Post by Okwes on Jun 2, 2008 11:27:14 GMT -5
Reading Abenaki Traditions
and European Records of Rogers' Raid
by Marge Bruchac, August 2006
The October 4, 1759 attack on St. Francis is recognized as an
important event in American history, but most people only know the
fictional version. The movie "Northwest Passage" portrays half-naked
savages, living in tipis and pounding on great war drums. Town
histories depict the Abenaki as violent foreign marauders, who
attacked no reason, conveniently forgetting to mention the broken
treaties and boundary violations of English settlers in Abenaki
territory. Some historians have claimed the Abenaki were engaged in a
drunken orgy the night before the raid. Those who have read Robert
Rogers' account think that more than 200 Abenaki people were killed,
and that the survivors were few and far between. These fictions have
twisted this event into unrecognizable shape. The truth, as preserved
in Abenaki oral traditions, French records, and English documents,
including the writings of Rogers' own men, is far more complicated.
The children's book, Malian's Song, recounts some of the Abenaki oral
traditions regarding the English attack conducted by Major Robert
Rogers, as seen through the eyes of two young girls – Malian and
Maliazonis – who lived through it. The fishing scene and family
encounters that open this book are semi-fictional moments that serve
to illustrate the nature of Abenaki family life and activities at the
time. The other elements of this story are factual, taken directly
from the written records and personal accounts of witnesses and
families who recalled specific events. This essay offers some excerpts
from the extant written records, and some insights that help explain
how the Abenaki oral traditions portrayed in Malian's Song relate to
the European records.
Many of the well-documented historical details preserved in Abenaki
oral traditions and French written records are unfamiliar to
Americans, who have been widely exposed to the biased accounts of
colonial soldiers, and the stereotypes and errors in the writings of
later historians. A number of the cultural and historical details
about family life, material culture, and the events surrounding
Rogers' Raid, as illustrated in Malian's Song, come directly from oral
tradition, and are corroborated by other sources. These include:
premonitions among some of the elders about the impending attack; the
silver brooch on Simôn Obomsawin's hat; the Council House dance; the
warning given by the Stockbridge Mohican scout (Samadagwis) to a
teenaged Abenaki girl; the location of the hiding place at Sibosek;
Malian's falling asleep with her arms on the windowsill; Malian's
rescue by her father; the burning of the village; the theft of corn
from the storage houses; the return of Father Roubaud to the ashes of
his church; the movement of survivors into winter camps or southward
to rejoin other Abenaki communities; the lonesome song; and the
rebuilding of the village.
Abenaki Homelands: Ndakinna During the 18th Century
Malian's home village of "Odanak" (which literally translates to "at
the dwelling-place") was, and is, situated on the east bank of the St.
Francis River, northwest of Pierreville, near the St. Lawrence, about
40 miles north of Montreal (also known as Ville-Marie). The St.
Francis River was known to the Abenaki as Arsikantegouk or Alsigontekw
(meaning "empty cabin river" or "place of shells"), a name that
recalled both a 1691 Mohawk attack and a 1700 plague. During the late
1690s, Jesuit missionaries built a Catholic mission dedicated to Saint
Francis there, and offered the Abenaki people protection under the
colony of New France. The Abenaki people living at Odanak were, and
are, closely related to the Abenaki at Wolinak ("a bay"), further
north on the St. Lawrence near Trois Rivières and Bécancoeur.
The original Abenaki homelands reached far beyond the boundaries of
Odanak. Ndakinna (meaning, "our homeland") includes all of present-day
New Hampshire, all but the southwestern corner of Vermont, and parts
of northern Massachusetts, northeastern New York state, and southern
Canada, encompassing important waterways like the Kwanitegok ("long
river" – the Connecticut River) and Merrimack or Morôdemak ("deep
river") and thousands of fresh-water lakes. Although particular bands
and families took responsibility for specific sites and resources,
Abenaki people routinely travelled all over this territory for
seasonal hunting and fishing and ceremonial gatherings.
Many of the familiar tribal names used today are actually locative
words that refer to specific regions. During the late 1600s, some
Abenaki families from the tribal bands called Cowass ("pine-tree
place"), Missisquoi or Mazipskoik ("place of the flint"), Pennacook
("place of ground-nuts"), Pequawket ("broken, cleared land"), and
Sokoki ("southern place") started moving northward in response to the
increasing incursions of English settlers from the Massachusetts
colonies. Other families stayed in those places, and are still living
there today. Odanak eventually incorporated a number of Abenaki
families from these bands, along with Native refugees from the
Massachusetts tribes of –Pocumtuck ("swift, sandy river"), Woronoco
("winding river"), Nonotuck ("in the midst of the river"), Quabaug
("red pond"), and others – who had been forced out of the middle
Connecticut River Valley by English colonists. The tribal groups who
moved north eventually became known collectively as "St. Francis
Indians" after they allied with French soldiers during the military
conflicts of the 1690s-1760s that are commonly called the "French and
Indian Wars."
