USA > Maine > The history of the state of Maine; from its first discovery, A. D. 1602, to the separation, A. D. 1820, inclusive, Vol. I > Part 47
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* 5 Mass. Rec. p. 32.
t About 40 acres, in 1820, were under cultivation; and the Indians, that season, raised 410 bushels of corn, and 50 bushels of beans, besides pota-
# Possibly " Onagounges."- 6 Mass. Rec. p. 71. toes.
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CHAP. XVIII.]
voix, they were anciently numerous ;* but neither of them has A. D. 1615, given us the name of the tribe ; nor are they so much as men- to 1675. tioned by d'Laet, Jeffreys, Palairet, or Hubbard. If we may be- lieve Capt. Francis, this is a younger tribe than either of those at Penobscot or St. John. He says it was told him by his fathers, that an Indian of the latter married a Tarratine wife, and settled at Passamaquoddy and became a tribe. It is certain, this one has immemorially lived on terms of the most friendly inter- course with both the others ; and was never known to take an active part in any transactions separate from them. Indeed, its chiefs are not distinctly mentioned in any treaty, till that of 1760 ;+ nor is the name of a single Sagamore previously living, handed down to us ; }-so much has the tribe mixed with those tribes, and followed their fortune and fate.
It cannot be reasonably supposed, that this tribe, once so num- erous and still existing, never had a generic and well known name ; especially, since it was otherwise with those not larger, in every part of New-England. But no ancient name is mentioned either by Prince, Hutchinson, Belknap, Sullivan, or any other English or American writer. The only author who has given us any clue to it, is Baron la Hontan. Between the years 1683 and 1696, while he was Lord-Lieutenant of the French colony at Placentia, in Newfoundland, he wrote a series of letters, in French, en- titled " New Voyages to North America." He was an early writer, favorably situated to acquire a knowledge of the natives; and he turned his particular attention to the tribes of these eastern parts. In giving a list of their names, he mentions the Openan- gos, § with the Canibas, Sokokis, and others, as belonging to Aca- dia, which he, like other French writers of that age, supposed might extend westward of Casco bay. He also represents the Openangos to be an " erratic" people, often going from Acadia to New-England.|| If they were, according to previous facts, the
* Champlain, p. 42-44 .- 2 Churchill's Voyages, p. 797-812 .- 1 Charle- voix's N. F. p. 115. 1 9 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. p. 218.
# Their present chief is Francis Joseph Neptune-an aged man, of a gentle disposition-entirely satisfied with his allotment. His mother was a Tarratine. Both parents often told their children to pronounce accord- ing to the dialect of their respective tribes.
¿ Capt. Francis supposes " Openango" means the same as little sable- very cunning.
1) La Hontan, p. 223, 230 .- Mr: Heckewelder (page 107) gives credit to
476
THE HISTORY
[VOL. I.
A. D. 1615, unchanging allies and associates of the Tarratines ; this shade of to 1675.
Quoddy tribe.
character, which he gives them, is correct. Where else, if there was a tribe of that name, could it be settled, excepting about the waters and inlets of Passamaquoddy bay ? By what other name, except Etechemins,* ever mentioned by any early writer, could they with the least propriety be called ?- It is true, the moderns call them the 'Quoddy Indians, from the name of their bay ; and Gov. Barnard, in his speech to the General Court, A. D. 1764, makes mention of them as belonging " to the nation of the St. " John's Indians."
