The Early Years

The Early Years, Pre-1750

The ancient culture of the Abenaki people and the world in which they lived before European contact has been all but lost to history. Therefore, we must look past textual evidence and gather information from the archaeological record and elements of modern Abenaki culture to provide the most comprehensive account of the Connecticut River Valley. Throughout their existence in the Connecticut River Valley, small tribes and bands maintained contact with a greater native population—a path which would eventually prove to be both beneficial and destructive to the Abenaki of the Connecticut River Valley.

An expanse of fresh water as large as the Connecticut River allowed for much variety in the composition of its banks and floodplains. Northern areas such as Orford, New Hampshire contain soapstone and copper along the river, while other banks were composed of rich clay or organic matter. The word “freshet”[1] has long since passed from modern colloquial English into Archaic English, although its usage was short lived. It was first recorded in the mid-sixteenth century, and was originally used to describe a specific kind of flooding that occurred along the banks of rivers in early spring. Snowmelt or seasonal rains caused rivers to swell and overflow with fresh, cold water, drenching the shores and leaving deposits of sediment, minerals, and organic matter. Upon settling in New England in the seventeenth century, the British began to use the word to describe their newly discovered environment. Gradually the word “freshet” evolved and came to mean “floodplains along the banks of a river,” to European settlers in New England. As “freshet” began to fall out of common usage in British English, English-speakers in North America kept the word alive for another two-hundred years—particularly in the region of the Connecticut River Valley.

The Connecticut River, like many geographic land features in New England, is named for one of its most prominent physical characteristics. The largest river in the northeastern region of what is now the United States, the Connecticut flows down from the largely uninhabited region abutting Canada. As it travels four-hundred miles from the Fourth Connecticut Lake to the Long Island Sound, landscapes change from mountain to hill, hill to forest, and forest to wetland. The river has always been a prominent feature of the New England landscape, but not until 1614 was its name first recorded in a document written by Adriaen Block, a Dutch explorer. Most probably, Block recorded a variation of the Abenaki phrase kwini tewk, meaning “the long river.”[2]

Jeremy Belknap, one of New Hampshire’s first naturalists and historians, often praised the fertility and abundance of natural resources in the different regions of the State. His detailed descriptions of each tree, shrub, and creature known to New Hampshire conjure images of the woodland region that was the western portion of New Hampshire before European settlement and development. Maple, elm, oak, locust, beech, walnut, chestnut, spruce, birch, and pine trees made up the dense forest that stretched from the seacoast to the cool waters of the Connecticut River.[3]

The Connecticut River Valley was abundant in wildlife. The species that inhabited the River Valley corridor were plentiful and valuable. The natives of New Hampshire were very conscientious of their hunting and trapping habits, never taking more than would be sustainable to themselves and the environment. Most species could be used for a variety of purposes. Deer and moose provided hides for clothing, antlers and bone for tools, and of course, a large amount of meat. Other useful animals were groundhogs, wild turkey, goose, grouse, pheasant, and quail. Fish were abundant in the currents of the Connecticut. According to Belknap, trout were found in nearly all freshwater lakes, streams, and ponds in New Hampshire. Salmon and shad were also quite common during their annual migration upstream. After the first instances of contact between Europeans and natives in the seventeenth century, demand for North American fur in Europe changed the way that species were hunted. Raccoon, beaver, and mink were prized for their luxuriant pelts. Muskrat was a valuable source of musk for perfume; and deer and moose hides could be tanned to produce soft leather for shoes, gloves, and breeches.[4] Although many of these animals were also hunted to provide meat for survival, it is clear that they had much more value as trade commodities than as sustenance.

The Abenaki people were the last Native Americans to claim the lands from which the Connecticut River sprung. The area along the northern Connecticut River has been identifiably unique in its people and culture since the days of earliest inhabitance. The territory which now makes up the States of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire had been inhabited for nearly eight thousand years even before the arrival of the Abenaki people. By the time of first European contact, the land had been continuously occupied for nearly twelve thousand years.

