USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Brunswick > Indian tribes of Maine : with particular reference to Indian activities in the regions around the present locations of Bath and Brunswick > Part 1
USA > Maine > Sagadahoc County > Bath > Indian tribes of Maine : with particular reference to Indian activities in the regions around the present locations of Bath and Brunswick > Part 1
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GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 01757 6999
GC 974.1 C7621
INDIAN TRIBES OF MAINE
BY
ISABELLE P. CONGDON
WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO INDIAN ACTIVITIES IN THE REGIONS AROUND THE PRESENT LOCATIONS OF BATH AND BRUNSWICK
2 0558
INDIAN TRIBES OF MAINE
BY ISABELLE P. CONGDON
WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO INDIAN ACTIVITIES IN THE REGIONS AROUND THE PRESENT LOCATIONS OF BATH AND BRUNSWICK
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/indiantribesofma00cong
INDIAN TRIBES OF MAINE
Mrs. Isabelle P. Congdon of Brunswick has written a story of the Indian tribes of Maine, with particular reference to Indian activi- ties in the regions of which Brunswick and Bath are now the centers. Mrs. Congdon is the writer of several popular articles which have appeared in the YANKEE magazine, the Lewiston Journal magazine and other publications.
In her historical articles, she ably combines the authenticity of thorough research with charming natural style.
There is a fascination about the Indian names common through- out Maine, especially since these names represent practically the only survival of the race of red men who owned all Maine's forests and rivers centuries before the white man began to claim them. Many names in common use recall the name of a tribe, a sachem or even a common Indian word; only in a few instances have these names been changed as Cushnoc to Augusta and Pegwacket to Fryeburg. The name of Worumbo, the Androscoggin chief who affixed his seal to the Wharton purchase of the Pejepscot tract in 1684, lives in the name of a woolen manufacturing company at Lisbon Falls; the suffix "keag," meaning land, remains on Mattawaumkeag, while the term sagamore, or chief, was the title of a professional football team in Portland. Many rivers bear the names by which the Indians knew them, the Penobscot, the Presumpscot, Kennebec and Androscoggin.
The origin and history of the North American Indian has puzzled scholars and historians almost more than any other subject. It is not the purpose of this article to attempt to untangle the many theories on this subject, but rather to show the part the Maine Indian once played in the local scene.
All the Maine tribes belonged to the great Algonquin race, sup- posed to have journeyed in early times across the Mississippi, engaged in a great war with aboriginal tribes, and scattered, after conquest, over the northeastern portion of the country. This explanation ac- counts, in part, for the similarity of language among the New Eng- land Indians, with the exception of the Mohawks. Because of the no- madic nature of the Indian it has been difficult to place the homes of the various tribes in definite places. In a letter one captive says of them:
"Wherever an Indian happens to be, he is on the point of going somewhere else; never content, nor at rest."
Because of this leading trait of character he was difficult to subdue in the English method of organized expedition. A company of sold- iers might travel for days to seek out an encampment, only to find no trace of a wigwam-nothing but the ashes of his campfire and the discarded bones of animals to show that he had ever inhabited the spot.
Of the Indian tribes in Maine, during the first years of its settle- ment, there were five principal ones, four of them belonging to the
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Abenaki tribe, their speech and manners being similar. The fifth, living further east, was commonly thought to belong to the Eteche- min tribe, like the Canadian Indians. All of the Abenaki tribes and a few of the Etechemin could understand each other well, with a few exceptions of tribal dialect, and all referred to each other as "broth- ers." Of the two most important in this district were the Canibas on the Kennebec and the Annasagunticooks, which lived on both sides of the Androscoggin. The name is spelled in various ways on early maps, and the corruption "Amascoggin" has been interpreted to mean, in
Indian speech, "Fish coming in the spring," or "fish spearing"; al- ' though the Androscoggin was bountifully supplied with salmon in those days, the name probably had nothing to do with it. The An- droscoggin was undoubtedly named for the' tribe which lived along its banks. In a deposition of 1795 we may read the sworn statements of various early settlers that the Indian, headed toward Merrymeeting Bay always spoke of the river above the falls as Amoskegan (another spelling) and below that, it is ingeniously declared, "then comes Pey- giscot." The Indian apparently called the settlement below the falls Pejepscot, although one of the earliest records says that Brunswick was called "Mackquicket," probably a corruption or misspelling of "Maquoit." It is to be remembered that the Indian did not think in the terms of the later township, only of localities which he named for some characteristic, as "Maquoit" which is said to mean "bear- place." The name "Pagiscot" is strangely enough retained in the name of a settlement a few miles higher on the Androscoggin long af- ter Brunswick took its name in honor of a ruling house in England.
