, and under their leadership the Penobscot's enmity against the English grew, especially because they had broken off trade.

King Philip's War (1675-1678)

English colonization proceeded rapidly, while French settlements did not grow nearly as much. For this purpose, Capuchin and Jesuit missionaries were again active. The efforts of the Jesuits were to be seen as a defense against English supremacy in North America. English attacks and raids by their Indian allies on French settlements in the north increased. In 1675, the King Philip's War broke out in southern New England .

Most of the Eastern Abenaki initially remained neutral in the war between England and France, but the alliance between the English and their enemies, the Iroquois, drove them to the side of the French. Before the King Philip's Wars began, the Abenaki were not only concerned about English support for the Iroquois, but increasingly also about the land grabbing by the British colonists. Due to a wave of Puritans immigrating in the 1660s, there was an increased expansion of white settlements. The most sought-after areas were of course the fertile banks of the rivers on which the Abenaki also lived.

With the murder of the child of an Abenaki Sagamore on the Saco River, the war spread to northern New England. The English required the Abenaki to hand over their rifles. However, guns were essential to economic life at the time, and the English attitude made war practically inevitable. After a cruel war waged by both sides, the colonists triumphed and even admitted their atrocities in their own reports. The first of 17 treaties between the English and the Eastern Abenaki was signed in 1676. A Kennebec Sagamore was forced to sign and most of the Indians ignored the treaty. The war was only ended by a second treaty in 1678. After that, practically all English settlers had to leave the coast. There were five more colonial wars with the English and three times as many treaties, but the Indians were not as successful in later years as they were with the first treaty. At the same time, French influence was primarily directed by the Jesuit missionaries. There were no comparable peace treaties between the Indians and the French, only assistance agreements.

Colonial wars

The main cause of the colonial wars between 1675 and 1759 is to be found in the competition for colonial supremacy between England and France. The Abenaki involved in the conflict were partly supplied by the French, but the hostility to the British was so devastating economically because they had become dependent on English goods. The leaders of the Eastern Abenaki, ideologically linked to the French and economically linked to the English, seemed to have realized that their survival depended on their diplomatic skills with the two colonial powers. While other tribes became landless mercenaries of one side or the other, the Abenaki remained an important third power between New England and New France. An example of its importance is the high scalp premium , which was suspended by the English and the French during the colonial wars.

The course of negotiations between the colonial powers and indigenous people reveals the basic political structure of the Eastern Abenaki. In most cases the preparatory negotiations were carried out by four delegations from each river system. After the main work was done, the Upper Sagamore and the second Sagamore of each area took over the further negotiations. However, they only had formal tasks, because the likely outcome of the meeting had already been determined. What was lost in spontaneity was made up for by elaborate speeches. Sometimes the delegates signed the agreement in front of the Sagamore.

Silly War (1722-1727)

The French were keen to establish a buffer zone with friendly Indian tribes between the colonies of New France and New England. The tribes living there were urged to form alliances. The Abenaki had no intention of becoming mercenaries with the French, but English pressure nonetheless forced them in that direction. By 1717, English settlements along the Maine coast grew rapidly north and further into the Connecticut River valley. Many Jesuits wanted to defend the rights of their converted Abenaki and of course France, and encouraged the Abenaki to resume the fight for their land. The spokesman for the Jesuits was Father Sébastien Rasles . Negotiations between the British and the Abenaki in 1717 and 1719 were unsuccessful and after several outbreaks of violence, Massachusetts Governor Samuel Shuttle declared war on the Abenaki in 1722, known as the Stupid's War , Lovewell's War, or Father Rasle's War, and five years should last until 1727.

There was a series of minor skirmishes between the warring factions. Although the Penobscot could not win the Dummers War, they had built their own navy in 1724 with captured ships and the English still viewed them as serious opponents. In 1727, the English colonial army attacked Norridgewock, an Eastern Abenaki village on the upper Kennebec River in Maine, burned it down, killed Father Rasles and maimed his body. Although the French did not take part directly in the war, their sympathies were clearly with the Abenaki, and the response to news of Rasle's death almost caused open rebellion among the French people. Only 150 Kennebec refugees from Norridgewock managed to escape to safe Canada. After the Pigwacket were also defeated the following spring, the Abenaki resistance in Maine collapsed. In December 1727 they signed a peace treaty with Massachusetts, the third of three treaties that finally ended the war. Now the Penobscot negotiated alone for all Eastern Abenaki, as well as for the Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and the Micmac. From that time on they were the recognized spokesmen for all of the surviving Wabanaki people in New England and the Canadian east coast. Eventually this confederation developed into an even larger alliance in which other pro-French tribes, such as the Hurons and the Ottawa , united.