By 1759, the Abenaki village situated on a bluff above the St. Francis
River was neither a cluster of bark-covered wigwams, nor was it a
stockaded arrangement of longhouses. The several hundred Wôbanakiak
("Abenaki Indian people") living at Odanak inhabited 51 houses built
in the English or French style. Monsieur Franquet, a French engineer
who visited the village in 1752, observed that most homes were
constructed of squared log timbers covered with lengths of bark or
rough-cut boards. At least 12 were one or two-story French-style
wood-frame houses with clapboards; 3 houses were built of stone. They
were arranged in rows around a central square, with a church and a
large Council House. Simôn Obomsawin's family lived in a two-story
French-style wood-frame house.
The premonitions about the attack came in various forms. Some elders
are said to have had recurring dreams about English or Mohawk attacks
that likely resonated from their experiences as young children during
King Philip's War (1675-1676), King William's War (1689-97), Queen
Anne's War (1702-13), Greylock's War (also called Dummer's War, Father
Rasle's War, and Lovewell's War, 1722-25) King George's War (1744-48),
the French and Indian War (1754-63), and other conflicts that had
forced them to move north. Odanak felt like a safe place, since it had
a Catholic mission under the protection of the French, and was located
far to the north of the English settlements. But some of the more
traditional elders felt that dependence on European lifeways was
dangerous. In Malian's Song, this attitude is reflected in Nokomis's
statement that "French houses bring bad dreams," as she packs for her
winter camp. Another common belief among Abenaki people even today is
that birds, animals, fish, and other non-human creatures carry
important messages. This is reflected in the opening pages of Malian's
Song when she slips and falls into the river, and later realizes that
the namassaak ("fish people") were trying to warn her that trouble was
coming.
General Jeffrey Amherst's Plans and Major Robert Rogers' Attack in 1759
During the French and Indian wars, Abenaki warriors gained a
reputation for ferocity during their battles against English colonists
who were encroaching on Abenaki territory. Their adversaries were New
England men who spent most of their lives enmeshed in military
conflicts as the English colonies tried to expand northward, meeting
Abenaki resistance every step of the way. Robert Rogers adopted
scouting and ranging techniques that blended military practices used
by the Scottish border patrols in Britain with Native American Indian
tactics and woodcraft.
In 1759, not long after his capture of Fort Carillon/Fort Ticonderoga
from the French, General Jeffrey Amherst sent Rogers' Ranger Captain
Quinton Kennedy northward carrying both proposals of peace for the
Abenaki (who were loyal to the French), and secret dispatches to
General Wolfe, who was then besieging the French town of Quebec. On
August 8, Kennedy, along with Lieutenant Hamilton, Captain Jacob
Naunaphataunk and six Stockbridge Mohicans set out. On August 24, they
were captured by an Abenaki hunting party and conveyed to St. Francis
where Father Pierre-Joseph Roubaud detained them. One oral tradition
suggests that a Stockbridge man was tortured and killed after he
refused to return to his St. Francis Abenaki wife. The officers were
abused, and Amherst was so incensed that he decided, as Rogers
recalled, "to chastize these savages with some severity."
General Jeffrey Amherst was moved to order an attack on the Abenaki at
Odanak/St. Francis as retribution for their long participation in New
England raids, their attack on British soldiers at Fort William Henry,
and, more recently, their capture of Captain Kennedy and the killing
of one of Captain Jacob's Stockbridge Mohican Indian scouts. Amherst's
specific instructions to Major Robert Rogers, sent from his camp at
Crown Point on September 13, 1759, read as follows:
You are this night to set out with the detachment as ordered
yesterday, viz. of 200 men, which you will take under your command,
and proceed to Misisquey Bay, from whence you will march and attack
the enemy's settlement on the south-side of the river St. Lawrence, in
such a manner as you shall judge most effectual to disgrace the enemy,
and for the success and honour of his Majesty's arms.
Remember the barbarities that have been committed by the enemy's
Indian scoundrels on every occasion, where they had an opportunity of
shewing their infamous cruelties on the King's subjects, which they
have done without mercy. Take your revenge, but don't forget that tho'
those villains have dastardly and promiscuously murdered the women and
children of all ages, it is my orders that no women or children are
killed or hurt.
When you have executed your intended service, you will return with
your detachment to camp or join me wherever the army may be. Your's, &c.
Jeff. Amherst. Camp at Crown Point
(Journals of Major Robert Rogers 1769, pp. 131-132, reprinted
Bargersville, IN: Dresslar Publishing 1997, pp. 131-132).
Major Robert Rogers led a group of 142 English regulars, including
officers, volunteers, and provincial soldiers, north up Lake Champlain
towards St. Francis. They were accompanied by 24 Mohican Indians from
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The known names of the Indians who
accompanied Rogers included 2nd Lieutenant William Hendrick Phillips,
Captain Jacob Cheeksaunkaun, Captain Jacob the younger, Sergeant
Abraham Wnaumpos, and Sergeant Philip, in addition to Rangers John
Maunaummaug, Jacob Miscoukukk, Jeremiah Maukhquampoo, John Jacob, Wonk
Napkin, Andrew Wansant, Daniel Nepash, and Samadagwis.
They left Crown Point in mid-September and headed for Missisquoi Bay,
but their numbers were soon diminished; forty men were sent back, some
having been burned in a gunpowder accident, and others being sick. To
add to their difficulties, the weather was stormy and raining for much
of the journey, as Rogers' company continued north on foot. Rogers'
whaleboats were discovered, and scuttled, by the French and the
Missisquoi Abenaki. French scouts soon reported seeing English
soldiers in the forests east of Montreal, heading towards the St.
