|
|
| Plan
a Visit |
|
Calendar |
|
Wabanaki |
|
Collections |
|
Exhibitions |
|
Home |
Resistance:
Making War and Negotiating Peace 1675-1796
| The
Wabanaki were forced to go to war time
and again during a century of conflict
that saw the French and English jockey
for control of North America. The Wabanaki
made war in an effort to stop the invasion
of their homelands. They also supported
their French and American Revolutionary
allies against the English. Many treaties
were signed, but broken or never enforced. |
|
|
| 1796 and 1794 |
Separate treaties
between the Passamaquoddy (1794) and Penobscots
(1796) with Massachusetts reliniquished
vast tracts of Native homelands and established
small Indian reservations in Maine.
Read
the Passamaquoddy Treaty...
In 1790, the U.S. Congress
had passed the Non-Intercourse Act that
declared the federal government must ratify
all treaties between the States and Indian
Nations. Because Congress never ratified
the 1794 and 1796 treaties with the Maine
tribes, the tribes successfully negotiated
the Maine Indian Land Claims Settlement
Act in 1980. |
|
| 1780 |
Joseph
Orono, Penobscot chief, travels to Boston
and Newport, RI to offer the aid of the
Penobscots to the American Revolutionaries.
|
|
 |
Powder
horn attributed to
Chief Joseph Orono.
Abbe Museum Collections |
|
| 1779 |
Pledge
of Loyalty and Request for Support, Conference
at Machias.
Wabanaki pledge their loyalty to the Revolutionary
Army. In return, they request support and
safety for their people.
Our white brothers (the Americans)
tell us that they come to our land to enjoy
liberty and life. But their king (of England)
is coming to bind them in chains and kill
them. We must fight him. We will stand on
the same ground with our brothers (the Americans).
Joseph Orono, Chief of
the Penobscots, 1775 |
|
| 1777 |
British attack Machias;
the Wabanaki join the Revolutionaries. Captain
Sopiel Soctoma, Passamaquoddy, and 50 men
of his tribe capture an armed schooner off
Passamaquoddy Bay and deliver it to Colonel
John Allan in Machias. |
|
| 1763 |
The Treaty
of Paris
| At the end of the
French and Indian Wars, France cedes
Canada to Great Britain. The French-Wabanaki
alliance
ends. |
|
|
| mid 1700's |
| The Wabanaki
Confederacy
established an alliance of the Wabanaki
Nations. This alliance
provided individual Wabanaki Nations with
greater political power with which to negotiate
with European Nations and potentially threatening
neighboring Native alliances like the Iroquois
Confederacy. In addition to political power,
the Wabanaki Confederacy also provided individual
Wabanaki nations with a broader sense of
community—although they were individual
nations, they could choose to unite under
the confederacy to address issues that affected
them all. At the Grand Council Fires of
the Seven Nations, Confederacy members met,
made decisions and settled disputes.
The records of these meetings were kept
on the wampum belts, symbolic objects that
commemorated events.
| WAMPUM
BELTS
Native people sent and received Wampum
woven into belts as a form of communication.
Through the geometric patterns of
the purple and white beads, Native
people wove wampum designs to remember
and recall important events like oral
histories, treaties and agreements.
These belts were brought back and
forth from important events, and passed
down from generation to generation. |
|
| This belt
is a reproduction of a historic wampum
belt and represents the union of the
Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and
Penobscot in their local alliance. The
four white triangles are tribal "wigwams."
In the center is the pipe, the symbol
of the peace ceremony by which the allies
are joined. |
|
|
|
As the English and French
fought for control of the continent,
the Wabanaki, caught in the middle,
struggled to maintain their territory.
This English map
dated February 13, 1755, shows the
territories claimed by England and
France. The large territory to the
west below the St. Lawrence River
is all claimed as part of the colonies
of New England. French lands are to
the north and east. Remaining Wabanaki
tribal lands are sandwiched between
them. After England defeated France
in 1759, England claimed all of the
lands known as the Province of Maine.
|
|
|
| 1759-1755 |
| French
and Indian Wars
After defeating France,
in 1759 Great Britain takes control of all
French holdings, including traditional Wabanaki
territories. |
|
Bonaventure
Hatchet
French manufacture, 1695
Iron, wood, buckskin; handle is not original
Lewis
Lolar, a direct descendent of the famous Penobscot
war-chief Loron, bequethed this hatchet to
linguist Frank Siebert in 1935. The hatchet,
manufactured in France in 1695, is one of
only 200 such hatchets given to the Penobscots
by French naval officer Simon-Pierre Denys
de Bonaventure, during the French and Indian
Wars. “The hatchet is a genuine relic
of seventeenth century warfare in northeastern
North America and perhaps the only one for
which a detailed history can be sketched.”