The predecessors of the Abenaki people were part of the large group of Paleo-Indians who migrated from Asia to North America in a number of ways. Estimated dates of this inter-continental crossing are between twenty-five and eighteen thousand years ago, as hunting tribes gradually followed game to new climates. This period in Old World pre-history is known as the Mesolithic Period or Middle Stone Age, and in New World prehistory as the Archaic Period.[5] Roughly corresponding to the end of the last Ice Age, change in world climates allowed migratory groups such as animals and humans to travel in a more sustainable and comfortable way. It is likely that the ease of travel along inland waterways such as the Connecticut River Valley significantly influenced the migration of people to the Atlantic coast.  By 10,000 B.C., there is archaeological evidence that the first humans had reached the land of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Like many other Paleo-Indians in North America during this time, the first people of New Hampshire lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle. As evidenced by artifacts found at sites in the Connecticut River Valley, sustenance for the Paleo-Indian people came from the herds of caribou that roamed the eastern and northern parts of the continent. Aside from caribou, other supplements to the Paleo-Indian diet included plants, roots, and smaller game foraged by hunting groups. As the herds moved across territories from season to season, hunters followed. Along the way, hunting camps were established for the butchering of game. Ice Age caribou were somewhat larger than their modern North American descendents, thus each kill could be relied upon to provide a substantial amount of meat, hides, and bone for food, clothing, and tools. Stone hide scrapers, spearheads, and knife blades from the period have been preserved alongside antlers and bones in archaeological sites along the Connecticut River, suggesting that the River Valley was a popular corridor for game migration, and thus hunting.[6]

In comparing the size and shape of Paleo-Indian tools found in the New Hampshire and Vermont to tools found elsewhere in New England, it can be seen that upper Connecticut River Valley tools do not resemble those of other areas. This perhaps indicates that Paleo-Indians adapted their hunting and gathering techniques to make the most of the challenging climate of northern New England.[7] As for the culture and customs of this people, not much can be extracted from the archaeological record. However, some few stone etchings have been discovered along the banks of the upper Connecticut River at Bellows Falls, Vermont. Although extensive research has not been conducted on them, the petroglyphs are generally associated with the people of this period. In addition, a number of artifacts excavated in the Connecticut River Valley correspond to artifacts excavated in the Great Lakes Region, the coast of Maine, and even farther north in Canada. It has been suggested that such artifacts represent the remains of an extensive trade network that was once common to the indigenous people of North America.[8]

Around 2200 B.C., a new wave of peoples arrived from the far north, above the St. Lawrence River, speaking a variation of the Algonquin Indian language. They were the ancestors of the first Abenaki people, and they soon replaced the Paleo-Indian people in the Connecticut River Valley. The term “Abenaki” is commonly used to refer to the group of Native Americans who inhabited the northern regions of New England. The word itself meant “People of the Dawnland” and was in reference to the direction of the rising sun, in the East.[9]  Within the greater Abenaki tribe, at least half a dozen distinct bands existed based on geographical location. To the East, in the area of Maine and the Piscataqua River, the Penobscot tribe made its home. The Sokoki, Cowasuck, and Penacook people lived in the western regions of New Hampshire, especially along the Connecticut and Merrimack Rivers. Though the eastern and western Abenaki bands shared ancestry, language, trade, and some tradition, they lived very different lifestyles.

For nearly three thousand years, the tribes along the Connecticut River subsisted in much the same way as their Paleo-Indian predecessors. Though the caribou herds had gradually traveled north over time, smaller game was in abundance. The Indians continued to live a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, following game and never staying in one place long enough to exhaust its resources. Despite the continuity of this lifestyle, there was much change during this time, known as the Woodland Period. Hunters abandoned the atlatl, an ancient spear-thrower used for big game such as mammoths and caribou, and turned instead to the technology of bows and arrows. Archery was much safer and more efficient for hunting small game than Paleolithic-style spears. However, spears continued to play a large role in the diet of the Abenaki. The peoples living along the river took advantage of its abundance of freshwater fish, and developed particular techniques for spear-fishing. As evidenced by such fishing spears and dugout canoes found at archaeological sites, the Connecticut River played a large part in the lives of the western Abenaki from the earliest period of their habitation.[10]

In approximately 1100 A.D., agriculture made its way to the northern Native Americans. The introduction of beans, squash, and maize revolutionized the existence of the Connecticut River Abenaki, for it changed their subsistence practices and living standards more than those of any other tribes in northern New England. Unlike hunting, gathering, and fishing, agriculture required a great deal of commitment and time to ensure its success. One could not merely plant a crop of maize one day and expect to harvest it immediately. The process of cultivating food was constant; clearing, planting, weeding, harvesting, preserving and preparing became the new rhythm of the seasons. The land and climate along the Connecticut River was good for cultivating, because it was fertile and temperate. The growing season was short, but productive if the crops were properly tended. This new devotion to the land became reason enough for the western Abenaki to give up much of their itinerant lifestyle and establish more permanent settlements along the Connecticut River.[11]