Francis River.
On October 1, 1759, a force of 100 French soldiers and Abenaki men set
out from Odanak to search for Rogers' men. They went north along the
St. Lawrence River to Wigwam Martinique, following information that
claimed that the attack would come from the north. In fact, the
intelligence was correct, but Major Robert Rogers had changed his
plans after the loss of his boats and some of his men. On October 3,
some Abenaki women washing in the St. Francis River spotted wood chips
floating on the water – oral traditions suggest that these might have
been from rafts or bridges that Rogers' men built to facilitate
crossing the St. Francis River near what the Abenaki called the
"little woods" around St. Joachim.
The moon was nearly full when Robert Rogers claimed he snuck into the
village during the night of October 3 and "found the Indians in a high
frolic or dance." During that same night, one of Rogers' Stockbridge
Mohican scouts, a man named Samadagwis, delivered a warning about the
impending attack to a young teenaged girl (Maliazonis) during the
dance at the Council House, as shown in the book, Malian's Song.
The exact number of people in the village that night is unclear, but
tradition suggests that more than 100 people hid near the ravine at
Sibosek. Some stayed at the Council House loading up muskets to fight
back. Of the approximately 40 people who stayed behind in their
houses, 32 died, most of them women and children. Most of the wooden
houses at Odanak were destroyed. One tradition says that the bell of
the church kept ringing as that building burned..
News was often slow to travel in the New England colonies, and the
first reports of Rogers' Raid that reached Sir Jeffrey Amherst from
French sources were ominous. Amherst's journal entry for November 2,
1759 notes:
Mons de Cadillac said M Rogers Party had burnt the settlement at
St Francis, killed some Indians, women & children. I fancy he is
mistaken about the women & children & that some Indians & Canadians
had assembled & attacked M Rogers in his retreat at night. (Jeffery
Amherst. The Journal of Jeffrey Amherst, Recording the Military Career
of General Amherst in America from 1758 to 1763. Edited by J. Clarence
Webster. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 1931, p. 186.)
A few days later, Amherst received a letter containing Major Rogers'
version of the attack, which sounded far more successful, from the
English perspective:
At half an hour before sun-rise I surprised the town when they
were all fast asleep, on the right, left, and center, which was done
with so much alacrity by both the officers and men, that the enemy had
not time to recover themselves, or take arms for their own defense,
till they were chiefly destroyed, except some few of them who took to
the water. About forty of my people pursued them, who destroyed such
as attempted to make their escape that way, and sunk both them and
their boats. A little after sun-rise I set fire to all their houses
except three in which there was corn that I reserved for the use of
the party.
The fire consumed many of the Indians who had concealed themselves
in the cellars and lofts of their houses. About seven o'clock in the
morning the affair was completely over, in which time we had killed at
least two hundred Indians, and taken twenty of their women and
children prisoners, fifteen of whom I let go their own way, and five I
brought with me, viz. two Indian boys and three Indian girls. I
likewise retook five English captives, which I also took under my
care. (Robert Rogers, Journals of Major Robert Rogers, 1765, reprinted
Corinth, NY: Corinth Books 1961, pp. 105-107.)
Rogers lost only one man during the fighting in the village –
Samadagwis, the Stockbridge scout who warned Maliazonis (he was found
later that morning, and, at his request, was "baptized" before he was
killed by the Abenaki).
When Rogers left Odanak, he took with him at least 6 Abenaki people as
captives, including Nanamaghemet (Marie-Jeanne Gill), wife of Chief
Joseph Louis Gill, and 5 children. His prisoners told him that a large
force of 300 French and Indians were situated at the mouth of the St.
Francis River, and another 200 French and 15 Indians were at Yamaska.
During the disastrous return journey, as Rogers' men were hotly
pursued by Abenaki and French fighters, he split up the company and 43
rangers – more than half of his remaining men – died of wounds or
starvation.
Abenaki oral traditions and the Rangers' own journals recall the
extreme state of starvation that Rogers' men were in by the time they
attacked Odanak. The Rangers stole some corn, but they were forced to
flee so quickly out of the village that there was no time to hunt, and
they scrabbled for ground-nuts and lily roots to avoid starvation. In
desperation, some of the raiders cannibalized their own dead. One
Abenaki captive, Marie-Jeanne Gill, was killed and eaten by the
rangers during the retreat, according to the diary of Lieutenant
George Campbell, who wrote:
Ye Chef's wife expired & may have been kill'd by ye Stockbridges.
Ye Major has asked me not to reveal this probability that Jenkins
Stockbridges kill'd ye Chefs Squaw. – She led them toward ye French on
Loch Champlain. Her flesh kept them alive, except poor Jenkins who did
not eat... (Lieutenant George Campbell, December 12, 1759, original
manuscript in the possession of Burt G. Loescher, excerpted in The
History of Rogers' Rangers. Vol. 4. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books 2002, p.
259)
In Abenaki traditions, the resort to cannibalism is an atrocious act
that signals a terrible transformation out of human form. Traditional
stories contain warnings about cannibal giants and other spirits that
might harm the unwary. In the first pages of Malian's Song, Abenaki
readers may recognize the veiled reference to these stories in the
humorous exchange between Malian and her father about the "water
monster" who "eats whoever is last." This is also a poignant reference
to later events, since Malian, who reached the house first that
morning, survived the raid while her father perished.
