Impact of French and English Rivalries upon the Dawnland Peoples

Impact of French and English Rivalries upon the
Dawnland Peoples

If France is, as you tell us, heaven on earth, why did your leave it in the first place?(1)

Such a succinct and simple statement from a Micmac man to the French, who, along with the English, tried time and time again to convert the Wabanakis to the European way of life and religion. As the Micmac man pointed out, if the French way of life was so great, then what were the French doing on Wabanaki lands?

With the coming of the Europeans to the lands upon which the Wabanakis lived, hunted, and fished, many disastrous changes took place. In the battle between England and France on New World soil, the Wabanaki people suffered and struggled in the face of war, disease, famine, and dislocation. As these two countries fought in Europe, so did their missionaries and colonists fight in the New World to religiously convert the Wabanakis, in order to gain their trust and alliances. The many years of bloody fighting took their toll on the Wabanakis, who ended up losing their young, their elders, their way of life, and their ancestral lands.

A great deal of care must be used when researching the Wabanaki peoples. The Wabanakis kept no written historical records, and European accounts of Wabanaki life were not written until the early 17th century. (2) A researcher cannot reliably rely upon only one source, but rather must rely upon a multitude of sources. When put all together, Wabanaki oral traditions, European written records, and archaeological evidence create a reputable picture of Wabanaki life. Still, one must exercise caution, in that many of these oral and written records contain biases, purposeful misinformation, and outright lies, depending upon who the writers and audiences were.

For example, Freeman and Perry wrote in 1962:

The Indians had no written language, no books, no grammar, no history. Speech was quite limited. Even though many tribes lived quite near to each other they did not all speak alike. It is not surprising that the Indians did little talking. (3)

This biased account represents the danger of relying upon only one view of the Wabanakis, who indeed possessed a rich history and language, passed on orally from generation to generation. As long as a researcher carefully combines many different research tools, one can be relatively sure of getting the whole picture, rather than just one biased account not representative of all the Wabanaki peoples.

Even though Wabanakis encountered a few European traders beforehand, the greatest onslaught of Europeans came during the late 16th and entire 17th century. (4) The French explorer Verrazano wrote one of the earliest accounts of Wabanaki life in 1524. (5) He indicated that the Wabanaki already distrusted European traders at that time. (6) In 1605, the English Captain Weymouth took five Wabanaki captives back to England. One of these captives, Nahanda, returned home in 1606 with warnings for the Wabanakis not to trust the English. Captain Weymouth's abduction was the first English recorded incident with the Wabanakis. (7)

With the coming of the Europeans, something even more deadly arrived: disease. These diseases, to which Europeans held a natural immunity, decimated Wabanaki populations. Smallpox, bubonic plague, measles, yellow fever, and influenza wiped out entire Wabanaki villages. Colin Calloway estimates that more than 75% of Wabanaki people died from these diseases. (8) In just a few years, the Wabanaki population decreased from about twenty thousand to five thousand. (9) Smallpox hit the Abenakis around 1617 and again in 1630s, the 1730s and the 1750s. These diseases not only killed off the young men who were needed to hunt and fish for food, but they also killed off the elders who were the main source of tribal oral history and ancestral ceremonies. (10) Not only in numbers were the Wabanaki people destroyed, but also in tradition and strength. The deaths of the Wabanaki by disease played an instrumental part in their religious conversion, as will be discussed later in this paper.

European fur traders brought even more problems for the Wabanaki. Beaver hats became the rage in Europe, and traders sought out beaver fur like never before. The Indians wanted the metal wares and guns of the Europeans. Not only did the French and English compete for Wabanaki trade, different tribes competed to trade with the Europeans, as well. During this trade frenzy, the Wabanakis abandoned their tradition of entering into a spiritual relationship with the animals they killed. (11)

In the end, the fur trade escalated into inter-tribal war, which became even more deadly with the infiltration of European guns and ammunition. (12) Sadly, alcohol also came into the picture as a result of European trade. Traders introduced alcohol to the Wabanakis, who later traded expensive furs to support their newfound addiction. English negotiators even went so far as to use alcohol to get the Wabanakis drunk before signing treaties. (13)

