This basket, housed at the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum, is a fancy basket hamper decorated with cowiss that dates to c. 1900s. Cowiss is the Abenaki word for the spiral strips of splint that add texture to the basket (Wiseman 135). The inside wefts (horizontal splints) are dyed a pretty sea green and provide an appealing contrast to the tan colored warps (vertical splints) (McMullen 20). This basket is representative of the type of basket that would be found in non-native basketseller catalogues (Clark).

After fancy baskets rose in demand and popularity, "non-native middlemen set out to organize and control the basket industry by preparing wholesale catalogues, supplying tools and molds and raw materials (including dyes), and dictating what baskets would be made" (Porter 67). Non-native middlemen hoped to streamline the basket selling process in order to increase their profits and facilitate the transportation of baskets to customers. However, this had the following negative impact on native basketmakers:

-Basketmakers made less money per basket

-Basketmakers were no longer in control of the designs and styles of the baskets

-Basketmakers were no longer free in expressing themselves through their basketry

-The catalogues showcased large amounts of the same type of baskets, which reduced the value of each basket

The St. Regis Indian Trading Company is one example of this type of middleman industry. Their  catalogue, for instance, illustrates baskets as one of many instead of one of a kind. The catalogue describes a similar basket as follows: "hampers for soiled linen, made Urn shape of fine splint sides decorated with rows of curl trimming, detachable covers" (St. Regis Indian Trading Company). Because it focuses on the physical function and appearance of the basket, the description strips the basket of character and personality. It attempts to reduce the basket into an object without a story. Before middleman companies, baskets were usually purchased either directly from the basketmaker or through a family member or friend. The transaction itself was interactive, social and a part of the story of the basket. The catalogue removed the necessity of meeting the creator and turned the transaction into any other everyday purchase.

Because basketmakers were no longer able to make a living on selling baskets alone, many of them took other jobs in order to feed their families (Porter). Less and less American Indians taught their children or made baskets. Many assumed that basketry was a dying art form until American Indians from various tribes took it upon themselves to revitalize basketry. Today many Abenaki are able to make a living through basketmaking. Furthermore, baskets are treated as more than a functional object or as art: they are full of stories.

Works Cited

Clark, Lynn. "Comments on Basket Essays." 8 Aug. 2012. E-mail.

McMullen, Ann. Key into the Language of Woodsplint Baskets. Institution for American Indian Studies, 1987. Print.

Mundell, Kathleen. North by Northeast: Wabanaki, Akwesasne Mohawk, and Tuscarora Traditional Arts. Tilbury House Publishers, 2008. Print.

Porter, Frank W. The Art of Native American Basketry: A Living Legacy. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1990. Google Books. Web. 29 Aug. 2012.

St. Regis Indian Trading Company. "St. Regis Indian Trading Company Catalogue." 46-47. Print.

Wiseman, Frederick Matthew. The Voice of the Dawn: An Autohistory of the Abenaki Nation. University Press of New England, 2001. Print.

Jason Mancini, a senior researcher at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, attributes the relative scarcity of Native medical remedies in the historical record to “fear, misunderstanding, and subsequent mischaracterization of Native beliefs,” as well as to the arrogance of European colonial physicians. He adds, “in spite of the fact that many North American plants became part of the Euro-American ‘medicine chest,’ Indians were seldom given credit for ‘discovering’ their uses.”

What prompted Occom to make this unusual record?  Joanna Brooks says that the death of Occom’s father, Joshua, in 1743 “fully ushered Samson into his responsibilities as an adult member of his family, kinship network and tribe. These weighty new responsibilities and his sense of the imperilment of Mohegan territory generated in Occom ‘a great Inclination’ . . . to improve his reading and writing skills” (14).  Meanwhile, English settlers brought diseases that proved disastrous to Native communities.  According to Brooks, Occom developed a close relationship with a Montaukett man named Ocus, who taught him how to treat the eyestrain that plagued him during his study with Eleazar Wheelock.  Ocus also shared over 50 additional herbal and root medicines useful for a wide range of ailments and purposes, from treating burns and digestive complaints to serving reproductive health and contraception. Perhaps Occom felt a record of these medicines should be left for survivors. After all, that is really what we learn from all of his writings—a constant sense of obligation or desire to regenerate the Mohegan tribe.