The Jesuit Father Pierre-Joseph Antoine Roubaud was away during the
attack, but he returned that afternoon to find the church burned to
the ground, the sacred objects looted, the corn stores stolen or
burned, and many families just returning from their sheltered place at
Sibosek. In a letter to the Count de Vergennes, Roubaud briefly
described the scene, and the effect of the Abenaki pursuit of one of
Rogers' detachments of soldiers:
Most of the village was burned to ashes including my house.
Considerable Indian corn and Indians were burned. Ten men and
twenty-two women and infants [dead]. I gathered my savages and the
next day we pursued the assailants with our complement. Because of
lack of provisions, Major Rogers divided his party. My savages took
prisoners and destroyed three-fourths of the detachment. (Father
Pierre-Joseph Antoine Roubaud, letter to Count de Vergennes, Lourdes,
2 March, 1776, original in Paris, copy in National Archives of Canada,
FM, 5, Vol. 515, pp. 12-13.)
The historians who have compared English, French, and Abenaki records
now generally agree that Rogers exaggerated the success of his raid,
and inflated the numbers of the Abenaki dead, in large part to cover
his own losses. The French and Abenaki records agree that only 32
Abenaki people actually died during the raid, among them 10 men and 22
women and children who were burned in their homes or shot while trying
to escape. Several hundred people survived, thanks to the warning
delivered by Samadagwis. Roubaud's account of the number of dead and
looting of the church was corroborated by Bishop de Pontbriand, who
wrote to the Bishop of France:
The Mission of the Abenaquis Indians of Saint Francois has been
utterly destroyed by a party of English and Indians, who have stolen
all the vestments and sacred vessels, have thrown the sacred Hosts on
the ground, have killed some thirty persons, more than 20 were women
and children. (Bishop de Pontbriand, Montreal, letter to a Bishop of
France, November 5, 1759, Documents Relative to the Colonial History
of the State of New York, Volume X, p. 1058.)
Some information about the Rangers' retreat came from the Missisquoi
Abenaki community, situated about 80 miles south of Odanak. Monsieur
de Sabrevois, who had been out hunting at Missisquoi Bay with the
Abenaki, reported:
...while crossing the bay in bark canoes, they had seen few men
shooting at ducks. Then, some of the Abenakis set out to go by land to
their fort on the Missisquoi River, which they had deserted since the
beginning of the campaign [1759]. When they arrived, they saw a heavy
smoke rising up. Coming nearer cautiously, they heard English words,
and they noticed that of the five horses they had left only four were
remaining; the English must have killed one for food. (Thomas
Charland, "The Lake Champlain Army and the Fall of Montreal" in
Vermont History 28(4), 1960, p. 298.)
Sir Jeffery Amherst started receiving various reports as Rangers
trickled in to English outposts. In his journal entry of November 8,
1759, he noted that several Rangers returning from Otter Creek "were
loaded with wampum & fine things they took at St Francis" (The Journal
of Jeffrey Amherst, 1931, p. 189). In the decades since, weapons and
other items lost during the hasty retreat have periodically turned up.
Treasure hunters are still searching for the church relics, two of
which may have been found in the early 1800s, according to a November
15, 1869 letter from E. Harrington to Louis Gill at Odanak:
In 1827, an incense vessel, believed to have been left by one of
Rogers' men, was found on an island in the Watopeka river where it
empties into the St. Francis, at Windsor Mills, Quebec, and in 1838,
one Robert Orme, of Vermont, found a large image of a saint at the
mouth of the Magog river, and gave it to a priest then living in
Sherbrooke. (Letter from E. Harrington at Magog to Louis Gill at
Odanak, November 15, 1869, in "Major Rogers and the Abenakis'
Treasures" by Jacques Boisvert, Sherbooke Daily Record, March 20,
1987, available on-line at the Ne-do-ba website
<http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_4.html>
Two of the Abenaki captives that Rogers' men brought back – girls who
were said to have been relatives of Eunice Williams (an English girl
captured by the Mohawk from Deerfield, Massachusetts in 1704) died of
smallpox at Albany. One of the captives was reunited with a familiar
face, in one of the more poignant encounters after the raid, when he
met with Susannah Johnson, who had been captured by the St. Francis
Abenaki five years earlier. Johnson wrote from Charlestown, New
Hampshire in late October of 1759:
He [Major Rogers] brought with him a young Indian prisoner, who
stopped at my house, the moment he saw me he cried, my God, my God,
here is my sister; it was my little brother Sabatis, who formerly used
to bring the cows for me, when I lived at my Indian masters...When he
got to Otter Creek, he met my son Sylvanus, who was in the army with
Col. Willard; he recognized him, and clasping him in his arms, "My
God," says he, "the fortune of war!" - I shall ever remember this
young Indian with affection. (Susannah Johnson, A Narrative of the
Captivity of Mrs. Johnson, original 1796, reprint of the 3rd edition
from Windsor, Vermont 1814, Springfield, MA: H. R. Hutting 1870, p.
133-4.)
