On This Day, May 30, 1723: Dummer’s Interest

Brief background, adapted from Wikipedia: William Dummer (16777-1761) was lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay for fourteen years (1716–1730), including a period from 1723 to 1728 when he acted as governor. He is remembered for his role in leading the colony during what is sometimes called Dummer’s War, which was fought between the British colonies of northeastern North America and a coalition of native tribes in what is now New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Dummer was born into a wealthy Massachusetts merchant family, traveling to England as a young man to participate in the business. Upon his return to Massachusetts in 1712 he entered provincial politics, gaining a royal commission as lieutenant governor through the efforts of his brother Jeremiah. He served during the turbulent tenure of Governor Samuel Shute, in which Shute quarreled with the assembly over many matters. Shute left the province quite abruptly at the end of 1722, while it was in the middle of a war with the natives of northern New England.

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The following date is brought to our attention through the efforts of Brian Chenevert, Nulhegan Abenaki citizen, who has compiled a timeline of events significant during the colonization of Ndakinna by European invaders.

May 30, 1723

Massachusetts commissioners meet with Albany commissioners and representatives from the Five Nations (Haudenosaunee) and outline a proposal from Governor Dummer for the terms in which Massachusetts wanted the Five Nations to join it in fighting the Abenaki. The terms were: For the further Encouragement of your Warlike people Massachusetts will pay 100 pounds for the scalp of every male enemy Indian of twelve years or older, and 50 pounds for the scalps of all others killed “in fight.” Massachusetts will pay 50 pounds for each male prisoner. The Five Nations may keep female prisoners and children under twelve, as well as any plunder taken. The Massachusetts government will supply the Five Nations with any needed provisions or ammunition, but the value will be deducted from the money paid for scalps.

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Commentary by Sokoki Sojourn:

• William Dummer’s name, of course, was affixed to Fort Dummer (Wantastegok/Brattleboro) – built in the winter of 1724 by order of the Governor and the Assembly immediately after this recruitment attempt. The Vermont town immediately upriver and north is named Dummerston, also in attribution to this historical figure and his outsized influence.
• As with most politicians of the colonial period, not unlike those of today, politics and money (power) went hand in hand. William Dummer came from a wealthy family and made his own substantial fortune, in great part through land speculation – land being the transactional weapon of settler colonization. As a publicity move, he forewent his salary as Lieutenant Governor (also reminiscent of a certain current politician) while he accumulated more significant profits elsewhere.
• Gov. Dummer had direct personal interests in protecting the Connecticut River frontier above Northfield, at what became the VT/NH/MA tri-state border. He was one of the joint purchasers of the 48,000-acre-portion of the Equivalent Lands on the west bank of the mid-Kwenitekw, Sokoki Abenaki homelands.
• One of his fellow “investors” was William Brattle, Sr., who – with his son William Brattle, Jr. – similarly lent his name to a town that was chartered later by NH. Gov. Benning Wentworth. Another member of this land speculation pact and a highly  influential politician was Anthony Stoddard, Esq., whose cousin Col. John Stoddard of Northampton was the actual designer of Fort Dummer. John, himself, was an investor in some of the “Equivalent Lands.” As with many people, most of these parties solidified their business and social relationships through marriage as well.
• The Abenaki resistance which Dummer and his colleagues attempted to obstruct and suppress was a direct response to the continued encroachment of British settlers on Wabanaki territories, both in the Connecticut River valley and (what became) the Maine coast, then part of Massachusetts Bay Province. Coastal and inland Abenaki groups, typically allied with Britain’s empire-building-counterpart  France to the north, sought to keep the British contained.
• William Dummer – along with William Brattle and many other politicians/officers/investors and their extended heirs – had significant personal financial interests in the Eastern Abenaki homelands also.
• This series of militant actions was known as Dummer’s War, along with other, more localized theater referents. In the valley of Kwenitekw, it is often known as Greylock’s (or Gray Lock’s) War, in memory of the Western Abenaki war leader Wawanolet (or Wawanolewat) who led many raids and war parties from the north. While most other Abenaki bands to the east and north made peace agreements of a sort with Massachusetts after awhile. Wawanolewat never surrendered and died an old man among his people, around 1750.
• The clear conclusion to be drawn from these circumstances is that William Dummer (and his cronies, in the clearest sense of the word) was using public resources, influence, relationships, and funds to protect and enhance their personal interests. This included blood money for men, women, and children. One hundred Pounds was worth a fortune, over $26,000 in 1723. Not a lot has changed. The patterns of much-less-than-admirable human behavior that make up most of today’s headlines are stories that continue to play out here as well, with lasting effect.