But the herbal diary is often cryptic. It appears Occom purposely avoids any issue concerning the science of growing, discovery, and the timeliness in gathering of the herbs. Perhaps the diary was a ruse to satisfy the colonists’ curiosity about medicinal cures from plants.   Or perhaps he felt this knowledge was being effectively kept by Mohegan women who could read between the lines. In an email exchange in April of 2012, Melissa Tantaquideon Zobel, the current medicine woman and tribal historian, stated, “In Mohegan tradition women were the healers, which suggests gender issues may have come into play here in the denigration of indigenous medicine just as they did in old Europe.” Thus, in those places where Occom does not even name the herb or weed used in a specific cure, perhaps he was relying on the fact that the older generation instructed the young women which seed to plant for what, verbally transmitting their instructions for how medicine was to be prepared.          

Samson Occom’s recording of these remedies marks the beginning of a Mohegan ethnobotanical literary tradition that continues to this day, from Medicine Woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon’s scholarly treatise to the historical writings and novels of her protégé and descendant, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel.  These writings blend both Mohegan and Euro-colonial traditions to preserve and promote indigenous knowledge.

The very fact that they are written, and written in English (Tantaquidgeon adds botanical Latin), is a shift in traditional Mohegan ways of imparting knowledge.  Mohegan medicine people were and are thoroughly trained by elders, following them as they gather herbs and listening carefully to their knowledge.  They would not necessarily need to write this knowledge down, and they might not even want to, because wild plant populations are vulnerable to over collection, misuse and (as Winona LaDuke explains) biopiracy. Tantaquidgeon frames her Mohegan pharmacopeia by cautioning, “pick only what you need and leave some in reserve. The Indian practiced conservation in its true meaning” (68-69).

Occom’s notebook therefore gives very few specifics.  His entry (#29) for wintergreen, for example, calls of “wintergreen and another herbe.”  He uses English standards of measurement (“3 quarts of water”), but doesn’t reveal other things: at what time does one pick wintergreen? When it is a sprout, fully grown or drying out?   On this same remedy, Tantaquidgeon says simply that wintergreen tea is “a warming beverage and a kidney medicine” (72).  These omissions urge those seeking cures to look towards more knowledgeable sources, like the tribes, for help.  They are a way of protecting traditional ecological knowledge even while they document the value of the cures. In the time Occom was writing that value was also monetary. Occom says he paid Ocus “in all 27 York money” for the information.

This hybrid text connects readers to Mohegan herbal knowledge, but is also indicative of a more complex relationship, one with the utmost respect for the earth. In order for herbal medicine to be practiced successfully we must follow the ways of the Mohegans in order to sustain the land that serves us.

Works Cited

Brooks, Joanna, The Collected Writings of Samson Occom, Mohegan Edited by Joanna Brooks

Dartmouth University Archives, Rauner Special Collections Library

Fawcett, Melissa Jayne. The Lasting of the Mohegans: Part I, The Story of the Wolf People. Uncasville, CT: The Mohegan Tribe, 1995.

Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel. Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon. University of Arizona Press, 2000.

LaDuke, Winona. “The Political Economy of Wild Rice.” Multinational Monitor 25, no. 4 (April 2004): 27–29.

 Occom, Samson. The Collected Writings of Samson Occom, Mohegan: Literature and Leadership in Eighteenth-Century Native America. Edited by Joanna Brooks. Oxford University Press, USA, 2006.

 Tantaquidgeon, Gladys. Folk Medicine of the Delaware and Related  Algonkian Indians. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,1972.

To get at early Native American writing (like this penmanship exercise), one often has to sift through the works of white missionaries, administrators, and agents.  For instance, William Henry Kilby, who met Deacon Sockbason, wrote in his 1888 Eastport and Passamaquoddy: A Collection of Historical and Biographical Sketches:

He could read and write, though his spelling, as shown in the sample in my possession, was rather imperfect; and he had been to Washington to see the President.  He considered himself the greatest man in the tribe, and was continually trying to impress others with the idea of his dignity and importance. On special occasions, he wore a coat of startling style. Years ago, on one of my visits to Pleasant Point, looking over the fence of the little burial-ground I saw a rift of split cedar standing in place of a headstone, bearing in rude letters the inscription. (TIKN SOKEPSN)

Kilby's characterization of the phonetic spelling as “rude," and his obvious distaste for a Native man who displayed confidence or material wealth, tell us much more about the racist attitudes of the time than they do about Sockbason himself.  