The village of this tribe is most delightfully situated, at a place called " Pleasant Point"f upon the westerly shore of Pas- samaquoddy bay, in the town of Perry, about two leagues above Eastport. Here are 35 or 40 wigwams, a school-house and a chapel, like the one at Old-town, with a cupola and bell. Be- sides the cabins constructed in the Indian form, there are three framed houses, one occupied by the Sagamore's son Soc Basin, an interpreter and also a priest of the catholic order. Attached to sectarian or catholic rites and forms, this tribe and their spirit- ual teacher are superstitious believers in the great expiatory crucifix, amidst the common cemetery of their dead ; also devo- tees to the usage of little crosses standing by the graves of kin- dred, and to the inspiring sanctity of images, the censer of in- cense, the burning tapers, and holy water. But no motives, no persuasives can arouse them from their debasing inactivity. Nei- ther the emoluments of industry, the pleasures of education, nor the wants of life, have power sufficient to kindle in them, a de- sire of becoming a civilized people. They are indigent and de-
the authenticity of la Hontan's History ; but Charlevoix says, " the great- er part of his facts are disfigured." So, the North American Review, No, L., January, 1826, p. 67, speaks of him as a soldier and a skeptic. .
* Charlevoix, [1 vol. N. F. p. 206,] says, Pentagoet is 45 leagues from St. John. The rivers of ' the Etechemins are between the two, but nearest ' the latter.' Then he adds, ' that all the country, from Port-Royal to Ken- 'nebeck, are peopled by what are at this day called Malecites ;' and again, ' between Pentagoet and Kennebeck the savages are called Armichiquois.' It is certain, that all these statements cannot be correct.
t In 1794 Massachusetts bought 100 acres, including Pleasant Point, of one John Frost ; and on the 4th of March, 1801, appropriated the most of it, to the use and improvement of the tribe, till the further order of the General Court.
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pressed-their lands, and with them their hunting grounds, are no A. D. 1615, longer in their possession ;- little more remains to them, than to 1675. their village and their barbarian freedom.
3 .- The other tribe of the Etechemin people, are the Mare- Marechites. chites *- or rather Armouchiquois,t as their name appears in Purchas and some other authors. They inhabited the great river, called by them the "Ouygondy,"į but by the Europeans, the St. John-possessing one of the most inviting regions for sav- age life in the eastern country. This tribe was numerous and powerful, and in character, according to Purchas, valiant and ingenious. He says, they had attained to some eminence in the arts of "painting, carving, and drawing pictures of men, beasts " and birds, both in stone and wood." In the first Indian war, they were more opposed, than either of the Etechemin tribes to the proposition of taking arms against the English ; afterwards they generally acted in concert with their allies, the Tarratines and Openangos, or 'Quoddy tribe.
The Marechites have two places of general resort, or com- pact collections of wigwams upon the rivers St. John ;- one is village. the village at Meductic-point, just above the confluence of the main river and Eel stream, six leagues eastward of the eastern monument. Here are 35 or 40 wigwams, a chapel, and the usual residence of an officiating catholic priest. The other, called ' Indian Village,' is on the east side of the river, 100 miles higher, near the " Little Falls," and opposite to the mouth of Madawaska. It is wholly within this State,-being situated sev- eral leagues westwardly of the line, which divides Maine from the British Provinces. There is an occasional lodgment on the east- ern bank fronting Fredericton ; and it is said, the tribe have had a slight fortification, 50 or 60 miles above the mouth of the river. ||
The natives, who have been the subject of observation in the preceding pages, are the only tribes, with which our History of Maine has an immediate concern. But in the sketches of Nova Scotia, necessarily interspersed ; it may be expected that
* Melecites, Jeffreys, Morse ; Marechites, Pinkerton's Geog.
t The French name. į 1 Holmes' A. Ann. p. 148.
¿ From the mouth of the river St. John to Fredericton, the distance is 62 miles ;- to Meductic-point 125 miles ; - to the Great Falls 188 miles, || Brit, Dom, p. 256,
Marechite
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[VOL. I.
A. D. 1615, some account will be given of the natives in that ancient Prov- to 1675.
ince.
Mickmaks.