Recollections of Rogers' Raid in Abenaki Families
In the years after the attack, Malian Obomsawin combined her memories
with those of the teenaged girl we have named Maliazonis, who was a
close relative, when she passed the oral tradition on to her
granddaughter, Mali Msadoques, at some time in the early 1800s. An
elderly Mali Msadoques passed the story on to her young niece, Elvine
Obomsawin, when Elvine was a child in the late 1800s.
In 1959, 200 years after the attack, when Elvine Obomsawin Royce was
living in Vermont, she recorded the family recollections of Rogers'
Raid on audiotape for the ethnologist Gordon Day. When Day first heard
Elvine Obomsawin's family tradition, he thought that perhaps she was
describing a Mohawk attack, until he recognized events related to
Rogers Raid. In Abenaki, the word Magwak usually referred to Mohawk or
Iroquois people, but the literal translation is "man-eater," a term
that could refer to any especially fearsome enemy. Traditions vary
about precisely what words Rogers' Stockbridge Mohican scout,
Samadagwis, spoke, but it is clear in all versions that he carried a
warning about strangers who were planning an attack the next morning.
The Obomsawin family tradition recalls Samadagwis saying:
Akwi sagezi. ("Don't be afraid.")...Kwidobawo nia -- ni nigik
alnobak -- magwak pilewakak --odaino yo kpiwsi. ("I-am-your-friend --
and those Indians -- Iroquois strangers [Rogers' Rangers]
--they-are-here in-the-little-woods") Alemi môdziidit alemiwigwômwôk,
mziwi môdzoldimek ni alemi tebakak nidzi mziwi ogadi nhlônô,
ozanôbamewô, ni odzikseminô kedodanawô, ni nebaiiôn nia wadzi
wawôdokwlan. ("When they-leave [the Abenaki] for-their-home, all
leaving and during-the-night then-will all [Rogers' men] they-will
kill-them, their-husbands, and they-burn-it your-village, and I-come I
for warning-you.") (Elvine Obomsawin's original interview recorded by
Gordon Day in 1959, reel 29, side 1, in the collections of the Museum
of Civilization, Hull, Ontario)
Malian's story was a particularly sad one, since shortly after her
father Simôn rescued her, he was killed, when an English soldier fired
his gun at the sunlight glinting off of the silver brooch that Simôn
wore on his hat. Day realized that the warning had saved Malian and
most of the village, but he was puzzled that one of Rogers' own scouts
would take such a risk.
Samadagwis' action reveals the presence of some friendships and family
ties between Mohican and Abenaki people, despite their conflicting
loyalties to the English and French. When Day first wrote about this
event in the 1970s, he speculated that Samadagwis's tribal identity
was Schaghticoke, primarily because so many "Schaghticoke Indians" had
moved to Odanak during the 1740s. This is a common error, however.
Samadagwis actually identified himself as "Mahikan," a variant
spelling of Mohican. By the 18th century, the Mohican Indians who
lived in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, along the Housatonic River, were
primarily Housatonic Mohican from the lowlands of the Berkshire
Mountains. They were entirely separate from the Connecticut River
Valley Indians (Pocumtuck, Nonotuck, Woronoco, etc.) who had recently
relocated to the refugee village of Schaghticoke, New York, which
happened to be situated in Mohican territory near the Hudson River.
"Schaghticoke" is a locative name that references a place where two
rivers come together. An entirely different tribal group, the
Schaghticoke tribe, is located in northwestern Connecticut. Some
historians have also been confused by the similarity of "Mohican" to
the name "Mohegan," yet another tribal group located in southern
Connecticut.
Since Odanak had also become a refugee community over time, there were
marriages between people from several different Abenaki bands. There
were also close political relations, military alliances, and some
marriages between Abenaki people living at Odanak on the Canadian
side, and Abenaki people living at Missisquoi, Lake George, Cowass,
and other enclaves on the United States side of the border. Those
family connections still cross the border today. There were also some
family connections with Mohawk people from the Catholic mission
villages at Kahnawake and Akwesasne. Francis Annance's Abenaki mother
was away from the village when the fighting broke out, but his Mohawk
father, Gabriel Annance, rushed back to the house to rescue him:
Simon Annance's grandfather, Gabriel Annance, was a Mohawk Indian.
Gabriel Annance occupied the house where Ignace Masta lives now, the
SAME house, and he and his family fled into the brook in rear of the
house, and in their fright they forgot their young child FRANCIS --
who was born the day that Quebec surrendered to the English -- and his
father returned into the house through the back window and got out of
the back window with the child just as the soldiers entered the front
of the house by breaking in the door... (E. Harrington, 1869
interviews with Abenaki at the village of St. Francis, manuscript copy
from Louis Annance, available on-line at Ne-do-ba
<http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_3.html>.)