The Passamaquoddy reservations in the 19th century (and later) were grievously poor, because, as the Abbe Museum explains, the state of Maine--illegally, and continually--sold off and leased tribal lands and resources without distributing the profits to Native people.  Those resources included timber, a theft routinely protested--in writing--by Passamaquoddy leaders including Deacon Sockbason, and later Lewey Mitchell, the tribal representative to the state legislature in the 1880s.  Donald Soctomah's archives include this petition from Deacon Sockbason, demanding that the State stop depleting fish and timber and return Passamaquoddy lands:

Your friends further state that they are in great want of a piece of woodland for the purpose of getting wood in the winter for the use of the elderly Indians, their women, and children, as they live on a point of land called Pleasant Point where they cannot procure wood, as all the woodland for the distance of thirty miles is owned by private individuals.

These are hardly the words of a tool of the colonial powers, as Kellogg understood Sockbason.  The fact that this Passamaquoddy man lived in a wood-frame house, then, was not what his white neighbors thought.  Settler colonists including William Kilby and Henry Thoreau were unnerved by literate Indians in wood houses: they found such people pitiful, tragic, assimilated.  But Sockbason was clearly trying to ensure that his own people had access to their own resources.  Kellogg tells a story of how the local priest tried to bar workmen from bringing a frame for a workshop ashore at Pleasant Point; Sockbason intervened, and the workshop was built.

Garret was visited often by townspeople, and was even allowed to be released from custody to participate in Christian gatherings after her proclaimed conversion to Christianity. The decision to convert was quite common for Indians facing death, and may have even been a failed attempt at receiving a pardon from the Government, as Garret had been in a Christian home since the age of fourteen without showing any signs of assimilating to the culture of her captors.

The format of Katherine Garret’s “Dying Warning” is consistent with the genre of Indian deathbed literature, as well as criminal biography; two forms that were popularized due to the era of the Great Awakening, and was used as evidence to prove how effective the reformation of Native Americans was. However, Garret broke from the approved format by using strong language and images to illustrate her feelings about her impending execution. The language was not outright enough to be edited from the document, which was distributed by Revered Eliphalet Adams, who spent a great deal of time with Garret during her incarceration and delivered the sermon at her execution, and both documents published by Timothy Green.

In the opening sentence, Garret uses the word “justice” to directly reference the injustice of what has happened to her; she was placed before a jury of white men, despite the lack of evidence directly linking her to the murder, and sentenced to death, though the act she was thought to have committed was most likely done in accordance with Pequot tribal traditions. Garret was forcefully separated from her culture at the young age but remained faithful to the Pequots, as is noted in her dress and resistance of conversion to Christianity. It should be noted that the name of the suspected father to the child was never named in the trial, sermon, character account, or dying warning. She calls out to “the Justice of the Court who has Sentenced me to die this Death”, which she stated prior was to be a “Violent Death”, as a late appeal to the emotional in the hopes that she may be released. Garret spends the first half of the text in describing how she came to her Conversion in prison, and thanking those who showed her kindness and brought her books to read, other than the Bible. Garret speaks about her past as a sinner, “a sinner by Nature, also guilty of many Actual Transgressions, Particularly of Pride and Lying, as well as of the Sin of destroying the Fruit of my own Body”, although she does not openly say that she committed murder, further evidence that she saw the supposed infanticide as a form of abortion. Garret recognizes that she “destroyed the Fruit”, purposefully not using any word to call to mind a human child, and takes responsibility in the words “my own Body”.

The second section of the warning is quite typical- urging children to behave and listen to their parents, though Garret does use natural images from Native spiritual traditions in order to understand the harsh punishments of the Christian Bible; “For the Eye that Mocks at his Father and despiseth to Obey his Mother, the Ravens of the Valley shall pick it out, and the Young Eagles shall eat it”. In the “Anonymous Character Account” that is believed to have been written by Adams, as it was included in the pamphlet of his sermon, there is a reference to Garret having been with in the home of the Reverend Worthington since “childhood”, but she had not been assimilated prior to her incarceration. In her use of traditional Native ideas, Garret again points to her true culture.