The two other Abenaki tribes were the Sokokis on the banks of the Saco, and the Wawenocks eastward of the Sagadahock to the St. John River. The Tarratines, more commonly known as the Penobscot Indians, lived on that river, and retained their virility and tribal identity after the close of the Indian wars. There are still two im- portant branches of the Penobscot Indians at Old Town and in the vicinity of Eastport.
The Canibas and the Annasagunticooks were particularly active be- tween the Saco and Penobscot rivers for a period of nearly eighty-five years, between the outbreak of King Philip's war and 1760 when last- ing peace was made with them. The Brunswick settlement was in an unfortunate position in its early days, being situated on one of the most important waterways by which the Indians mainly traveled. There were several important "carrying-places"-"the upper carrying place" above the falls where they disembarked on their way toward Lewiston; the "lower carrying-place" later known as Stevens' carrying- place, from the head of Stevens river across to Wigwam Point below Merrymeeting Bay; a third carrying-place across Merriconeag neck which meant "quick carrying-place" to the Indian, and another across the New Meadows district to Mere Point.
Both the Annasagunticooks and the Canibas were very powerful and warlike in their tendencies. The former had a fort above Great
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Falls (Lewiston) which was destroyed by General Church about 1690. The Canibas lived a few miles up the Kennebec, where Kennebis, their chief, is said to have had his home upon Swan Island, while Abaga- dussett, another chief, lived on a point of land between a river of that name and the Kennebec. The point is today called Abagadussett and is also referred to on early maps as Point Agreable. Another ex- planation says the name Abagadussett means "the shining place" so- called from the reflection of light upon its waters. Both chiefs Aba- gadussett and Kennebis affixed their seal to the much disputed Law- son purchase, October 10, 1649.
It has been estimated that the Indian population in New Eng- land was about 70,000 in the year 1615. The number in Maine can- not be easily estimated, the population being more widespread and less known by the white people. One estimate sets the figure at 36,000, the Androscoggin Indians having about 1500 warriors. The close of the Indian wars about 1760 left this once powerful tribe so wasted by warfare and sickness that in 1747 they could muster only 160 warriors to march. A document signed by Captain John Gyles of Brunswick, Nov. 24, 1726 states that of the Androscoggin tribes there were 389 men. Many of them had been drawn off to St. Fran- cis by the French and became later identified with the St. Francis In- dians. Two brothers, Natanis and Sabatis, of the Androscoggin tribe are supposed to have been captured there by Rogers Rangers in the siege of 1759, and later accompanied the Arnold Expedition to Quebec -in 1775. We may assume that there has been some confusion in names as the Sabatis of local fame signed a treaty at Arrowsick in 1717 which indicates he was old enough then to be a chief. Another story relates that Sabatis visited Brunswick as late as 1800, when he met up with Daniel Eaton, a former captive whose father was killed at Pleas- ant Point in 1722, after which Sabatis had sold the younger Eaton in Canada for the sum of four dollars. On being reminded of this and Eaton's wounds Sabatis replied equably:
"That long ago; wartime, too."
Perhaps it were better to put this story under the head of "local tradition" of which Mr. Kenneth Roberts writes so scathingly, and confine our reports of Sabatis to the treaty to which he affixed his seal at Arrowsick in 1717, and a later communication in which he acts as spokesman for the Androscoggins in 1730 when he asked that supplies he kept for his Indians at Fort George.
The same fate of practical extinction befel the Kennebecs which suffered even greater losses during the French and Indian wars. The Kennebecs are, we believe, identified with the Norridgewocks whose principal settlement was in the vicinity of Madison. Most of this tribe was friendly with French and the chief supporters of the mis- sionary Father Rasle whose settlement was attacked and wiped out in 1724. In 1764 they had but thirty warriors and by 1795 only six or seven families remained of this once powerful tribe. "The wasting sickness" and an epidemic of small pox carried off as many as did ac- tual warfare. By the close of the Indian wars both tribes were so
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wasted and scattered that not a chieftain was left to sign the treaty for either the Annasagunticooks or the Canibas. Phil Will, an educated Indian from Cape Cod, taken captive by the French at Louisberg in 1745 later became chief of the Androscoggins and for a short time kept the tribe from actual extinction.