These, according to la Hontan, Sargeant, Pinkerton, and other writers, are collectively called Mickmaks ;* but Purchas, d'Laet, Palairet, Oldmixon, Moll and Barton, have given them the name of Souriquois.t They inhabited the great peninsula, south of the bay of Fundy, and the neighboring islands, the isthmus, and perhaps the eastern shores to Gaspe. Originally they were a very numerous people, divided into several tribes, with their respec- tive Sagamores. The country, however, between Gaspè and the region of the Marechites, some have supposed, was once inhab- ited by a nation called the " Mountaineers."}
The Mickmaks were a people quite distinct and different from the Etechemin tribes ;- in stature larger, with coarser features ; in disposition, more cruel and brutish ; in mind, less valiant and less intelligent ; speaking a language so dissimilar, as to render free conversation with each other impracticable. Yet, 'if the ' Mickmak dialect was known in Europe,' said one well acquaint- ed with it, ' seminaries would be erected for the purpose of prop- 'agating it.'§
When the Europeans first visited Newfoundland, they found the natives extremely barbarous, unacquainted with cookery, and bread made of Indian corn, and clad in summer, only in the habiliments of primitive Eden.|| . Those on the main, the Mick- maks, were a single grade higher ; who, if not concerned in the first three Indian wars, were extremely hostile and savage in the oth- ers ;- a scourge of uncommon dread-the merciless destroyers ; whom the Provincial rulers found it of the greatest importance to tranquillize or restrain by presents and by treaty. Wild and indolent, " they still wander from place to place in all the abject- "ness of deplorable stupidity." ' Every exertion to improve ' their condition, has diminished their remains of energy, and dis-
* " Mickmacks."-Manach.
+ Souriquois is the French name .- 5 Charlevoix, p. 291.
# There were certainly Mountaineers on the northerly side of the gulf of the St. Lawrence ; whose language had an affinity to the Skoffie in the same region. Many, since the arrival of the Europeans, have gone to " the less frequented wilds of Labrador and Canada."-3 Coll. M. Hist. Soc. p. 15-33.
§ 10 Coll. M. Hist. Soc. p. 115-16. || Oldmixon, p. 15 .- Moll, p. 256.
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CHAP. XVIII.]
' posed them to expect by alms and begging, what they ought to A. D. 1615, 'obtain by common industry.' The catholic priests have, in 10 1675. some degree, checked their propensity to drunkenness ; other- wise all endeavors, to bring them into a civilized state and regular habits, have been productive of evil rather than benefit .*
The entire race of Mickmaks have been numerous. It is said, they originally had fifteen chiefs, as many tribes, as many villages, and in 1760, 3,000 souls.t They hate the Etechemins and have little or no intercourse with them.
They have noted villages, perhaps Sagamores, at Cape Breton, Mickmak Isle St. Johns, La Heve, Cape Sable, Minas, Chignectou, Poic- villages. tou, and Jediack. They, or the Mountaineers, have several vil- lages upon the bank and branches of the Merimachi, which emp- ties into the bay of that name. One, called " Burnt Church," which is 40 miles from its mouth, exhibits several wigwams, and a chapel 40 feet square, the walls of which are constructed of split rocks, laid in lime mortar. Here the natives and the French settlers convene and worship, under the pastoral care of a catho- lic priest. Indian Town is situated upon the north-west branch of the same river, sixty miles higher. It is the principal village of a considerable tribe in these eastern parts, represented to be as numerous, at the present time, as the Tarratines. Farther northward is a small village at " Indian Point," above the head of Restigouche bay, where there is a chapel with a bell, and a framed house, the residence of the priest. It is in the midst of a Scotch settlement, surrounded with a productive soil, some patches of which are cultivated by the natives. They have a Sagamore and receive supplies from an Indian trader among them, who procures his goods from Quebec.
Before we close this chapter, it is important to take a general Population view of the native population in Maine ;- a subject, through a de- of the na- ficiency of materials, which is of difficult management, both as to perspicuity and correctness. Nor can any thing more be ex- pected, than some analogous calculations and probable results.