The third section is a complete break from the traditional form, calling out to servants and slaves “Either Whites or Blacks, be Obedient to your Masters & Mistresses” but “Above all Fear God; fear to Sin against Him: He is our Great Master”. By combining slaves, regardless of their color, into one group and emphasizing that God is the true Master, Garret makes the ownership position of master on Earth a trivial one, as “Parents and Masters…You must also give an Account to God how you carry it to them”. Everyone reports to the same Master after death, regardless of their societal position in life.

Works Cited

Fickes, Michael L. “`They Could Not Endure That Yoke’: The Captivity of Pequot Women and Children After the War of 1637”,

Boston, Patience. “A Faithful Narrative of the Wicked Life andRemarkable Conversion of Patience Boston Alias Samson; Who Was Executed at York, in the County of York, July 24th. 1735. for the Murder of Benjamin Trot of Falmouth in Casco Bay, a Child of About Eight Years of Age, Whom She Drowned in a Well.”, 1738.

Adams, Eliphalet. “A Sermon Preached on the Occasion of the Execution of Katherine Garret, an Indian-servant (who Was Condemned for the Murder of Her Spurious Child) on May 3d 1738. To Which Is Added Some Short Account of Her Behavior After Her Condemnation.” Timothy Green, 1738. Early American Imprints. Garret, Katherine. “Dying Warning of Katherine Garret”, New London, Connecticut, May 3, 1738.

Lauber, Almon Wheeler, and The Faculty of Political Science Columbi. Indian Slavery in Colonial Times Within the Present Limits of the United States. BiblioBazaar, 2010.

Salisbury, Neal. “Indians and Colonists in Southern New England After the Pequot War.” The Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an American Indian Nation, 198:81–95. The Cilvilization of the American Indian Series. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990.

Schorb, Jodi. “Seeing Other Wise.” Early Native Literacies in New England: a Documentary and Critical Anthology, 148–161. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008.

Carocci, Max. “Written Out of History: Contemporary Native American Narratives of Enslavement," June 2009.

This hat basket, one that would have been sold to tourists, nicely illustrates Abenaki basketry's functional and aesthetic appeal. The chain link design on the lid, a common design on many baskets, represents friendship (Hopkinton Historical Society). The inside of the basket is lined with newspaper, a common practice at the time, and serves a purely functional purpose (Fitzgerald 52). Although various words can be read from the print, the basket overtakes the newspaper as the "text" through its continuance of Abenaki culture and tradition (Fitzgerald 52).

The Impact of Tourism

The earliest baskets were used for carrying items and storage. However, beginning in the nineteenth century, an influx of tourists into northern New England turned this tradition into a way to earn a living.  As authentic Native-made baskets became more fashionable. their design changed. They went from simple, understated containers to brightly colored affairs designed to draw consumers' attention.

When visitors to New England were shelling out cash for authentic Native American-made baskets, they wanted what they envisioned as the full Native experience. Some Abenaki families, like that of Maurice Dennis, donned stereotypically “Indian” looking clothing expressly to sell their wares (McMullen 32). Cultural observers, and basketmakers themselves, have mixed feelings about these accommodations. One Native anthropologist, Lisa Neuman, has expressed concern about the damage done to Native cultures and economies when basketmakers are forced "into the expected stereotypical roles of indigenous 'craftspeople'” (90). In Maine, Neuman observers, voters roundly defeated a Wabanaki proposal to build a casino for economic self-sufficiency.  In Neuman's assessment, non-Native citizens expected Wabanaki people to "'stay quietly on our reservations'. . . passive and docile rather than full participants in Maine’s economy” (91).

Economic Adaptation

Art historian Joan Lester details these aesthetic changes: “Basket weavers were already accustomed to accommodating their craft to non-Indian tastes and styles. By the 1860s, round, covered ash-splint baskets with splints of varying widths, swabbed with color, were being made by Penobscot weavers [in Maine]. Modeled after hat boxes and bandboxes, these baskets were sought after for their practical as well as aesthetic qualities. And the weavers seem to have understood what would appeal to this new tourist market.”

An unidentified fishing basket trap from the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum in Warner, NH, is likely an eel trap. Woven from wood splints, it stands nearly three feet high when stood on end. Museum staff is unsure of this basket’s exact date and place of origin, but Abenaki and other Native people in northeastern New England have long used trap baskets of this kind with their fishing weirs. Abenaki basket maker Bill Gould, who makes similar items, explains that a trap like this “is set up under water and weighed down with bait inside.”

What is a Fishing Weir?