From time to time young warriors like Robinhood and later his son Hopegood of the Kennebecs had dreams of conquering the whites and restoring the former glory of the tribe, but one by one these dreams were doomed to failure. The very quality which was the In- dians chief pride, his skill in warfare, proved his undoing. Even the white men's chief weapon of ball and musket, supplied him by the French, and it is said, too, by the English trader, taught him little of survival. The Sokokis, or Saco Indians, valiant fighters as the English in "Lovewell's War" could thereafter muster only a dozen fighting men to aid the English at Louisberg. Before the fall of Quebec the tribe was extinct, the few survivors having identified themselves with other more active tribes. These "foreigners" could be recognized easily by their speech and haircut. Three Saco Indian fugitives called by the apostolic titles of Simon, Andrew and Peter hid first with the Abe- naques and then with the Pennacooks (New Hampshire) before they were finally captured and killed. All three had a reputation for great cruelty, Simon being proudly known as "The Yankee Killer." It was he who told Thomas Brackett of Falmouth that he knew who had killed his cow, then while hunting for the supposed offender, fell upon Brackett and murdered him. Anthony Brackett's family was seized and taken captive and, for some reason, later abandoned at Sebasco- Degan Island, whence they escaped and returned to Casco. Anthony Brackett's story reads like fiction in that he later fell in with General Church following his attack on the Indians at Brunswick in 1690, and so found his way home.
The Indian character has been so often portrayed as cruel and revengeful that one seldom hears of his other finer characteristics. In- deed if one were to rely upon the experiences of Brunswick and Fal- mouth alone he could not paint a very prepossessing picture of the Maine Indian. The Indians never met their foes in large numbers or at expected places. If the Yankee is shrewd and calculating, likely to take advantage of his opponents' weakness, it is undoubtedly because his ancestors learned that it was the only method conducive to sur- vival. The Indians fought in small groups and relied upon surprise attacks, which often enough turned swiftly to retreat if met with op- position. It was baffling to the settlers because of its unexpectedness. Constantly in dread of sudden uprisings they lived in a state of ap- prehension which, in the more hardy, eventually became stoicism. They raised their meager crops with great difficulty. Cattle the In- dian killed for sport, sometimes taking nothing but the tongue to show his contempt for domesticity, but corn he seldom molested. "We nev- er destroy corn," one chief proudly defended himself. Corn was rec- ognized as legitimate food, a medium of exchange, often the only food between himself and starvation. Meat was plentiful generally; unless
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unusual weather prevented his hunting there was always abundance of fresh deer meat.
For years, one historian tells us, farmers went to the fields with guns beside them while their families barricaded themselves at home or scattered to the block-houses, ill-equipped for accommodating whole families. So strong was the feeling against the Indians that it was im- possible to convict a white man in court for killing an Indian, whether he did it from avarice or through mistaken identity. Unscrupulous traders took all they could in the way of furs or beaver skin and left the disgruntled Indian to wreak vengeance on innocent white people after they had departed.
Of the provocations that led to the enmity of the Indians some- thing, in fairness must be said. We quote herewith an expression of Indian feeling:
"Indians and white men have one great Father. (Tanto or Tan- tum meant Great Spirit in the Androscoggin dialect.) He has given every tribe of us a goodly river which yields us fine salmon and other fish. Their borders are wide and pleasant. Here the Indians from oldest times have hunted the bear, the moose, the beaver. It is our country where our fathers died, where ourselves and our children were born-we can never leave it. The Indian has rights and loves good as well as the Englishmen. When first you came from the morn- ing waters, we took you into our open arms. We thought you chil- dren of the sun; we fed you our best meat-never went a white man cold and starving from the cabin of an Indian. Do we not speak truth?"