Shad Above Kchi Pontekw

It is conventional historical knowledge that, when the American Shad (Alosa sapidissima) made its prodigious late-spring spawning runs up the Kwenitekw, the silver flood of fish was stopped at Kchi Pontekw (the Great Falls), between today’s Bellows Falls,VT and North Walpole, NH. This was said to be the northernmost point on the Connecticut River for the annual migration. The  49-foot drop of the River there (over a short stretch of rapids and falls) was said to be an effective block to the passage of the shad, but not to the accompanying Atlantic Salmon who were also seeking their natal tributaries. This claim can be found in 99.9% of the sources, over a long period of time. Here’s just one recent example, from the NH Fish & Game Department:

Fish passage has been provided at the first three dams on the Merrimack River, although shad have difficulty navigating the fish passage facility at the Pawtucket Dam in Lowell, MA. On the Connecticut River, fish passage for shad is available at the three mainstream dams up to the historic limit of upstream shad migration at Bellows Falls.

There is much that can be related about this particular and significant ancient place, with respect to the seasonal gifts of sustenance and the intersections of spirit there, but those many stories will be explored elsewhere. In this post, I would like to simply document differing statements about the extent of the anadromous shad run, drawing from a local history 40 miles upstream at Lebanon, NH. In the 1908 “History of Lebanon, N.H., 1761-1887 by Charles Algernon Downs“, we find the following statement on page 189:

We can make a few observations in reflection upon this contradiction to the accepted notions about the travels of w8bimakok, the shad…

• First of all, Charles Algernon Downs may have been mistaken. But given his long and early presence in Lebanon, and his character, this seems unlikely. Indeed, the Rev. Mr. Downs may well have personally known people who had fished for shad in the Mascoma, as he stipulated. This knowledge would have been well-engrained in the local lore at the time. There may very well be other such obscure references in other historical literature north of the Great Falls.
• It would seem that, if his assertion is true, although the great rocky impediment to passage at Kchi Pontekw did indeed block the great majority of shad from traveling further upstream, a small amount found success. The many stories of the sheer number of shad that would congregate at the Great Eddy below the tumult are testimony to its effectiveness as a blockage – and its fame as a favored indigenous fishing place for millennia. Yet if vast numbers of salmon were quite successful in climbing the cataract, perhaps a percentage of shad accompanied them. The number who passed successfully may have paled in comparison to the total and thus been of lesser note to historians.
• The complex process of shad migration is informed extrinsically and intrinsically by many factors. Some are environmental and fluctuating, such as flow velocity, temperature, salinity, light levels, and competition, among others. Others are innate: the strong homing instinct of the individual fish to the original river of its birth. The fish migrate to their respective spawning streams using genetic memory informed by chemical and magnetic guidance. Recent studies have demonstrated the incredible accuracy of this instinct. Why would there be so many shad below the falls? The migration is not a race to set an indeterminate record. It might follow that shad seeking to pass Kchi Pontekw would be following the pull of their birthplaces upstream.
• It is no accident that Downs documented the appointment of fish inspectors Buck and Bailey in the years 1795-1797. Lebanon, NH (chartered July 4th, 1761) had only begun to be an organized colonial town a few years beforehand. It took awhile to get town business thoroughly refined, but immediately after these appointees were chosen, the dam across the Connecticut River downstream at Turners Falls, MA (now-called) was completed in 1798. It is a universally-acknowledged fact that all anadromous fish migrations dropped off drastically in that year, their journey effectively cut short at that point.
• As a curious side note, the name of the Mascoma River, singled out by Rev. Downs as the objective of the spawning shad in his locale, is derived from the Abenaki name for the salmon. No doubt the river was, in actual use, a shared goal by both species. That word in Aln8ba8dwaw8gan is “mskwamakw’ – pronounced muh-SKWAH-mahk-uh, nearly the same as its English variant – and means, literally, “red fish.”
• And, in an odd coincidence, the American Shad’s Latin generic name “Alosa” is identical to the Abenaki word for “to go”, which is exactly what the fish prefer to do. The Latin root, however, derives from “alausa” – a fish.