Fishing weirs, sometimes constructed of stone, and sometimes of wooden stakes, work “to obstruct the passage of the fish in order to facilitate its capture, and impound the fish so that it cannot get away" (lutins). Weirs can capture fish traveling either upstream or downstream, usually during the spawning period, when they have the most fat. In a 1992 study of prehistoric fishing weirs in the northeast, allen lutins observes that “weirs and traps may be used independently, but their functions are often combined in a single structure when traps are used to collect the fish forced by the weir to a narrow outlet.”

The oldest fishing weirs could be vast. Fredrick Johnson describes an enormous prehistoric weir found in 1913 under Boylston Street in Boston. Dating back to the Late Archaic period, it covers about two acres and includes some 65,000 stakes interwoven with brush wattling, or a mixture of shrubs and branches (27). The Late Archaic period occurred in 1250 BC-3800 BC (Fagan 202). According to Johnson, the difference in construction between this ancient fish weir and modern ones was that the stakes were not evenly spread out or of the same size (Johnson 57).

Fishing, Baskets, and Culture

Throughout New England, fishing has been an important means of subsistence for Native people, promoting a spiritual connection to specific places. Kerry Hardy finds that, for the Wabanaki Indians of Maine, waterfalls and ideal fishing spots historically determined the significance of villages: “The greater the obstacle, the better the harvest, and the more important the town” (62).

In New Hampshire’s Winnepesaukee region, three stone weirs were found in the 1930s. One was W shaped and the other two were V shaped, with points oriented downstream (Proctor 41-49). According to Brian Fagan, V-shaped weirs could be used with basket traps (79). The traps could be placed near the points of the weirs, which funneled fish into them. The weirs at Winnepesaukee, unfortunately, were eventually removed because they interfered with water navigation (Moorhead 51).

Protection of Fishing Grounds

Historically, Native people have fought determinedly to protect their fishing grounds. In a 1748 petition, residents of the praying town of Natick defined their right to fish on Lake Cochituate, against the encroachment of English settlers. Historian Jean O’Brien has discussed this petition in some detail as evidence of Indian resistance; with respect to the value of fishing weirs, she notes that “The petitioners describe their fishing rights as an ‘old and valuable liberty’ rather than a gift in the form of a specific grant from the General Court” (O’Brien 126). Therefore, this petition conveys that the Indians had these rights long before the arrival of the English, although they were forced to formally request them back in writing. Similarly, the eel basket pictured here—made of trees, placed in rivers, and capturing food for people—acts as a text tying indigenous people to a particular place.

Works Cited

Fagan, Brian M. The First North Americans: An Archaeological Journey. Ancient Peoples and Places. New York, N.Y: Thames & Hudson, 2011.

Gould, Bill. E-mail interview. 10 Apr. 2012.

Hardy, Kerry. Notes on a Lost Flute: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki. 1st ed. Down East Books, 2009.

Johnson, Frederick. The Boylston Street Fishweir, a Study of the Archaeology,biology, and Geology of a Site on Boylston Street in the Back Bay District of Boston, Massachusetts. Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology v. 2. Andover, Mass: Phillips academy, The Foundation, 1942.

Lutins, Allen. Prehistoric Fishweirs in Eastern North America. MS thesis. 1992. Binghamton : n.p.,1992. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.

Moorehead, Warren King, and Benjamin Lincoln Smith. The Merrimack Archaeological Survey: a Preliminary Paper. Peabody Museum, 1931.

O’Brien, Jean M. Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790. Cambridge Studies in North American Indian History. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

O'Brien , Jean. "Our Old and Valluable Liberty ." Early Native Literacies in New England. Ed. Kristina Bross and Ed. Hilary E. Wyss . Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008. 119-129. Print.

Proctor, Mary A. The Indians of the Winnipesaukee and Pemigewasset Valleys. Powwow River Books, 2007.

A two sentence summary of the Oyster River Massacre is etched into a plaque on the banks of Mill Pond in Durham, New Hampshire:

“On July 18, 1694, a force of about 250 Indians under command of the French soldier, de Villieu, attacked settlements in this area on both sides of the Oyster River, killing or capturing approximately 100 settlers, destroying five garrison houses and numerous dwellings.  It was the most devastating French and Indian raid in New Hampshire during King William's War.”

