Historically, it was common for Northeastern tribal groups to respect each other’s individual hunting territories, and to come together at shared resource-gathering sites, without the need to draw fixed lines on a map. Sometimes, neighboring communities supported each other, but at other times (especially after colonial settlersPeople who come to a new place to live. arrived), tensions existed that had to be resolved through both war and peace.
For example, during the Beaver Wars of the mid-1600s, the arrival of Dutch colonial settlers in “New Netherlands” aggravated existing conflicts between Haudenosaunee people (primarily Mohawk) and their Mohican neighbors along the Mahicannituck (Hudson River) in present-day New York state. The Mohawk were supported by the Dutch during their efforts to conquer the Mohican and expand into AbenakiHistorically, this name was used by the French to refer to many different Indigenous communities in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. During the colonial wars, some New England Indians moved to southern Canada as war refugees. They were joined by refugees from other tribes and together became known as Abenaki. (Calloway, 1994) Territory. During that same era, Algonquin, Abenaki, and Huron people joined with their French allies in “New France” to protect traditional territories and trade routes threatened by English colonial settlers in “New England”. The disagreements among these different tribal groups were eventually settled in 1701 at the Great Peace of Montreal, which brought together 39 tribes (Beaulieu & Viau, 2001; Havard, 2014). In the aftermath of the Great Peace, Mohawk, Abenaki, and Huron people joined their French allies in conducting attacks on English settlements in western New England, as part of an effort to retake control of traditional homelands along the middle Connecticut River (Haefeli & Sweeney, 2003). During the subsequent “French and Indian Wars,” Governor Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil tried to convince Abenaki people to relocate to New France, where they would be out of reach by the English. In 1704, he “invited several tribes to resettle on the St Lawrence. Some bands accepted, but the Cowasucks preferred to stay and fight in their homeland.” (Calloway, 1997)
If you return to the “Abenaki Territory” on “Native Land Digital” (Banaszak, 2022), you will notice that the colored overlay does not delineate the territories of individual Abenaki Tribes or make any distinctions between the Eastern and Western Abenaki Tribes. However, it is important to be aware that Abenaki communities (whether coalitions of family bands or organized tribes) have always maintained individual governance and autonomy from one another. No family bandA small group of Native American people with its leaders, usually part of a larger tribe. or tribal entity has any inherent authority over another; any such authority would have to be formally negotiated through treaties agreed upon by all sides.
To the east and northeast, you will find the tribes from the Wabanaki Confederacy (Abenaki, Mi’kmaq, Wolstaquey (also known as Wolastoq, Wolastoqiyik, and Malecite), Penobscot (Eastern Abenaki), and Passamaquoddy who were allies that fought British encroachment together (CraigBaird, 2020). In Asticou’s Island Domain: Wabanaki Peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500-2000, (Prins & McBride, 2007) Harold Prins and Bunny McBride explain:
Clearly, a problem with ethnic labels is that they do not reflect the fluid linguistic boundaries and migratory movements of transient Wabanaki groups. They also fail to indicate that Wabanaki peoples maintained cross-tribal kinship ties. Intermarriage between individuals from different ethnic groups was common, especially when population loss reduced opportunities for finding marriage partners within the communityA group of people living or working together in a particular area, or people belonging to a cultural group. that were not too closely related. Exogamous relationships had the added advantage of binding various regional communities together and resulted in family ties between different groups. Such kinship bonds had great political advantages, as they increased opportunities for creating alliances and diminished risks of intertribalExisting or taking place between tribes, or shared by two or more tribes. conflicts.
Gordon Day discussed similar complications in his book The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians (1981), which attempts to explain the origins of the Saint Francis/Odanak Tribe(Related word: Tribal): A group of families or villages that share the same language, traditions, and ancestors. in Quebec. Day recounts how the village called Odanak was populated by refugees from the French and Indian War era who came from many different tribes and communities, including Sokoki, Pennacook, Cowass, Missisquoi, Pequawket, and elsewhere. Some families stayed at Odanak for a short time; some came and went at random; some came during wartime and returned to their home territories during peacetime.
During the late 1600s, some Native families from tribes in the middle Connecticut River valley (Pocumtuck, Woronoco, Nonotuck) relocated to the refugee village at Schaghticoke in New York colony to live under the protection of English Governor Andros (Bruchac, 2005; Calloway, 1990; Haefeli & Sweeney, 2003; Spady, 1995). By the mid-1700s, when this village became crowded by English settlers, most of the refugees living at Schaghticoke left. Many people relocated to Missisquoi under the leadership of Grey Lock (Wawanolewat), a Woronoco man who used Missisquoi as a base of operations against the English during “Grey Lock’s War.” (Calloway, 1987; Day, 1974). Some families who left Schaghticoke relocated to Odanak, where they intermarried with other residents at the mission village who came from other regions. (Day, 1981)
Kinship ties among and between Abenaki communities, although complicated by these historic relocations and removals, persist into the present day. Evidence of some of these kinship ties, especially among the Elnu, Koasek, Nulhegan, and Missisquoi Abenaki Tribes, is recorded in the recognition applications that were submitted to the State of Vermont. Some ancestors of these present-day Vermont Abenaki people retreated to Canada and returned by the 1850s; other ancestors never left Vermont. Abenaki residents are fairly well-documented in 20th-century Vermont vital records (Wiseman, 2025b) and in the records of the Vermont eugenics movement (Dow, 2018; Gallagher, 1999; De Guardiola, 2023). For more information, watch Rep. Tom Stevens explain the impact of the Vermont eugenics movement on the American Abenaki community [begin at minute mark 7.28] (Vermont House of Representatives, 2021).