Abenaki in Quebec

Two permanent Abenaki communities had now developed in Québec: Bécancour , near Trois-Rivières , which consisted mostly of Eastern Abenaki from southern Maine, and St. Francis (Odanak), about 45 km southwest of it, that of one Mixture of Western Abenaki, Pennacook and New England Algonquin was inhabited. The Western Abenaki also had a large permanent village in Missisquoi on Lake Champlain and a smaller settlement in Cowasuck in northern Vermont .

After the Dummers War, New England mistakenly believed that the Abenaki had moved to Canada forever. For this reason, all of the Western and Eastern Abenaki found in northern New England at the time were considered to be St. Francis Indians . The imprecisely defined border between New England and Québec, a state that lasted into the 19th century, played its part in this confusion. In fact, many Abenaki never really left northern New England, and isolated groups have lived and hunted there permanently.

French and Indian War (1754–1763)

The land in western Maine was gradually bought up by English settlers. Vendors were essentially Indians who understood little of English law or had no right to sell. The resulting conflicts through fraudulent land purchases or breaches of contract were often resolved by John Gyles . John Gyles lived in captivity with the Maliseet for nine years as a child and later wrote an excellent autobiography about his life with the Indians, published in 1736. Upon his return from captivity, he acted as an interpreter and was one of the few English colonists who could understand and speak the Abenaki language.

When the French and Indian War broke out, the Penobscot officially remained neutral and urged the other Abenaki to do the same. Many of the Eastern Abenaki were outside New England with little to lose. They allied themselves with the Indians of the coastal region and attacked the English. Eventually the colonists also forced war on the Penobscot and enormous scalp premiums were suspended as in previous wars. Eastern and Western Abenaki warriors were also involved in Louis-Joseph de Montcalm's campaign in northern New York. There were rumors here that the Penobscot were to blame for the massacre that followed the capture of Fort William Henry in 1757, which allegedly claimed 1,500 victims. Modern research has reduced this number to a maximum of 180 fatalities. Fort William Henry played the historical background in James Fenimore Cooper's famous novel The Last of the Mohicans . A replica was built at the Fort William Henry site in Lake George , New York, and is now a popular tourist attraction.

Another group of Abenaki warriors from Bécancour went south, raided Albany, united with the last 60 New England Algonquin from Shaghticoke and brought them to St. Francis (Odanak) in Canada. With the exception of the Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire settlement lines, New England suffered comparatively few Indian attacks in this war. This was thanks to the colonial command force under Major Robert Rogers , the Rogers' Rangers , who attacked and burned Saint Francis (Odanak) in the fall of 1759. Rogers reported that he killed 200 Abenaki and the French priest, but French records only list 30 dead. After the fall of Québec in 1759, the war was lost for France and officially ended in 1763 with the expulsion of the French from North America and the loss of most of the territorial rights of the Abenaki off the Penobscot river system to the colonists. The English claimed possession of the lower Penobscot area and the 1762 treaty was a surrender to the colonists.

American War of Independence

Unsurprisingly, in the years leading up to the American Revolution, many Abenaki and other former French allies longed for the return of French rule. The Penobscot therefore strengthened their ties to the Maliseet-Passamaquoddy, Mi'kmaq, Ottawa, Hurons and other former French allies and formed an alliance. The center of the Confederation was the Great Fire in Caughnawaga (now Kahnawake) in Québec.