While the dates and numbers are true, this memorial promotes the one-sided history that has been passed down for generations, retelling the event as an unprovoked attack on a sleepy New England colony.  What is often excluded in these accounts is the expansionist culture of the British settlers, who had begun invading Abenaki territory many years earlier.  While the Abenaki people witnessed the land they once knew drastically altered by colonization, they took action to save their tribe from devastation by adapting to European war customs and forming an alliance with the French.  

As historian Craig Brown explains, “the Abenaki regarded themselves as a military power on equal footing with the Europeans.  The Indians were fighting primarily to recover kinsmen taken by the English and to push back English encroachment on their land” (3).  For years, Abenakis struggled to continue their way of life as the British pushed them off their land in Eastern New Hampshire and Southern Maine, blocking their fishing sites and damaging their corn crops with loose cattle.  The Abenaki view of land rights can be seen through Bomoseen’s own words as reported to the Council of Massachusetts by John Hill: “all those lands belonged to his uncle Moxis the Chief Sachamor of that place, and [John Hill] saith that those Eastern Indians carry themselves very surly and insolently and do say, that the English shall not repossess and enjoy ye lands in ye province of Maine than by agreement with them” (4).  The Abenaki realized that their best approach to dealing with these people was to follow European customs, including using treaties and agreements to come to compromises.  Although Bomoseen’s request to respect Abenaki land should have come as a forewarning for future conflict to come, his words were often ignored by the British, who constantly “encroach[ed] on [Abenaki] territory creating much tension between the two peoples, which fed a continuing cycle of diplomatic negotiations and violent clashes” (4) including the Oyster River Massacre.  

During King William's War, fought from 1689 to 1697, French-Abenaki raids on British settlements were a common battle tactic.  After the Treaty of Pemaquid was signed in 1693, outlining peace and trade conditions between the British and Abenaki, the French realized they had to keep their Abenaki allies on good terms if they wanted to win the war.  Although thirteen Abenaki chiefs signed the document, "the English assumed that the signers of the treaty represented all the Indians, which reflected a dangerous lack of understanding of Indian politics and social structure" (3) Each smaller tribe had a chief, and any chief who did not sign the treaty did not feel like they had to listen to it.  While some Abenaki clans agreed to these new acts of neutrality with the British, others remained loyal to the French.

When the governor of New France, Louis de Bade Frontenac heard news of the Treaty of Pemaquid, he enlisted the French military and Abenaki allies to invade Oyster River Plantation, a small town some ten miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean.  The French were led by Claude-Sebastian de Villieu and the Abenakis by Bomoseen.  The 250 Frenchmen and Indians attacked Oyster River Plantation on July 18, 1694, killing 45 settlers, taking 49 captive, and burning 5 homes to the ground.  Hezekiah Mills, an Indian who allied with the British testified his account of the raid, claiming he “saw Bomaseen in his canoe which was well-laden.  There was four English captives, some scalps and a large pack of plunder brought in that canoe” (5). This is one of very few first-person testimonies of the Oyster River Massacre, corroborating Bomoseen’s commanding presence at the raid.  Due in part to his leadership during the raid, it was determined a French and Abenaki success as the attack resulted in death, famine and destitution for British survivors.

Almost twenty years later, the French admitted defeat against the British in the War of Spanish Succession, which carried over into the New World territories.  On January 19, 1712, the French signed the Treaty of Utrecht, establishing peace between the two powers and shifting control in many European nations.  With command of New England, the British called Abenaki leaders to Portsmouth in July of 1713 to sign the Peace Treaty of Portsmouth, outlining the new rules tribes must follow under British command.  
These included but were not limited to: 

-Acknowledge themselves submissive, obedient subjects of Queen Anne
-Cease acts of hostility towards subjects of Great Britain and their estates
-Allow English settlers to return to their former settlements without molestation or claims by the Indians
-Address grievances in English court, rather than in "private revenge"
-Cast themselves upon Her Majesty for mercy and pardon for past rebellions, hostilities and violations of their promises

The signatures of Bomoseen and other Abenaki tribal leaders on this document shows their acceptance to follow British customs in an attempt to conduct themselves as a respectable military power.  Although their French allies had lost, the Abenaki were not willing to abandon their dignity and followed the treaty until the British broke their promises, encroaching on land they promised not to touch.  Bomoseen remained loyal to his people while attempting to do what was best for them, whether during the Oyster River Massacre, the Peace Treaty of Portsmouth, or other events during the French and Indian War in later years.  