* Lockwood's New-Brunswick, p. 7.
t Douglass, in 1 Summ. p. 183, thought the Mickmaks in 1747, " had not more than 350 fighting men." But Mr. Manach, a French missionary, well acquainted with them, says there were 3,000 souls in 1760 .- 10 Coll. Mass. Flist. Soc. p. 115 :- And 2 Pinkerton's Geog. p. 628, says, in 1800 there were 300 fighters east of Halifax.
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A. D. 1615, The period to which our statements will relate, commences im- Jo 1675. mediately prior to the war of the tribes, A. D. 1615-17, which was succeeded by the sweeping epidemic, previously mentioned.
Except the tribes in Maine, all the others in New-England before described, have been classed into six clans or nations,- their allies, branches and dependencies included. Their names and the number of men they could bring into battle, according to the accounts of Gookin,* Prince,+ Hubbard, and other early and correct annalists, are thus transmitted to us :- in Con- necticut, the Pequod warriors were 4,000, and the Mohegan, 3,000; in Plymouth colony, those of the Pawkunnawkutts, were 3,000 ; in Rhode Island, those of the Narragansetts, were 5,000 ; in Massachusetts, the bowmen belonging to the ancient people called the " Massachuses," were 3,000; and in New-Hamp- shire, those of the Penacooks and Pentuckets, were 3,000 ;- in the whole 21,000 warriors.§ If we allow three of them to ten souls, agreeably to the fact ascertained in the Powhatan Confed- eracy by actual enumeration, as stated by Mr. Jefferson,|| and other Virginian writers ; the Indian population of New-England exclusive of Maine, would have been 70,000 souls.T Some
* Daniel Gookin removed from Virginia to Massachusetts, about 1644, was an Assistant and Major-General, under the colony charter, and a super- intendant " of all the Indians," and knew more about them than all the other magistrates. He died in 1687 .- Eliot's Biog. Dic. p. 220.
{ Thomas Prince of Middleborough, was a graduate of Harv. Col. 1707, an ordained minister of Old South Church, Boston, 1718, and annalist of New-England Chronology to A. D. 1633.
William Hubbard was a graduate of Harv. Col. 1642, minister of Ips- wich, and historian of New-England, A. D. 1682.
į Cookin .-- 1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. p. 141-229 .- Prince, p. 116 .- Hubbard's N. E. p. 449-50 .- Trumbull, p. 40,-He thinks there were not more than 20,000 in Connecticut .- Hol. A. An. p. 418. | Jefferson's Notes, Query xi.
T This may be thought to be a disproportionate estimate. For the number of able-bodied effective men, between 18 and 45, in the New-England militia, A. D. 1820, when compared with the census, was only as one to ten. Yet many can bear arms before 18 and after 45 years old ; and numbers are exempt who could do military duty. Not half who might bear arms, are in the train bands. So, in dooming taxes [upon towns, the number of ratable polls between 16 and 70, has been estimated as one to five, of all the souls in a town at the preceding census : one to four would be more correct.
481
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CHAP. XVIII.]
suppose it might originally have been nearly equal to that of the A. D. 1615. English, in 1675 .* to 1675.
the tribes in
In estimating the whole number of natives originally in Maine, A view of the calculator is involved still deeper in conjecture. It is true, Maine that this State contains as many square miles, as the residue of New-England. Its soil is good, its waste grounds few, and its climate healthful. It has also long rivers-a wide seacoast, and was covered with a heavy forest; affording the amplest means of savage livelihood and support, and exhibiting when first dis- covered and visited by Europeans, a people overspreading the land. Nevertheless, the rivers, upon which the tribes were set- tled, were too widely separated from each other, to be promo- tive of a dense population ; nor were the soil and climate so con- genial to the propagation of the Aborigines, as in the more south- erly parts of New-England.