Even as agriculture became the sustaining factor in the lives of Abenaki along the Connecticut River, hunting, gathering, and fishing remained extremely important. This can be seen in the way that tribes structured their newly sedentary lifestyle. Abenaki villages seem to have been established in proximity to specific resources; for example, villages on the banks of the river would have been inhabited during the spring season, when salmon and shad swam upstream to spawn. Living so close to the river at the height of the migration season would allow the Indians to set and monitor their fish traps, or weirs, on a more regular basis and obtain the greatest amount of fish for the least amount of effort. [12] Thus, the yield would be higher and the fish would be able to be preserved as soon as they were caught. Like the fishing villages along the Connecticut, not all villages were lived in year-round.

In smaller seasonal villages, shelters were constructed of light, portable materials to provide just enough protection from the elements without expending a great amount of labor. These houses, or wigwams, as they were called by the Abenaki, were simple structures. Saplings were bent into the shape of a dome and covered with tree boughs or animal skins to keep out the wind and rain. They could be easily taken apart and carried from one village to the next, but could also be left standing for multiple seasons with minimal upkeep. Wigwams were built for groups of only a few people, such as a single family, or a small gathering of hunters. However, the harsh New England weather created a need for more complex structures, such as the traditional northern Native American longhouse. Built to house between thirty and sixty people, a longhouse was generally framed with sturdy wooden poles and covered in layers of bark or animal skins. The longhouse was a large building, up to 200 feet in length, and was most often the center of activity in Abenaki winter villages.

Due to the length and intensity of winters along the Connecticut River, winter villages were perhaps the largest and most frequently occupied of Abenaki settlements. They offered a gathering place for people to share provisions, wisdom, companionship, and stories through the dark, cold months. But winter villages and longhouses were not only inhabited during the winter months. During the spring and summer, winter villages acted as a home base for family bands; a place to which all hunters, gatherers, and fishermen would eventually return with their goods. Bountiful as the Connecticut River Valley was during warmer months, food had to be preserved and stored to sustain the community throughout the winter. Meat was cut into strips and smoked, fish was dried, and maize and beans were shelled and dried. All preserves were placed into shallow cellars dug into the earth and fitted with watertight tree bark. The food was subsequently covered with more bark and a layer of soil.[13] Living in this way—eating a mix of undomesticated and cultivated plants, wild game, and fish—the average lifespan of an Abenaki Indian in the Connecticut River Valley was approximately forty years.[14]

The division of labor among Abenaki Indians seems to have been distinct, but in no way limiting to either males or females. Women generally remained within the winter villages to tend crops, gather wild plants, make clothing, weave baskets, and care for children. Men ventured to seasonal fishing sites, hunting grounds, and trade opportunities with other local tribes. Just important as it had been for the Paleo-Indians, trade and intertribal contact remained crucial to the survival of the western Abenaki people. Pottery sherds found at sites along the Connecticut River suggest that not only were material goods traded from one region of Abenaki territory to the next, but crafting techniques, news, and ideas were also exchanged.[15]

Traditional Abenaki trade practices were based on the exchange of goods for wampum, or beads carved from the shell of the quahog clam. Due to the scarcity of quahog clams in most parts of New England, the unique beauty of the deep purple shell, and the amount of time it took to carve a single bead, wampum was highly valued. It was a nearly universal form of currency among northeastern Indian tribes, including the Abenaki, Wampanoag, and Iroquois. Depending on the local worth of the goods that were being exchanged, wampum beads were counted out and strung into bracelets or necklaces (for smaller purchases), and even sewn into belts (for large, lasting purchases).[16] Until the arrival of Europeans, wampum-based trade networks crossed from western New Hampshire to the coast of Maine, northern Canada, western New York, and the Long Island Sound.

In the late fifteenth century, traders from Europe began to explore the Atlantic coast of North America. The French and the Dutch were particularly interested in making contact with natives who could provide for them a steady supply of goods to bring back to market. Thus, the Abenaki along the coast of Maine were some of the first native North Americans to deal with Europeans. Although permanent settlements in Abenaki territory were not established until the seventeenth century, tribes had been exposed to European culture enough through trade networks that cross-cultural contact was reasonably peaceful.