Ignorance of the methods of white men's trading led the Indian to sign away his right to the land, and in many cases he never dream- ed but that his conveyance was a temporary one. Documents read and defined as to exact boundaries meant little to him, but he fixed his seal solemnly to the pact as a sign of friendliness. The term "Indian giver" has come to mean something which is expected back. The white man's court of appeals did not interest him. If he came before it, he was always worsted in the settlement. All he asked proudly of the white man was to trade and to fight. English provincial gover- nors, in an effort to maintain peace or secure treaties, met the chiefs on their own ground. The same method was employed over and over, a conference with tribal chiefs, the mutual assurance of brotherhood and friendliness, the pact sealed with valuable presents. But with peace so dramatically concluded, it needed little but a neighborhood dispute over fishing rights, an overt act of unfriendliness and hostili- ties reopened all along the line. Friendly Indians renewed alliance with their red brothers and in every town and settlement the fires were kindled anew.
A sailor pushed Squando's squaw and her child out of a canoe into the Saco to prove, he said, "that all Indians could swim naturally like animals." The child sickened thereafter and died, which led to Squando's wrath and the subsequent stirring up of the Saco Indians. So slight an occasion as this, it is said, precipitated King Philip's War
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into Maine. In one month fifteen leagues of coast eastward to Saco were laid waste, the inhabitants massacred or taken captive. Their cattle killed, their homes in ashes, dozens of families saw the labor of years wiped away in a single night.
In Brunswick the Anasagunticooks seized the occasion to fall upon the home of Thomas Purchase and rob it. They did no harm to the occupants, but Purchase, coming home suddenly, was seen and obliged to flee for his life. The assailants seemed satisfied with their booty, but warned the family that others would soon come who would treat them worse. Purchase seems to have fallen into disrepute prior to this through his sharp trading. One Indian is supposed to have said that he had probably paid one hundred pounds for water from Purchase's well.
Hostilities, once commenced, were slow to die out. King Philip's war lasted only three years but it paved the way to two more which lasted nearly ten each, a fourth of three and one-half years, a fifth of four years' and a sixth of five years' duration. This extended over a period of nearly eighty-five years, longer than the average life of a generation. The field of activity extended over all New England, the war waged, perhaps, with greatest intensity by the Mohawks in western Massachusetts but with no less dire results in the small Maine settle- ments. So devasting was warfare that in 1689 only four Maine towns survived it. New grants and assistance on the part of the General Court of Massachusetts were made again and again before towns of any permanence were settled. In the next half century half a dozen forts were erected and supplied with troops along the eastern frontier. Fort George built in 1715, having in peaceful times only three men, was doubled in defense from three to six men, and once again to twelve. In 1737 there was talk of dismantling it to save expense, for by that time the General Court was heavily burdened, but on a plea from the citizens of Brunswick, "Topsum" and Harpswell, which had been recognized as a township in 1717, the plan was not carried through. Furthermore it became an important stopping place for a scout chain from New Marblehead (Windham) through to Fort Hali- fax at Richmond and, after 1754, to Fort Western at Cushnoc.
After the death of King Philip in August 1676 most of his sup- porters distributed themselves among the Pennacooks and the Aben- aques, Squando, a Saco chief who professed to have supernatural pow- er, renewed the war with a vengeance. He had under his command Mugg, one of the most wily Indians we hear about in this section. He engaged in a peace treaty in behalf of Modockowando, chief of the Tarratines, and agreed to cease all hostilities in the region, returning prisoners taken at Richmond Island. He also agreed to visit the Tec- onnets on the Kennebec, making solemn pledges for his return "unless bereft of life and liberty." He had, apparently, no notion of return- ing or fulfilling his mission for he is said to have joked with the In- dians at Teconnet:
"I know now we can even burn Boston and drive all the country
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before us ;- we must go to the fishing islands and take all the white men's vessels."