The few facts, which history contributes, in relation to the tribes in Maine, may reflect some light upon the subject. No people ever defended their native country with more valor and obstinacy, than the Sokokis did theirs, especially in Lovwell's war. Sokokis. A number of them, relinquishing the French interest, in 1744, for the ranks of the English at the seige of Louisbourg, distin- guished themselves among the bravest soldiers. Afterwards, they could muster only about a dozen fighting men ; and before the capture of Quebec, the tribe was extinct.t
The Anasagunticooks, in 1744, had 160 fighters ; and when the war of the revolution commenced, 'about 40 of the tribe ticooks. ' made the shores, the ponds, and the Islands of the Androscog- ' gin their principal home.' Philip Will, a young Indian of Cape Cod, was taken captive by the French at the age of 14, in the siege of Louisbourg ; and abiding among the natives, became the chief of this tribe. He was an Indian of some education, and many years instrumental in preventing their utter extinction.}
* In A. D. 1696, there were in New-England about 100,000 whites .- 2 Holmes, p. 31 .- Yet in 1676 there were estimated to be in Massachusetts, New-Hampshire and Maine, 150,000 .- Hutch. Coll. p. 484 .- Quere ?
t Mass. Letter Book p. 114-15 .- 1 Doug. p. 185.
12 Hutch. Hist. p. 266 .- Sull. p. 263 .- Philip Will was brought up in the family of Mr. Crocker, where he was taught to read and write the English language and to cypher. He was in height 6 feet 3 inches and well proportioned .- MS. Letter of A. G. Chandler, Esq.
VOL. I.
Anasagun-
482
THE HISTORY
[VOL. 1.
A. D. 1615, to 1675. Canibas.
None of the Abenaques tribes, however, were more strongly attached to their native soil, than the Canibas. They were bold and brave fighters through all the Indian wars; in which they sustained probably a greater loss of numbers than any other tribe. Aware of their decline, they deeply lamented their cruel fate ; having, in 1764, only 30 warriors; and, in 1795, six or seven families constituted all their remains .*
Wawen. ocks.
The Wawenocks never made any figure after their ruinous war with the Tarratines. Their force was then broken, and more than fifteen years, before the French war, in 1753-4, they were drawn away by the French, to the river Perante in Canada, where they settled a village which they called by their own name ; and so considerably united was their tribe, as to be able, in 1749, to bring into war about 40 fighting men.| Charlevoix says, 'the ' Indians of the St. Francois, uniting the Anasagunticooks and ' Wawenocks, were a colony of the Abenaques, removed from ' the eastern parts of New-England, for the sake of French ' neighborhood.'
Etechemins.
The Etechemins, never having been so much wasted by war, disease and dissipation, and always larger than the Abenaques people, are still inhabitants of their native country, humbled, how- ever, in view of their decline and ultimate destiny. Persons well acquainted with them in former years, affirm that in 1756, they could collectively turn out 1,500 fighting men. Their re- maining population in 1820, amounted only to 1,235 souls, that is to say, 390 Tarratines ;} 379 Openangos ;§ and 466 Mare- chites. ||
All the preceding circumstances, combined with the wasting wars in which the Abenaques were repeatedly engaged ; the forces of the Etechemins, whereby they were originally able to keep the western tribes of the Abergineans in fear and awe ; T and their enduring existence by tribes, to the present time, united- ly conduce to the inference, that the ancient population of Maine must have been at least one half of that in the residue of
* 17 Mass. Rec. p. 399 .- 1 Doug. p. 185. + 1 Douglass, p. 101.
That is, among them were 86 hunters ; 91 under ten years, and 36 camps. § 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. p. 211 .- Fighters incorrectly supposed to be only 30, in 1764.
| Pinkerton's Geog. p. 627.
T The small-pox spread to Piscataqua, A. D. 1633, " when all the Indians except one or two who had it, died."-Winthrop's Journal, p. 59.
CHAP. XVIII.]
OF MAINE.