French Catholic and English Protestant missionaries invaded Wabanaki villages in an ongoing attempt to convert the "savages." The French black-robed Jesuits appear to have been most successful, since they arrived before the English. By the time the English sent their own missionaries, the French Jesuits had already established a firm foothold in the Wabanaki communities. The French had been in the villages during the time when so many Wabanakis died from disease, and they used this horrendous event to their advantage. The French missionaries told the Wabanakis that the French Catholic God was all powerful and that Wabanakis must convert. When the Wabanakis saw their people dying all around them, while the French remained basically untouched (due to their immunity), many Wabanaki converted to Catholicism. In fact, the oldest Catholic cemetery in new England is located on the Penobscot Nation reservation of Indian Island in Maine. (14)

The French influenced Wabanaki society in great ways, including through marriage, child bearing, and leadership. Even Wabanaki names indicated this influence. For example, missionaries gave French names to the Wabanaki families during Catholic baptism: "Attean" means Etienne (French for Steven) and "Sabadis" originates from Saint Jean-Baptist. (15)

Perhaps the greatest difference between English and French influences upon the Wabanaki is evidenced by their different ways of trying to communicate with the Wabanakis. The French missionaries, like Father Sebastien Rasles, chose to immerse themselves into the Wabanaki way of life. In doing so, they learned their language and culture, all the while gaining the respect and trust of the Wabanakis. (16) Father Rasles even went so far as to create an Abenaki-French dictionary. (17) "The Abenakis soon acquired a reputation as the most devout Catholics and the staunchest of New France's [Canada's] Indian friends."(18) Rather than just moving themselves right on in, the French first asked permission from the Wabanakis before establishing settlements on Wabanaki land. In this manner, the French established their presence by Wabanaki consent.

The English, on the other hand, used demands and ambiguous treaties to secure Wabanaki lands, which of course, only lead to resentment, hostility and distrust of the English by the Wabanakis. The English chose not to assimilate into Wabanaki life, and therefore they could not understand the Wabanaki customs and ways of life. This lead to numerous misunderstandings. Needless to say, the Wabanakis, in order to survive, chose to trust and ally themselves with the French, with whom they had lived and trusted. (19)

As the French and English warred in Europe, so did their missionaries and colonists fight for control of territory in the New World. As Calloway explains: "From the 1670s to the 1760s the Abenaki fought five wars against the English in an effort to stave off the invasion of their homeland, and they frequently helped the French in their conflicts with the English." (20) France and England were constantly at odds. The English continued making and breaking treaties with the Wabanaki - treaties the Wabanaki did not understand anyway. The Wabanaki accepted help from the French during these wars, often fleeing to Canada for protection. The English, realizing that the Wabanakis had allied themselves with the French, went so far as to put bounties on Wabanaki scalps. (21)

The wars resulted in greater misunderstandings of English imposed treaties, which the Wabanakis interpreted differently. In the eyes of the English, the Wabanakis did not misunderstand, but rather broke treaties, and this lead to another war. The French backed and incited the Wabanakis to war against the English, although in the end the French lost out. The French ceded Acadia (Wabanaki land) to the English in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which angered the Wabanakis and lead them to mistrust the French. Finally the English forced the French to cede Canada to England in the Treaty of Paris (1763). That ended the Wabanaki-French alliance and now the Wabanakis were left to face the English on their own. (22)

As a result, the Kennebec, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy tribes stayed right where they had been, but other Wabanakis fled to live with other Indian tribes, such as the Iroquois and other tribes in Canada. Calloway presents an appalling statistic: "Perhaps no more than 1,000 Abenaki survived in Maine at the end of the war [Seven Years War (1756-63)]." (23) This is even more appalling when considering that Calloway estimated the eastern Abenaki population to be about ten thousand at the beginning of the 17th century. (24)

With the French threat extinguished, English settlers invaded Wabanaki land. They took the good and fertile land for themselves, while pushing the Wabanakis on to less rich soil. What could the Wabanakis do? (25) As a result of the over-hunting of animals during the fur trade frenzy, the number of moose and beaver had decreased to a point where the fur trade subsided. Caribou become extinct as a result of this fur trade frenzy. (26) Settlers cut down and ruined whole forests, let their cattle roam free (making the soil infertile), and then erected fences to keep their animals in, all the while keeping the Wabanakis out of what used to be their traditional living and hunting ground. They also built dams along the rivers and lakes the Wabanakis occupied, preventing fish migrations. In addition, the creation of sawmills caused streams and rivers to dry up; this caused immeasurable hardship for the Wabanakis, who depended on fishing as an important food source. (27)

In the end, the Wabanakis lost many things to the hands of the Europeans. The American Revolution in the following years promised hope to the Wabanakis, but once again the white man would let them down. Many future changes would occur in the Wabanaki community, all in order to survive in this changing land now called America.