Only part of the captives were returned and the scalps of three "foreign Indians" of the tribe, leading the English to the belief that new hostilities were about to open. Majors Waldron and Frost were sent out in charge of an expedition which landed at Mair Point where they met up with Squando and Simon known as "The Yankee Killer." It is interesting to note here that the term "Yankee" is supposed to have originated with the Indians, the word "Yengees" being the word by which they referred to the English. Here Major Waldron renewed parley for the return of white prisoners but was met with evasive answers by Squando who finally agreed to return them that afternoon. Nothing further was heard until the next noon when a house further up the bay, was seen to go up in flames-the Indian answer to peace. Waldron continued to fight without much advantage, then he with- drew to renew negotiations at Pemaquid. There through chicanery he nearly lost his life. In desperation Sir Edmund Andros suggested hiring the Mohawks to aid them in quelling the Abenaki. The Mo- hawks were at peace with the English at this time and greatly feared by the northern tribes. The move was extremely unwise and served only to arouse the Maine tribes to greater fury. There were subse- quent attacks on Arrowsick, York and Wells. The death of Blind Will, a chieftain, and Mugg weakened the Indian strength though it was not until 1678 that peace was concluded at Casco with practically all concessions in favor of the Indians. About two hundred and sixty settlers had been killed any many others taken captive. The cost of the war in Maine alone was estimated at eight thousand pounds, be- sides incidental losses of property and homes.
If the ten years' interval of peace following, was advantageous to the Maine settlers, it was no less favorable to the Indian tribes. They consolidated as never before in resentment against the white men cut- ting down their forests, taking over their best fishing grounds which they spoiled with refuse from their sawmills. In fact the encroach- ments of the English civilization despoiled everything that had been precious to them. At no time in our history do we find the Indian adapting himself generally to the habits of the white man. He pre- ferred to live as his people had lived from time immemorial and ex- tinction was preferable to change. He might grow attached to the white man who was honest in his dealings, he invariably repaid favors with favors and kindness with kindness but he never accepted his mode of living in one place, in sheltered heated houses surrounded by ac- cumulating possessions. In the isolated cases of intermarriage the couple generally lived in the primitive Indian fashion, and there are instances when captives refused to go back to their families, preferring the Indian's mode of living. Some aspects of the Christian faith ap- pealed to the deep religious spirit of the red man, but he clung to his tribal superstition and old customs. A chieftain, when asked why he liked the French better than the English, replied simply, "They taught us to pray."
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The unemotionalism of the Protestant faith appealed but little to his nature, although the Indian is unemotional himself so far as ex- pressing fear or sorrow is concerned. Tears or expression of suffering he viewed with cold dislike. Many a captive owed his life to a stoic endurance of his physical or mental suffering. Tears of grief for lost ones or wincing under pain was met by a blow from the hatchet and instant death. Indian children were schooled early against suffering and those who betrayed their pain were treated little better than the white prisoner who cried out. Yet there are many instances of gen- erosity, of sharing food with prisoners on the march. Eaton, a Bruns- wick captive relates (and this is local tradition again) that his captor Sabatis shot a partridge and gave him the meat of the bird, reserving only the head and entrails for himself, a dish which he ate apparently with great relish.
During the period of peace the sagamores of the leading tribes protested against the encroachment of the white men building new settlements. They had intended, they said, by the treaty of 1678 mere- ly to permit those settlements already established and not to counten- ance new ones. Worumbee, chief of the Androscoggins since the death of Tarumkin, with Hopegood, Moxus and Bomaseen of the Kennebecs were grumbling over conveyances of land along the Ken- nebec and insisted that they had been cheated. Other Abenaki tribes insisted that the corn that had been promised them yearly by the treaty had not been paid. The French encouraged their grievances and underneath everything was the unforgotten resentment that the Mohawks had been used against them in the late war. Two men em- ployed in building a garrison on the eastern side of the Royal River were seized by the Indians and in August 1688 hostilities were defin- itely recommenced, just ten years after the signing of the treaty. A general attack followed the seizing of the two men at North Yarmouth of which Captain Walter Glendell was an eye witness. Having been a fur trader with the Indians he thought himself immune from injury, so, standing upright in his canoe, in full sight of them, hè started across the river with ammunition from the garrison to aid his neigh- bors. Before he reached the other side he received a fatal shot from the savages, but was able to throw the ammunition to safety, saying as his last words:
"I have lost my life in your service."
Several other men lost their lives on this occasion and the settle- ment at North Yarmouth was broken up for several years. Major Frost and General Tyng were put in charge of a Maine defense ex- pedition but arrived too late to prevent dire calamity at Cocheco (Dover) where Major Waldron, the great Indian fighter now an old man, was surprised and put to death in a manner indescribable.
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