According to Abenaki oral tradition, one of the Native men who guided
Rogers to Odanak hid in the brush during the raid, but came back to
Odanak, many years later, with his daughter and son. In 1869,
historian E. Harrington collected this story from Simon Annance:
Pissenne was the guide of Major Rogers when, by order of General
Amherst, he made an attack upon the Abenakis Indians at their village
on the Saint Francis river in Canada, in the year 1759. Pissenne did
not belong to the Abenakis Tribe at Saint Francis, but the first that
they knew of him he came through the great forest to their village
from Penobscot. He had no relations at Saint Francis except one woman
who was his cousin, and she died at Saint Francis when she was very
old...Sometimes he lived for a while at Saint Francis; and, when very
old he came here to stay, and died here at the age of about 115
years...He was a very funny man, and entertaining in his narratives,
and everybody liked his pleasantries. But he had guided a strong and
stealthy band of soldiers to the secluded village of Saint Francis,
and this had resulted in a "horrible massacre" of the Indians, and the
Abenakis never trusted him, but always respected him...When he became
too old to hunt, or trap, or work any more, and he became blind, too
-- he lived mostly on the charity of the Indians of Saint Francis
village. The women and the girls would take care of him and carry him
plenty of food -- as if he had never been their enemy in war. One
night, he ate a hearty supper, and smoked his pipe, both with much
enjoyment, and the next morning was dead in his bed, his prominent
breast apparently collapsed, or sunk in. He sleeps profoundly in the
same cemetery that contains those slain by Rogers. July 31, 1869. (E.
Harrington, 1869 interviews with Abenaki at the village of St.
Francis, manuscript copy from Louis Annance, available on-line at
Ne-do-ba <http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_3.html>.)
Other Abenaki families preserved other details of the oral tradition.
Sophie Morice, born at Missisquoi, told her grandson Theophile Panadis
a family tradition with more details about the dance and the warning.
She also told him that Rogers' men were pursued as they retreated down
the St. Francis River and split into three parties. Those events are
corroborated by the personal journals of Rogers and his men. In the
Panadis family tradition, Samadagwis warning was:
Polewadikw polewakhokw kedawôsizemowôk ta kebahamwomwôk ni
ktsayomwôk. ("To-escape to-make-escape your-children and your-women
and your-old-men.") Pamidebakak nita akwôbi nabiwi wzômi saba
spôzewiwi kwakwataolgona. ("This-very-night as-soon-as-possible
because tomorrow morning they-kill-you.") (Theophile Panadis' original
interview recorded by Gordon Day in 1961, reel 27, side 1, in the
collections of the Museum of Civilization, Hull, Ontario)
Theophile Panadis told Gordon Day how, the morning after the attack,
some Abenaki men found the Stockbridge Mohican scout lying wounded on
what is now Louis Paul Road. They raised a hatchet to kill him, but he
asked to be named and baptized first. So they named him "Samadagwis."
Then they killed him.
In the book Malian's Song, Malian and Maliazonis are excited about a
dance and feast being held at the Council House. According to the
Annance family tradition, the celebration had been going on for nearly
a week, and was so loud that some Abenaki families had moved their
bedding to an island below the village just so they could sleep.
The Indians had been having a triumphal dance every night for
nearly a week, and some of them had retired to the first island below
the church for undisturbed rest. When the killing began, some fled to
the islands, and some were shot in the river while trying to get to
the island, or to the opposite shore of the river...
When Rogers came, Simon Annance's father was a boy, about ten
years old, and his name was Bartholomew Annance. His mother --
Bartholomew's mother -- was tired of the dancing, and the boisterous
noise, and she took her boy, Bartholomew, and went down to the great
island, about a mile and a half below the village, to sleep in quiet,
and the next morning she was waked by the guns of Rogers' onslaught.
Rogers pillaged and burnt the Indian church. (E. Harrington, 1869
interviews with Abenaki at the village of St. Francis, manuscript copy
from Louis Annance, available on-line at Ne-do-ba
<http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_3.html>.)
Some Abenaki oral traditions about the attack became entangled with
other events, and were confused in the mists of time. One of the
Abenaki people who spoke to Harrington said that the priest was killed
while kneeling at the foot of the cross; this event did not actually
take place at Odanak, but during an earlier attack at Norridgewock,
another Abenaki mission and refugee village on the Kennebec River in
western Maine, where Father Sebastian Rasles was murdered by English
militia in 1724.
According to the Annance family, Malian Obomsawin was not the only
child rescued in the nick of time. Dr. John B. Masta told Harrington
that his mother, Marguerite Annance, who was in the house with her
brother Bartholomew and Francis Annance when Rogers' men arrived,
recalled rushing to escape:
...her father said to her brother; "Where is your gun?" Her
brother said; "I don't know." Her father said to him; "Have not I told
you to have your gun always ready? - for you do not know when the
enemy may come. Run, both of you, into the bush and hide." They were
running along a little path, and there was in the path at one place a
little depression with water in it, and they turned a little out of
the path, for a few steps, to shun the water, and an Indian was close
to them and he said, "Run, little girl, just as fast as you can." And
she said; "I will run fast as I can." The Indian saw one of Rogers men
coming from the bush in the path that the children were in, and he
would meet the children. So the Indian went down on one knee and shot
his gun at the man. (E. Harrington, 1869 interviews with Abenaki at
the village of St. Francis, manuscript copy from Louis Annance,
available on-line at Ne-do-ba
<http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_3.html>.)
In the years after the raid, although many Abenaki families fled back
to the old places, in present-day Vermont, New Hampshire, upstate New
York, and elsewhere, others returned to Odanak. The village was
rebuilt, and today, it is a peaceful place, with few reminders of the
devastation of 1759. On a boulder in front of the church, there is a
bronze plaque that reads:
NEMIKWALd**nANA We Remember This area is planted as a living
memorial to the Saint Francis Indians, men, women and children, who
died in Rogers' raid October 4, 1759
Living With Oral Traditions
When Gordon Day published the Abenaki accounts, in an article titled
"Rogers' Raid in Indian Tradition," historians were amazed. Elvine
Obomsawin's granddaughter, Jeanne Brink was awestruck to hear the
Abenaki perspective on Rogers' Raid.