Siebert (1988:4) |
|
Stephanie
M. Finger, Frank T. Siebert Collection,
Abbe Museum |
|
| 1755 |
| And I do hereby
require his Majesty's Subjects of this Province
to Embrace all opportunities of pursuing,
captivating, killing and Destroying all
and every of the aforesaid Indians.
The Phips Proclamation
posts a bounty on the scalps of Penobscots.
Read
the Proclamation... |
|
|
| 1744 |
King George’s
War
England places a
bounty on all Wabanaki after some participate
in French raids against English settlements
in Nova Scotia. |
|
| 1739 |
| Dams on the
Presumpscot River
| "We
are most aggrieved that the River
Presumpscot is dammed up so that the
passage of fish, which is our food,
is obstructed, and what Col. Westbrook
did promise about two years ago that
he would leave a place open in the
dam and that the fish should have
free passages up said river into the
pond in proper season, but he has
not done so, and we are therefore
deprived of our proper food. It was
agreed that the bounds of the settlement
made by the English should be known,
but the English are encroaching upon
our land, which we never knew or understood
was lawfully purchased, and we move
that the English may not be allowed
to settle any further as yet... and
that English improvements caused the
hunting to be very difficult so that
we cannot get our trade as usual..."
Statement of Polin,
Sagamore of the Presumpscot River, 1739 |
|
|
| 1725 |
| Dummer’s
Treaty
| English settlements
built before the war would remain, but
Wabanaki retain rights to all other
lands. |
|
|
| 1724 |
| The
English raid the village of Norridgewock,
on the Kennebec River, scalping and killing
French missionary Father Sebastian Rale
and 30 Wabanaki.
Learn
more... |
 |
| National Archives
of Canada /C7219 |
|
|
| 1722 |
Dummer’s War
The English attempt
to assert control over Wabanaki territories
ceded to England by France in the Treaty
of Utrecht, 1713. |
|
| 1721 |
| |
Signatures
of Wabanaki Leaders on a letter
sent to Massachusets Governor
Shute in 1721 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| 1. |
|
2. |
|
3. |
|
4. |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| 5. |
|
6. |
|
7. |
|
8. |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| 9. |
|
10. |
|
11. |
|
12. |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| 13. |
|
14. |
|
15. |
|
16. |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
| 17. |
|
18. |
|
19. |
|
|
| |
1.
Ceux de Narrants8uk, Norridgewock
* 2.
Ceux d'Arsikanteg8, St. Francis
Abenaki near Pierreville, Quebec. 3.
Ceux de Pentug8uet, Pentaguet
or Castine
4. Ceux d' 8an8iak Wawenocs of
Becancour, Quebec, originally
from Maine. 5.
Ceux de Narakamig8, Canton or
Jay's Point on the River Androscoggin 6.
Leurs allies: Their allies. 7.
Les Iroquis de sante Iroquis of
Coughnawaga (Montreal). 8.
Ceux d'Anmiss8kanti, Farmington
Falls on the Sandy River 9.
Les Iroquis de la Montagne, Iroquis
of Oka 10.
Ceux de Muanbissek, Missiquoi
Bay near Santon, Vermont 11.
Les Algonquis, Algonquins north
of the St. Lawrence River 12.
Ceux de Peg8akki, Freyeburg, Maine 13.
Les Hurons, Hurons (near Quebec
City). 14.
Ceux de Medokteck, Meductic, near
Woodstock, New Brunswick. 15.
Les Micmaks, Micmacs 16.
Ceux de K8upahag, Ekpahak or Savage
Island near Fredrickton 17.
Les Montagnez du cote du nord
Montagnais north of the St. Lawrence
River 18.
Ceux de Pesamokanti, Passamaquoddy 19.
Les Papinachois, et autres nation
voisnes.
*"8" is a common colonial-era
shorthand standing for an "oo"
or "w" sound. |
|
|
| King Philip's
War
The war is begun by the
Wampanoag leader Metacom, or King Philip,
as an attempt to remove the English from
Indian territory. In the Province of Maine,
English settlers on the lower Kennebec,
fearing attacks from the Wabanaki, demand
that they surrender their guns and cut off
sales of ammunition. Many Wabanaki, unable
to hunt for food, starve. Bounties
are placed on the heads of Wabanaki
and trade is cut off. Many Wabanaki seek
refuge in Canada or on the eastern frontier.
The extraordinary
contempt in which (the English) held
these peoples, whom they have ever
treated very harshly, led them to
believe that it would be very easy,
either to destroy them utterly, or
to reduce them to such a condition
that they would never again have to
fear a similar revolt among many of
them.
1676, The Jesuit
Relations |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
 |
| Support
for the development of this website is provided
by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library
Services. |
|
| |
| Reproduction of material without
written permission is prohibited. |
|
|
|
|
|