Works Cited:
(1) Kidder, Frederic. The Abenaki Indians: Their Treaties of 1713 & 1717, and a Vocabulary. Portland: Brown Thurston, 1859. Page 25. 
(2) Calvert, Mary R. Black Robe on the Kennebec. Monmouth, 1991. 
(3) Brown, Craig J. "The Great Massacre of 1694': Understanding the Destruction of Oyster River Plantation." Historical New Hampshire 53 (1998): 69-91. 
(4) Belmessous, Saliha. Native Claims: Indigenous Laws Against Empire:1500-1920. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Page 108.
(5) Farnsworth, Janice. "Testimony of Hezekiah Miles, Friendly Indian, on Preparations of Attack on Groton & Oyster River." Northeast Captivity Stories. 3 April 2012.

In the Wampanoag tribe, women played a very important role that went far beyond the stereotypical colonial women that was soon adopted. Wampanoag native women brought in on average 75% of the food consumed and one of their most well known and loved dishes is called “Three Sisters Rice”, a dish which combines all of their most abundant and important crops; rice, corn, beans, and squash. The native spirituality had many different aspects but centered around the idea of one Mother Earth. The most plentiful and cherished crops; corn, beans, and squash, were examples of how Mother Earth takes care of the human race. The native culture cherished the female body and felt a strong bond between themselves and Mother Earth. “The land was used and shared; it was not owned.” (Dresser 45). They viewed Mother Earth as everywhere around them and understood that as land, she was not property but instead meant for survival. “Women were the souls of the councils, the arbiters of peace and war, and in whom all real authority was vested.” (Leacock 265). For them, Mother Earth had given them the ability to take the lives of plants and animals to sustain their own survival but only because humans are able to respect the sacrifice these other living organisms make for us and understand how it nourishes our bodies, she was the one spiritual leader.

Native Wampanoag people understood and loved the female figure just as the ancient Greeks had understood the importance of the woman’s body and worshiped its spirituality. European colonist however, had implemented a society where a woman was only for making children, making clothing, and staying within the household; very much an object that men could buy and own—inadvertently and helplessly reliant on her working husband. Just as this idea had spread across Europe and other nations in Central America and South America, when the colonist arrived to New England they started to infiltrate the native’s beliefs simply by not acknowledging women in roles of authority. In order to save their land, Wampanoag men would learn how to speak and write in English. The men primarily did this because women were not allowed, and women were not allowed because colonists did not acknowledge women in any type of authority. Slowly the balance between men and women started to shift. Eventually, as children of this time grew up with their mothers at home and their fathers at school, church, and working in the fields, this way of life became inherited until it was eventually the only way of life natives knew.

The inheritance of land was passed down through the mother lineage, and in Land deposition #35 from the Native Writings in New England, the Wampanoag Sachem  leaves his land to two women; Ales Sessetom and Keziah Sessestom. Not only does this Sachem swear in the name of God, but also the deed is written in English. “During the colonial period, male authority was being encouraged by Euro-Americans in their political and military dealings with Native Americans at the same time as Indian women were becoming dependent in individual households on wage-earning and trading husbands” (Leacock 264). By adopting Christianity and English literacy, the Wampanoag people were trying to save their land in any way possible. Of course, the colonist would neither accept this deed as legitimate regardless of how many witnesses signed at the bottom nor would they ever allow a woman, let alone a native woman, to own land. Until these documents were found and transcribed, to the common public it seemed that women played absolutely no authoritative role in native literacy or society. Experience Mayhew, a colonist and missionary who worked alongside the Native Wampanoags, understood the women and children’s role in their tribal society. Instead of comparing women to the subservient role that men play to god, he instead wrote about their struggles with colonization and how they had once been respected. Experience was also the Reverend who signed off on the  Land deed dated March 14, 1689 - who grants permission for the two women to own land.

The idea that native women were weak and unreliable as human beings is completely false. Weetamoo served as a Sachem to the Wampanoag tribe during King Philips War and was remembered and worshiped for her strength, beauty, and severe confederacy. She was not some weak housewife who depended on her husband. Instead she was an active member of society who was entrusted with some of the most vital assessments for her people. Awashonks was another Wampanoag woman Sachem and ruled at a time when tensions between Colonist and Natives were about to break out into King Philips War, which is noted as one of the most violent periods of warfare. Clearly if women were able to rule over entire tribes and own land, then the oppression that eventually took over the Americas and other countries did not originate from within. Instead, it was learned and instigated by Colonization and Christianity. Overall it is clear that Wampanoag women were taking a stand and fighting for their land just as the men were, in any way possible!