To think that my grandmother had known that story, and that no one
had heard the Abenaki version in over two hundred years...it really
made me see my grandmother in a different light, when I realized that
she knew this amazing piece of history.
The technique of passing oral traditions from the eldest people to the
very young had long helped to ensure that accuracy was maintained over
time. For generations, Abenaki children grew up continuing to learn
the details of the historical, medicinal, spiritual, occupational, and
other knowledges their families carried until they, themselves, were
old enough to pass them on. Over time, other practices began to take
the place of oral tradition as the primary means of passing on
knowledge. The shift from speaking Abenaki to speaking French or
English, the institution of regular schooling rather than traditional
learning, changes in lifeways, movements away from familiar territory,
and the practice of writing things down all resulted in a loss of some
of the traditional knowledge that lived in the spoken word.
Rogers' Raid was one attack, on just one Abenaki village, but it has
had a lingering impact on Abenaki history ever since. The Abenaki
community at Odanak is recognized as a First Nation by the Canadian
government, but the Abenaki community at Missisquoi, which has also
persisted to the present, has yet to be federally-recognized by the
United States government. Enclaves of Abenaki families persisted in
other places, around Lake George, Pennacook territory, and elsewhere,
but the connections throughout Ndakinna are still poorly understood by
many historians today, in part because of the emotional impact of
Rogers' Raid, and the mistaken illusion that Odanak was the only
homeplace of Abenaki people. During the 1950s, and 1960s, many Abenaki
elders tried to protect their children from prejudice by not teaching
them their Native language, and not talking to them about their
history. Some, especially those who lived in New England lived in
fear that one day, the descendants of Rogers' Rangers would come to
finish them off.
Over the past few decades, as increasing numbers of Native people have
begun trusting and working with white historians, more indigenous
narratives like these have been emerging to complicated the
straightforward narratives of American history. Non-Native historians
are now struggling with their attempts to devise standards for
verifying all of these "new" oral traditions, while failing to
recognize that orality is older than writing. The written record is
not more inherently "truthful" than any spoken text. All texts have
their peculiarities, biases, and flaws, some more than others.
Indigenous oral traditions, when rooted in the memories of a living
community, are typically connected to specific families, objects,
events, and moments in time, and depend upon an intimate knowledge of
the language and landscapes within which those events took place.
Until we know Native people, and the language, and the land, as they
do, we should not presume to know their history.
Today, Jeanne Brink, and many other Abenaki people, refuse to live in
fear anymore. They are finally speaking the truth about the past,
sharing their family history, and their life stories, with anyone who
is willing to listen.
Suggested Further Reading:
Jeffery Amherst. The Journal of Jeffrey Amherst, Recording the
Military Career of General Amherst in America from 1758 to 1763.
Edited by J. Clarence Webster. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press 1931.
Joseph Bruchac. The Winter People. New York, NY: Dial Books 2002.
Steven Brumwell. White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery, and
Vengeance in Colonial America. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, Perseus
Books Group 2004.
Gordon Day. "Rogers Raid in Indian Tradition," in Historical New
Hampshire. Vol. XVII June 1962, pp. 3-17.
Gordon Day. The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians. Canadian
Ethnology Service Paper No. 71. Ottawa, Ontario: National Museums of
Canada 1981.
E. Harrington. Interviews with Abenaki at the village of St. Francis
1869. Manuscript copy in possession of Louis Annance, available
on-line at Ne-do-ba <http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_3.html>.)
Burt Garfield Loescher. The History of Rogers' Rangers. Vol. 4. Bowie,
MD: Heritage Books 2002.
Robert Rogers. Journals of Major Robert Rogers (1769) reprinted in
Warfare on the Colonial Frontier: The Journals of Major Robert Rogers
etc. Bargersville, IN: Dresslar Publishing 1997.
Timothy Todish. The Annotated and Illustrated Journals of Major Robert
Rogers. Fleischmanns, New York: Purple Mountain Press 2002
and European Records of Rogers' Raid
by Marge Bruchac, August 2006
The October 4, 1759 attack on St. Francis is recognized as an
important event in American history, but most people only know the
fictional version. The movie "Northwest Passage" portrays half-naked
savages, living in tipis and pounding on great war drums. Town
histories depict the Abenaki as violent foreign marauders, who
attacked no reason, conveniently forgetting to mention the broken
treaties and boundary violations of English settlers in Abenaki
territory. Some historians have claimed the Abenaki were engaged in a
drunken orgy the night before the raid. Those who have read Robert
Rogers' account think that more than 200 Abenaki people were killed,
and that the survivors were few and far between. These fictions have
twisted this event into unrecognizable shape. The truth, as preserved
in Abenaki oral traditions, French records, and English documents,
including the writings of Rogers' own men, is far more complicated.