Some of the historic alliances among Abenaki people have also persisted into the present day. For example, in 2015, the members of the Wabanaki Confederacy invited the Vermont Abenaki Tribes (Elnu, Koasek, Nulhegan, and Missisquoi) to host the Confederacy in Vermont. (Moccasin Tracks, 2016) This momentous gathering was attended by Tribal citizens, Elders, and leaders of various tribes of the Six Nations (Haudenosaunee), Seven Nations (Mohawk, Huron, and Abenaki), Wolastoqiyik, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Wampanoag.
For More Information
For More Information
Websites:
Abenaki Alliance. (n.d.). Abenaki Alliance. Abenaki Alliance. Retrieved August 9, 2025, from https://www.abenakialliance.org
Beaulieu, Alain and Roland Viau. (2001). The Great Peace: Chronicle of a Diplomatic Saga. Montreal, Quebec: Editions Libre Expression.
Davids, D. (2017). Brief History. https://www.mohican.com/brief-history/
Haefeli, Evan and Kevin Sweeney, eds. (2003). Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Haudenosaunee Confederacy (2025) Who We Are. Haudenosaunee Confederacy. https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/who-we-are/
Musée des Abénakis. (n.d.). Musée des Abénakis [Museum Website]. Musée Des Abénakis. Retrieved May 14, 2025, from https://museeabenakis.ca/en/
Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe (2025) About Us [Tribal NationPeople living in the same region under its independent government and having a shared history, language, and culture. Website]. SRMT – NSN. https://www.srmt-nsn.gov/about
Books:
Bruchac, Margaret M. (2005). “Founding Schaghticoke and Odanak.” Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704. Deerfield, MA: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association. http://1704.deerfield.history.museum/scenes/nsscenes/founding.do?title=foundOdanak
Calloway, C. (Ed.). (May 15, 1997). After King Philip’s War: Presence and Persistence in Indian New England. University Press of New England.
Calloway, C. (Ed.). (1991). Dawnland Encounters: Indians and Europeans in Northern New England. University Press of New England.
Calloway, C. G. (1987). Gray Lock’s War. Vermont History, 55(4), 212–227. https://vermonthistory.org/vermont-history-journal
Day, G. M. (1981). Identity of the Saint Francis Indians. University of Ottawa Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv16tjz
Haefeli, Evan and Kevin Sweeney, eds. (2003). Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Havard, G. (2014). Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native diplomacy in the seventeenth century. Montréal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Speck, Frank G. 1915. “The Eastern Algonkian Wabanaki Confederacy.” American Anthropologist new series 17: 492-508. https://www.jstor.org/stable/660500
Article:
Brook, M. (2015). The Connections That Bind Us: The Colonial World of the Northeast – Abenaki Arts & Education Center. Originally written for the National Parks Service. https://abenaki-edu.org/the-connections-that-bind-us-the-colonial-world-of-the-northeast/
Dow, Judy A. (2018). “Understanding the Vermont Eugenics Survey and its Impacts Today.” In Global IndigenousThe first people living in any region, distinct from later arrivals. Health: Reconciling the Past, Engaging the Present, Animating the Future, edited by Robert Henry, Amanda LaVallee, Nancy Van Styvendale, and Robert Alexander Innes, 76-96. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
Bruchac, Margaret M. (2005). “Founding Schaghticoke and Odanak.” Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704. Deerfield, MA: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association. http://1704.deerfield.history.museum/scenes/nsscenes/founding.do?title=foundOdanak
Calloway, Colin G. (1987). “Gray Lock’s War.” Vermont History 55 (4): 212-227. https://vermonthistory.org/vermont-history-journal/
Day, Gordon M. (1974). “Gray Lock.” In Dictionary of Canadian Biography
A detailed history of a real person’s life written by someone else. Volume III, 256-267. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/gray_lock_3E.html
Dow, Judy A. (2018). “Understanding the Vermont Eugenics Survey and its Impacts Today.” In Global Indigenous Health: Reconciling the Past, Engaging the Present, Animating the Future, edited by Robert Henry, Amanda LaVallee, Nancy Van Styvendale, and Robert Alexander Innes, 76-96. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
Spady, James (1995). “As If In a Great Darkness: Native American Refugees of the Middle Connecticut River Valley in the Aftermath of King Philip’s War.” Historical Journal of Massachusetts, 23 (2): 183-197.