Supposedly, Samuel de Champlain was the first European to enter the Connecticut River Valley in 1605. However, it is unclear whether the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano also traveled up the Connecticut River during his expedition in 1524. In any case, direct interaction between the two cultures remained at a minimum for a much longer period of time in the River Valley than in other parts of New England. This is perhaps why so few early written records exist referring to the western Abenaki. By the time trading posts were established in the area, European disease spread by neighboring tribes had ravaged the people, decreasing the population of New Hampshire Indians from approximately 10,000 to 500.[17]

Despite its relative isolation from the French, Dutch, and English, the Connecticut River Valley was particularly affected due to its use as a corridor for travel among other native tribes. Between 1616 and 1639, three outbreaks of disease spread through the region, killing nearly ninety percent of its inhabitants. The condition that made up the first epidemic has never been identified, but was most likely smallpox or bubonic plague. Introduced by traders to the eastern Abenaki in Maine, it spread quickly West through the New England tribes—a population which had no immunity to the diseases of the Old World. Subsequent outbreaks in 1633 and 1639 were recorded to be smallpox, and spread from North to South along the Connecticut and St. Lawrence Rivers.[18]

As Europeans continued to arrive in the New World, they gradually spread inland. From the coast of New England, the British and Dutch established trading posts and fortifications on the outskirts of their claimed territory. Meanwhile, French missionaries traveled south from the mouth of the St. Lawrence into what is now Montreal and upstate New York. Generally, the French were quite successful in getting along with Indians. They made an effort to learn native language and trade customs, and allowed Indian converts to Catholicism to live according to the ways of indigenous tradition while upholding Christian morals. However, as more missions were established in the far western part of New England, the French began to encroach upon the home territory of the Iroquois Indians. The Iroquois are traditionally described as much more hostile than Abenaki people, who were reserved in warfare. Under the impression that the Europeans were a threat to their homelands, the Iroquois began to travel to territories which were still uninhabited by Europeans—namely the territory of the western Abenaki in the upper Connecticut River Valley.

Beginning in the 1650s, the Iroquois conducted a series of raids on Abenaki villages. This forced the northward migration of many bands whose strength had already been diminished by outbreaks of plague. In 1663, the Sokoki band of Abenaki established a number of villages along the upper Connecticut River to gather refugees from Iroquois raids and disease-ridden camps. In concentrating this abused, derogated, and weak population to a limited number of locations, the members of the Sokoki village created a sort of “fictive kinship.” Fictive kinship is a complex term used by modern anthropologists and historians to describe groups of people not related by blood, who act and make decisions as family units. In many Native American societies, war and disease often resulted in a number of displaced peoples such as captives of other tribes and orphans. Family groups collected these people and helped them to assimilate into local tribal culture. This created a strong community bond, despite the diversity of the group.[19] Without the existence of such a structure in western Abenaki society during the late seventeenth century, it is doubtful that the culture would have survived the decades that followed.

Despite the conflict, confusion, and change surrounding the people of the Connecticut River Valley, exchange between the Europeans and western Abenaki hit its stride during the second half of the seventeenth century. Development along the banks of the Connecticut River followed the wide mouth of the river northward from the Long Island Sound to towns such as Hartford, Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts where it provided easy transportation of goods to newly established inland settlements.[20] The British and Abenaki continued to trade refined goods for peltry, although the continued violence afflicted by the Iroquois during the 1670s discontinued many trade relations in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. 1689 marked the first of four “French and Indian” conflicts, and proclamations issued by the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts around the same time declared that all trade with natives—no matter where in New England—must be regulated by the British Crown.[21] Similar documents written in New Hampshire in the early 1700s declare all Indians enemies of the crown, despite their past submission and alliances. One such declaration, written by Joseph Dudley of Massachusetts and New Hampshire writes,

“I Do therefore, by and with the Advice of Her Majesties Council, Declare the said Indians…of this Province, with their Confederates to be Rebels and Enemies against Our Sovereign Lady Queen ANNE, Her Crown and Dignity, and to be out of Her Majesties Protection; Willing and Requiring all Her Majesties good Subjects to treat them as such, and as they shall have the opportunity to do and execute all Acts of Hostility upon them. And I do strictly forbid all Her Majesties good Subjects to hold any manner of Correspondence or Communication with the said Indians, or to give them any Aid, Comfort, Succour, or Relief, as they tender the duty of their Allegiance, and on pain of incurring Her Majesties utmost displeasure, and the severest Penalties.”[22]

The term “truckmaster” appeared in many documents relating to Abenaki-English relations during the early eighteenth century. Truckmasters were representatives of trade and diplomacy appointed by the royal colonial governor to replace the largely unregulated exchange between natives and European settlers.[23] Such proclamations and reforms enforced the dominance of Europeans over native peoples.