 

 

Institute for American Indian Studies Exhibit Features Abenaki Creative Process

On February 24 at 2 p.m. the Institute for American Indian Studies, 38 Curtis Road, Washington, CT welcomes Vera Longtoe Sheehan, Abenaki, one of the creative minds behind the exhibit, “Alnobak Wearing Our Heritage.”

Vera Longtoe Sheehan, notes “this exhibit is unique because it is the first traveling exhibit about Abenaki people that are still here living on the land and creating wonderful things.” During this fascinating talk, Sheehan will explain how items in the current exhibition are made and used to express Native Identity.

This beautifully curated exhibit is composed of artifact clothing as well as contemporary pieces made by Vermont’s Abenaki artists, community members, and tribal leaders. The show offers a chronological look at Abenaki fashion and adornment. There is everything from a beautiful 17th-century style buckskin dress by Melody Walker Brook to a hip looking denim jean jacket with a Tolba or turtle design created by Vera Longtoe Sheehan.

 “The message of this exhibit is that we are still here and that we know our history and still respect and practice our culture,” said Longtoe Sheehan. Many of us practice both traditional designs and clothes such as the twined woven dress and handbag I made as well as contemporary designs using a jean jacket, in different ways, both connects my family tradition to thousands of years of our history.”

Read the full story in the Litchfield County Times.

Also here, in the Torrington Register Citizen.

Still Here After 12,000 Years: Honoring the Sites and Cultures of Indigenous New England

Patricia Harris and David Lyon in the Boston Globe, November 3, 2017

In November, most of us turn our thoughts to big turkey dinners and first-wave English settlers in long stockings and buckle hats. Conventional Thanksgiving lore does give props to Massasoit and Plymouth-area Wampanoag for bringing most of the food to dinner. But the Pilgrims are only one part of the story. The Wampanoag Homesite at Plimoth Plantation depicts Native life vividly, but here are a half dozen museums that focus exclusively on the indigenous side of New England’s heritage. By the way, they are all closed on Thanksgiving, and some will soon close for the winter.

Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME

In May 2016, the Abbe Museum unveiled “People of the First Light.” The new core exhibit takes its name from the term that many indigenous people of the Northeast — including the five nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy — use to describe themselves. They are the people of the sunrise, and the exhibit likewise marks a new day for the Abbe. Originally a small museum in Acadia National Park, the Abbe opened in 1928 to interpret Native artifacts found around Frenchman Bay. The modern downtown facility now tells a more comprehensive story of 12,000 years of indigenous culture in the Wabanaki homeland, and it does so from a Native perspective.

Tribal historians, artists, and educators advised in exhibit development. Gina Brooks, a Maliseet artist from New Brunswick, created dramatic illustrations of legends and tales from the oral tradition that inform many exhibits. The Abbe’s science and ethnography remain as rigorous as ever, but learning about the continuity of indigenous culture in the voices of the people themselves brings an immediacy to the experience. 26 Mt. Desert St., Bar Harbor, Maine. 207-288-3519, abbemuseum.org. Open through April Thurs.-Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m., closed January. Free until Dec. 22. Otherwise, adults $8, seniors $7, ages 11-17 $4, ages 10 and under free.

Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum, Warner, NH

Founded by Charles and Nancy Thompson, the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum represents a singular vision of a master collector. Inspired by a school visit from Pequot sachem Silverstar when he was in the second grade, “Bud” Thompson amassed a major collection of artifacts and artwork representing tribes across North America. The museum sits in the homeland of the Abenaki (one of the five peoples of the Wabanaki Confederacy) and about a quarter of the collection represents peoples of the Northeast. Many works chronicle the growth of basketry and beadwork as Native economic mainstays in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The contemporary art gallery features two exhibits each year guest-curated by members of the Native community. 18 Highlawn Road, Warner, N.H. 603-456-2600, indianmuseum.org. Open through Nov. Sat.-Sun. noon-5 p.m. Adults $9, seniors and students $8, ages 6-12 $7, family $26.

Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Museum, Mashpee, MA

Created in 1970, more than three centuries after the establishment of Mashpee as a “praying village,” this compact museum and cultural center occupies a circa-1793 half-Cape home in the historic heart of the Mashpee Wampanoag homeland. (Eighty-five percent of tribal members live within 20 miles.) It sits next to the historic Herring Run, where some Wampanoag still harvest fish in the early spring.

This year the museum has seen a swell of visitors eager to learn more about the Wampanoag. One of the first things they learn is that Wampanoag culture finds many opportunities for thanksgiving throughout the year. The museum focuses principally on the post-1620 era, and on the contributions and achievements of Wampanoag people. A small but fascinating exhibit on Native American whaling is up this fall, but may be coming down next year. Although the museum closes for the winter on Dec. 1, off-season visitors can see a traditional round, bark-covered Wampanoag house on the grounds. 414 Main St., Mashpee. 508-477-9339, MashpeeWampanoagTribe-nsn.gov/museum. Open through Nov. Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Adults $5, ages 6-18 $2, seniors and educators $4, family $10.

Tomaquag Museum, Exeter, RI

You’ll meet a lot of indigenous people in the exhibits at this museum in the heart of Narragansett country. One display features two-time Boston Marathon winner Ellison “Tarzan” Brown. Another sketches the achievements of tribal historian Mary Glasko. Known as Princess Red Wing, she served as a delegate to the United Nations and co-founded the museum in 1958. The last living Narragansett sub-chief, 96-year-old Kenneth “Strong Horse” Smith, donated his turkey feather headdress and other ceremonial clothing for another exhibit. Connections span the generations. A beautiful circa-1850 Narragansett bark canoe hanging from the rafters comes from the family of executive director Lorén Spears.

Continuity is omnipresent. Next to historic Narragansett baskets with now-faded stamped vegetable dye designs is a case showing how a contemporary basketmaker constructs a traditional basket. Everything in the museum seems to have a story, often including the name of the person who made it, wore it, used it, or passed it down. Each quarter, the museum showcases a different contemporary Native artist, many of whom sell their work in the museum’s gift shop. 390 Summit Road, Exeter, R.I. 401-491-9063, tomaquagmuseum.org. Open all year Wed. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sat 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Adults $6, seniors and students $5, children $3.

Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, Mashantucket, CT

Filling an airy modern building in the woods near Foxwoods Casino, this museum pulls out all the stops to relate the history and flesh out the cultural nuances of what it means to be Pequot. An archaeological dig on the Mashantucket reservation places the earliest settlement as 9,500 years ago, just as the glaciers receded. But the exhibits quickly move on to more recent eras.

When European colonists arrived, the Pequot were a prosperous nation that held sway over large parts of what is now Connecticut. Moving exhibits detail their near-extinction in the 17th century and their dwindling numbers and influence thereafter. This institution shines at teasing out the palpable resilience of people who clung to their identity through all forms of adversity. The exhibits are so thorough and compelling that it is easy to spend half a day here — a small investment of time to become acquainted with a people. 110 Pequot Trail, Mashantucket, Conn. 800-411-9671, pequotmuseum.org. Open through Nov. Tues.-Sat. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Adults $20, seniors and college students $15, ages 6-17 $12.