At the beginning of the conflict, the Iroquois and the Abenaki Confederation were asked to remain neutral, but eventually they fought on both sides. The Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and Mi'kmaq sided with the Americans in the hope that the British would be defeated and the French would return. The Iroquois fought on the English side. The Indians in Saint Francis were divided, some supported the Americans in the siege of Boston and provided scouts for Benedict Arnold's unfortunate campaign against Quebec in the winter of 1776/77. The Penobscot also served as scouts in Washington’s army and took part in the unsuccessful American attack on British forts on the Penobscot River. Colonel John Allen set up an Abenaki regiment at Machias to attack British ships on the Maine coast. Other Abenaki served with the English and raided targets on the Androscoggin River in 1781.

19th century

In recognition of their war service, Massachusetts established three small reservations in northern Maine for the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy. Reservations were also guaranteed for the Canadian Abenaki in Saint Francis and Bécancour.

In 1812 the Abenaki took part in a war for the last time and provided two companies, but now in the British Army. The search for a new Upper Sagamore during the war was more important than the British presence on the Penobscot River. In a complicated agreement, John Attean was finally named Upper Sagamore.

In 1818 Attean tried to prevent economic decline by selling timber from the northern Penobscot area. Massachusetts officials said the Penobscot would not be allowed to sell this wood and persuaded them to sign a new contract instead, in which they committed to surrender the rest of their land except for the river islands and four townships near Mattawamkeag and Millinocket . In return, they received supplies and promises of future annual payments. Two years later, Maine became a state and assumed the contractual obligation. The four townships were also sold to Maine in 1833.

In 1838 there was a split in the tribe, which resulted in occasional riots. Two parties had formed, corresponding to the two moieties of the tribe. Moiety (Latin medietas ) is used in primitive peoples to describe half of a tribe in which certain marriage rules apply in particular. Both parties wanted to provide the Sagamore. The State of Maine intervened and stipulated that the elections for Sagamore, who was to be named governor, and his deputy should be held annually, with candidates nominated one year from one moiety and the next year from the other. So this problem was solved democratically. The elections were later held only every two years, but the system of mutual election of the governor existed until 1931. The Penobscot stayed away from the Confederation meetings in Caughnawaga since 1862.

In addition to the political conflicts, the Penobscot were ravaged by cholera during this period . The deaths caused by the epidemic had less of an impact on demographics than the exodus of tribal members between 1818 and 1865.

Only a few Abenaki stayed in St. Francis and Bécancour, most of the groups have left these places over time. Some moved west in the 19th century to work for the Hudson's Bay Company . In 1787 members of the Abenaki left St. Regis with Iroquois , went west and settled on the other side of the Mississippi on the White River in Arkansas, Spain . After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, they were found among the Delaware and Shawnee living nearby , from where they moved with them first to Kansas and later to Oklahoma .

Vermont became a state in 1791, but neither Vermont nor the United States has ever recognized the land claims or tribal status of the Abenaki resident there. The Western Abenaki filed numerous tenure claims for parts of their old residential area, but all of them have been rejected by the State of Vermont to date.

20th century

Abenaki Reserves in Quebec

The loss of the northern, upstream land in the 19th century marked the end of the fur trade. The Abenaki had to find other jobs and many men became loggers on the great rivers. Others made their living as tour guides, but most eventually found work in local businesses, such as sawmills and shoe factories. Farm work was subsidized by the state for a while, but largely abandoned at the beginning of the 20th century.

There were some Indian communities on islands in the upper reaches of the Penobscot River, but only the village on Indian Island in Old Town gradually developed into a viable community. In 1951, with the completion of the bridge from the mainland to Indian Island, the previous ferry service was stopped and the relative isolation of the Abenaki village ended. Most of the working Penobscot now commute daily between their homes on the island and work on the mainland. Today about 2000 Abenaki live in Old Town and form the Penobscot Indian Nation .

Approx. 400 Wolinak-Abenaki live in the reserve in Bécancour in Québec and in Odanak, 50 km southwest of Trois-Rivières in Québec, there are almost 1,500 Abenaki organized in the Waban-Aki nation . The remaining descendants live across Québec, New Brunswick and northern New England.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15. Northeast . Chapter: Eastern Abenaki, page 137ff. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978, ISBN 0-16-004575-4 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Abenaki History
  3. ↑ Canadian Biographies
  4. ↑ Abenaki (English WP)

literature

Web links

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 4, 2006 .