Although the French and Indian Wars still raged, settlements began to creep northward from where the Connecticut River narrowed above Deerfield, Massachusetts. In 1724, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony established Fort Dummer in the northernmost part of the colony’s territory. This was just above the settlement at Deerfield in a location that would later become the southeastern corner of the State of Vermont. Between 1735 and 1736, four more forts were established on the eastern banks of the Connecticut by the General Court. It was thought that these northern fortifications would ease the minds of settlers along the southern Connecticut River who feared Indian conflicts trickling down from Canada. However, as contention between the European population and the native population of New England grew, Abenaki still residing in the Connecticut River Valley found themselves in conflict. Their few options were to retreat to French missionary villages in Canada and retain their heritage, or to relinquish their cultural practices, language, and traditions in order to stay on their native lands. The Abenaki eventually chose to assimilate into the culture of the New World Europeans, casting off a great amount of history and heritage.

 By the eighteenth century, European settlers had broken up the vast trade networks established between the Abenaki of the Connecticut River Valley and distant Native American groups. The English, French, and Dutch relied on both the Abenaki’s fur trapping skills and their lands to obtain rich furs, for sale in Europe. With the success of the Europeans came the growth of their population, expansion of their settlements, and their encroachment on native homelands. Warfare among European colonists and the enforcement of British authority over natives caused the Abenaki population of the River Valley to dwindle and retreat in the shadow of imperialism. As the Abenaki people faded from their ancestral lands, they left behind a tradition of trade and communication which stretched across the eastern part of the continent. The Europeans would later continue this tradition and by establishing similar routes of trade and communication. But they also found other ways to experience economic prosperity in the New World, and before long the Connecticut River Valley was once again the hub of a great system of trade.

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[1] Jeremy Belknap, The History of New Hampshire Vol II III vols (Boston: Bradford and Read, 1813), 48-49.

[2] Colin G. Calloway, The Abenaki (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989).

[3] Belknap, The History of New Hampshire Vol II, 78-87.

[4] Belknap, The History of New Hampshire Vol II, 110-115.

[5] Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition, s.v. ‘Neolithic Period.’

[6] William A. Haviland and Marjory W. Power, The Original Vermonters: Native Inhabitants, Past and Present (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1994), 17-33.

[7] Haviland and Power, The Original Vermonters.

[8] Haviland and Power, The Original Vermonters, 214.

[9] State of New Hampshire, New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, New Hampshire Folklife: New Hampshire’s Native American Heritage, 2004, <http://www.nh.gov/folklife/learning/traditions_native_americans.htm> (21 February 2012).

[10] Haviland and Power, The Original Vermonters, 161-163.

[11] Haviland and Power, The Original Vermonters, 154.

[12] Calloway, The Abenaki.

[13] John Gyles, Memoirs of Odd Adventures Strange Deliverances etc (1736).

[14] Calloway, The Abenaki, 35.

[15] Haviland and Power, The Original Vermonters, 214-216.

[16] Lynn Ceci, ‘The Value of Wampum among the New York Iroquois: A Case Study in Artifact Analysis,’ Journal of Anthropological Research, 1982: 97-107.

[17] Calloway, The Abenaki, 45.

[18] Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney, Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), 14.

[19] Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).

[20] Margaret E. Martin, Merchants and Trade of the Connecticut River Valley, 1750-1820 (Northhampton, Massachusetts: Department of History of Smith College, 1939).

[21] William Stoughton, Proclamation of 1698 (Boston, 1698).

[22] Joseph Dudley, A Declaration Against the Penacook and Eastern Indians (Boston: 1703).

[23] Prices of Goods Supplyed to the Eastern Indians, By the several Truckmasters; and of the Peltry received by the Truckmasters of the said Indians (Boston: 14 July 1703).