Nearby, the Mohegan Tribe operates a small museum with a diverse collection of objects from many Northeastern, Plains, and Southwestern tribes. Call the Tantaquidgeon Indian Museum (1819 Norwich-New London Turnpike, Uncasville, Conn., 860-848-3985, mohegan.nsn.us) ahead as opening hours can vary.

Institute for American Indian Studies, Washington, CT

Located on a wooded 15-acre campus in the Litchfield Hills, this museum has carried out more than 500 archaeological excavations in Connecticut since it was founded in 1975. The outdoor replica of an Algonkian Village is an especially evocative large-scale display of woodland life in the period 350-1000 years ago. The museum also works with all five state-recognized tribes (the Mashantucket Pequot, the Eastern Pequot, the Mohegan, the Schaghticoke, and the Paugussett) for contemporary programs. 38 Curtis Road, Washington, Conn. 860-868-0518, iaismuseum.org. Open all year Weds.-Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sun. noon-5 p.m. Adults $10, seniors $8, ages 3-12 $6.

Jean O’Brien on “Firsting and Lasting” at CT Historical Society Nov. 15

Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England

An evening with author and professor of history, Jean M. O’Brien, Ph.D.
Wednesday, November 15 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, CT

https://chs.org/event/firsting-lasting-writing-indians-existence-new-england-evening-author-professor-history-jean-m-obrien-ph-d/

Please join us and the members of the Mohegan Tribe for a special presentation by Professor Jean M. O’Brien (University of Minnesota). Dr. O’Brien will present on her  book, Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England (University of Minnesota Press, 2010).  Drawing on more than six hundred local histories from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, Dr. O’Brien explores how these narratives inculcated the myth of Indian extinction, a myth that has stubbornly remained in the American consciousness. Firsting and Lasting argues that local histories became a primary means by which European Americans asserted their own modernity while denying it to Indian peoples.

This event is free, but please RSVP to let us know you will attend at (860) 236-5621 x238 or rsvp@chs.org.

Jean M. O’Brien (White Earth Ojibwe) is professor of history at the University of Minnesota, where she is also affiliated with American Indian studies and American studies. She is the author of Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650–1790.

From Cherokee Country To Pequot Shores: Rediscovering Native American Trails

A great piece on NPR yesterday (June 30, 2017) with a nearly hour-long audio track about early trail systems and their multi-levels of significance. Listen here.

“Long before our modern highways, there was an extensive network of Native American trails up and down the East Coast. This hour, we hear about efforts to map these old trails and find out how they’re helping archaeologists and others learn about the past.

We begin our conversation in former Cherokee country to find out why a North Carolina man and an archaeologist are mapping hundreds of miles of old Cherokee trails. Then we head back to Connecticut’s woods where many Native American tribes used trails to link villages — spurring on trade and facilitating war.”

Tantaquidgeon Museum Keeps Mohegan Culture Alive

Late in the autumn of 1931, a half-blind, crutch-bound Mohegan tribesman hatched an ambitious plan: to establish a museum to display and preserve his tribe’s cultural artifacts for future generations. Wednesday, the Tantaquidgeon Indian Museum celebrated 85 years of fulfilling that mission – a milestone tribe members say makes it the oldest and most influential Native American museum in the world.

“John Tantaquidgeon and his two children, Gladys and Harold, were really the dreamers behind this whole thing,” Mohegan Medicine Woman Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, Gladys Tantaquidgeon’s great-niece and once-pupil, said. “They had this philosophy that it’s hard to hate someone who you know a lot about, and by doing this as a labor of love they were able to share their language, their history and their culture with people.”

Full coverage at the Norwich Bulletin.