In 1820, the Missouri Compromise declared Maine an independent state; the Penobscot Indians faced loss of land in direct violation to the 1790 Trade and Non-intercourse Act. The Trade and Non-intercourse Act was meant to protect Indian lands on a federal level, and other treaties also made by the Penobscot with the former Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1796 and 1818 were meant to help establish reservation lands.

On August 17, 1820—a mere nine years before the Penobscot Land Claims Petition—the Maine signed a new treaty with the Penobscot people, effectively releasing the Commonwealth from their former agreements with the Native Americans of Maine. Only three of the four tribes in Maine, the Penobscot, the Maliseet, and the Micmac, signed this treaty. The Passamaquoddy people, the last of the four tribes comprising the Wabanaki people of Maine, were the only tribe to not sign the treaty.

Maine was and remains a border state with the territory that is now modern-day Canada. Maine was formed before the American Civil War and during a time when there was still significant tension between American, French, and English settlers. There was a drive to lay claim to the largely unknown interior and fringe areas of Maine. As property as a form of power grew, the demand for ownership of the new, rich areas in Maine became a goal for the white settlers. The Penobscot people had already given up vast areas of tribal land to the government of Maine when the 1829 petition was written, and the document sought to voice their concerns about losing the diminished portion that they had left.

As seen in the 1829 petition, the additional transfer of Penobscot lands when so much had been “sold” (or forcibly handed over already), was quietly responded to as an outrageous notion. The Penobscot people’s first argument was that the State of Maine had a large quantity of wild lands that the Penobscot and other Native Americans of Maine ceded to them. Those lands had thus far been relatively unused and the Penobscot compromised by offering that once all the land was used up then they would gladly share with their white neighbors. The Penobscot wrote that “Till this is the case, leave us this little pittance, the miserable remains [still in their possession]. The wording in this section of the petition was likely crafted to dissuade the government from taking more of their land and show the “pittance” or “miserable remains” were inadequate, not worth the effort to obtain from the Penobscot.

One of the substantial concerns the Penobscot people had was that if they were to continue selling their land in Maine, there would be no land remaining for future generations. The Penobscot relied on the land’s resources for sustenance and to keep their traditional practices of hunting and fishing alive. In the petition, it is highlighted that through settlement of Penobscot territory—that was supposedly theirs to govern and call home—a fish trap was destroyed, and white settlers stole previously harvested and stored provisions from their land. By bringing attention to these struggles, the Penobscot people attempted to obviate any further dispossession.

Throughout the petition, the Penobscot continually maintain that they are willing to work with the terms of the white people in order to come to a common understanding. In reference to building a tavern on a military road so white men had a place to stop along their travels, the Penobscot were very willing to make “such men to be accommodated.” The Penobscot also point to the fact they anticipated the white settlers would ask for more taverns along the road when they complain that one is not enough. The Penobscot refer to the white people as their “brothers” and “brethren,” recognizing certain equality between them, and are taken aback by the whites not treating them the same respect and understanding. In the closing lines of the petition the Penobscot write: “We have been faithful to our white brethren and all we ask in return, is, that their contract towards us should be just and reasonable.”

In 1833, four years following the 1829 Penobscot Indian Land Claims Petition, a controversial sale of some of the remaining Penobscot lands took place. It is said that a number of the Penobscot tribal members who signed the treaty did not understand exactly what they were giving up when they did so. Further loss of Penobscot land took place and 100,000 acres of land was sold, leaving only 5,000 acres in the ownership of the tribe. It was not until over a century later, in accordance with the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980, that the Penobscot and other Wabanaki tribes in Maine were compensated for the unlawful disposition of their tribal lands.

What is perhaps most troubling—and perhaps most worth noting—is this thought of the intent to gain possession of tribal lands at all costs. That the Penobscot people signed away land unintentionally is further testament to the settlers’ avarice and disrespect toward not only the Penobscot, but many other tribes at this time. Such documents as this petition are central to our discussions of reclamation and land rights and are worth excavating for the richness of culture and context they provide.