483
New-England. For the numbers of the Abenaques warriors A. D. 1615, were probably equal or superior to those of the Narragansetts, Whole to 1675. viz. 5,000 ; and the Etechemin warriors, must now have been amount of about 6,000 ;- in all 11,000 .* By allowing, then, three of ulation in Maine. Indian pop- them to ten souls, as in the Powhatan confederacy, the original population of Maine, A. D. 1615, must have been 36 or 37,000 ; -an estimation probably not very wide of the truth.t
* The Abenaques estimated thus-
Sokokis
900 warriors
Anasagunticooks
1,500
Canibas
1,500
Wawenocks
1,100
5,000
Etechemins thus-
Tarratines
2,400
Openangos
1,400
Marechites
2,200
· 6,000
Total 11,000.
But one account, (9 Coll. Mass. Hist. p. 234,) supposes the eastern Indians from Massachusetts to Canso, in 1690, only 4,310 souls ;- an estimate man- ifestly too low.
t Also there were Indians at Agamenticus, Casco, and Machias.
484
THE HISTORY
[VOL. I.
CHAPTER XIX.
The persons of the natives -- Their senses-Their dress-Character --- Dispositions-Habits-Wigwams-Food -- Society -- Females- Marriages-Religion and Superstition-Christianity among them -Their Government-The Bashaba-Sagamores and Sachems- Ceremonies of inducting the Tarratine Chiefs into office-Coales- cence of the tribes-Six Indian Wars and Treaties-Crimes and Punishments-Susup's Case -- The Employments of the Indians- Hunting-Fishing-Their Canoes-Weapons-Wars -- Pris- oners-Their Wampam-Their Feasts-An Entertainment- Their Amusements-Manners and Customs-Arts-Music-Med- ical Knowledge-Dishes of Food-Language.
A. D. 1615, to 1675.
IN the subsequent consideration of the natives, their appear- ance, character, regulations, habits, language, and other peculiar- ities, our observations will be confined, in general, to the Abena- ques and the Etechemins, with occasional allusions to the Mick- maks.
Persons of The Indian is easily distinguishable from the inhabitant of the Indians. every other country. His stature is above a middling size, his body strong and straight, and his features regular and prominent. But his broad face, black sparkling eyes, bright olive complex- ion, ivory-white teeth, black hair, long and lank, often give to his countenance an appearance, wild, fierce and morose. A deformed, cross-eyed person, or dwarf, is not found among them; nor are any of the men corpulent. In walking, both sexes incline their feet inwards, by means of a discipline during infancy, enabling them more conveniently to traverse the woods. By reason of an unction, with which they anoint their bodies, to avoid the trouble of flies and vermin, or owing to some other cause, the beards up- on the men in general have no considerable growth .*
Their seuses.
With senses acute and perceptions quick and clear, the Indian is all eyes, all ears, and all observation ;- nothing escapes his notice. None are blind, deaf, or dumb ; and his impressions of
* Smith, in his History, p. 17, says they had no beards :- But several of the Tarratines have told me, they pull out their beards when young.
485
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CHAP. XIX.]
men or places, are coeval with life. He will travel unfrequented A. D. 1615, forests without compass or mistake. The Mickmaks, in their to 1675. wars with the Esquimaux, have been known to cross, in their slender canoes, the gulf of St. Lawrence, 40 leagues over .*
The savage state promotes bodily exercise, inures to hardships, health, and preserves from the maladies incident to civilized life. Few are sickly or feeble. Many live to a great age, possessing their energies and faculties to the last. Orono, Sagamore of the Tar- ratines, who died, A. D. 1801, lived to the advanced age of 113 years ; and his wife at the time of her death, the preceding year, was aged 100.
and fashionsa
The dress and ornaments of the males and females are a cu- Their dress riosity. With a taste for bright or lively colors, their clothes are gay, often changed in kind, never in fashion. When our shores were first visited by de Monts, Gosnold, Smith, and others ; the natives were clad in skins, without the fur in summer and with it in winter. Some wore mantles of deer-skins, embroidered with chains of beads, and variously painted ; and those of others were curiously inwrought and woven with threads and feathers, in a manner exhibiting only the plumage. The poorer sort appeared with nothing more than hard skins about their loins and shoulders ; and a few, in the warm seasons, wore little else than the robe of nature.+
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