The children's book, Malian's Song, recounts some of the Abenaki oral
traditions regarding the English attack conducted by Major Robert
Rogers, as seen through the eyes of two young girls – Malian and
Maliazonis – who lived through it. The fishing scene and family
encounters that open this book are semi-fictional moments that serve
to illustrate the nature of Abenaki family life and activities at the
time. The other elements of this story are factual, taken directly
from the written records and personal accounts of witnesses and
families who recalled specific events. This essay offers some excerpts
from the extant written records, and some insights that help explain
how the Abenaki oral traditions portrayed in Malian's Song relate to
the European records.
Many of the well-documented historical details preserved in Abenaki
oral traditions and French written records are unfamiliar to
Americans, who have been widely exposed to the biased accounts of
colonial soldiers, and the stereotypes and errors in the writings of
later historians. A number of the cultural and historical details
about family life, material culture, and the events surrounding
Rogers' Raid, as illustrated in Malian's Song, come directly from oral
tradition, and are corroborated by other sources. These include:
premonitions among some of the elders about the impending attack; the
silver brooch on Simôn Obomsawin's hat; the Council House dance; the
warning given by the Stockbridge Mohican scout (Samadagwis) to a
teenaged Abenaki girl; the location of the hiding place at Sibosek;
Malian's falling asleep with her arms on the windowsill; Malian's
rescue by her father; the burning of the village; the theft of corn
from the storage houses; the return of Father Roubaud to the ashes of
his church; the movement of survivors into winter camps or southward
to rejoin other Abenaki communities; the lonesome song; and the
rebuilding of the village.
Abenaki Homelands: Ndakinna During the 18th Century
Malian's home village of "Odanak" (which literally translates to "at
the dwelling-place") was, and is, situated on the east bank of the St.
Francis River, northwest of Pierreville, near the St. Lawrence, about
40 miles north of Montreal (also known as Ville-Marie). The St.
Francis River was known to the Abenaki as Arsikantegouk or Alsigontekw
(meaning "empty cabin river" or "place of shells"), a name that
recalled both a 1691 Mohawk attack and a 1700 plague. During the late
1690s, Jesuit missionaries built a Catholic mission dedicated to Saint
Francis there, and offered the Abenaki people protection under the
colony of New France. The Abenaki people living at Odanak were, and
are, closely related to the Abenaki at Wolinak ("a bay"), further
north on the St. Lawrence near Trois Rivières and Bécancoeur.
The original Abenaki homelands reached far beyond the boundaries of
Odanak. Ndakinna (meaning, "our homeland") includes all of present-day
New Hampshire, all but the southwestern corner of Vermont, and parts
of northern Massachusetts, northeastern New York state, and southern
Canada, encompassing important waterways like the Kwanitegok ("long
river" – the Connecticut River) and Merrimack or Morôdemak ("deep
river") and thousands of fresh-water lakes. Although particular bands
and families took responsibility for specific sites and resources,
Abenaki people routinely travelled all over this territory for
seasonal hunting and fishing and ceremonial gatherings.
Many of the familiar tribal names used today are actually locative
words that refer to specific regions. During the late 1600s, some
Abenaki families from the tribal bands called Cowass ("pine-tree
place"), Missisquoi or Mazipskoik ("place of the flint"), Pennacook
("place of ground-nuts"), Pequawket ("broken, cleared land"), and
Sokoki ("southern place") started moving northward in response to the
increasing incursions of English settlers from the Massachusetts
colonies. Other families stayed in those places, and are still living
there today. Odanak eventually incorporated a number of Abenaki
families from these bands, along with Native refugees from the
Massachusetts tribes of –Pocumtuck ("swift, sandy river"), Woronoco
("winding river"), Nonotuck ("in the midst of the river"), Quabaug
("red pond"), and others – who had been forced out of the middle
Connecticut River Valley by English colonists. The tribal groups who
moved north eventually became known collectively as "St. Francis
Indians" after they allied with French soldiers during the military
conflicts of the 1690s-1760s that are commonly called the "French and
Indian Wars."
By 1759, the Abenaki village situated on a bluff above the St. Francis
River was neither a cluster of bark-covered wigwams, nor was it a
stockaded arrangement of longhouses. The several hundred Wôbanakiak
("Abenaki Indian people") living at Odanak inhabited 51 houses built
in the English or French style. Monsieur Franquet, a French engineer
who visited the village in 1752, observed that most homes were
constructed of squared log timbers covered with lengths of bark or
rough-cut boards. At least 12 were one or two-story French-style
wood-frame houses with clapboards; 3 houses were built of stone. They
were arranged in rows around a central square, with a church and a
large Council House. Simôn Obomsawin's family lived in a two-story
French-style wood-frame house.
The premonitions about the attack came in various forms. Some elders
are said to have had recurring dreams about English or Mohawk attacks
that likely resonated from their experiences as young children during
King Philip's War (1675-1676), King William's War (1689-97), Queen
Anne's War (1702-13), Greylock's War (also called Dummer's War, Father
Rasle's War, and Lovewell's War, 1722-25) King George's War (1744-48),
the French and Indian War (1754-63), and other conflicts that had
forced them to move north. Odanak felt like a safe place, since it had
a Catholic mission under the protection of the French, and was located
far to the north of the English settlements. But some of the more
traditional elders felt that dependence on European lifeways was
dangerous. In Malian's Song, this attitude is reflected in Nokomis's
statement that "French houses bring bad dreams," as she packs for her
winter camp. Another common belief among Abenaki people even today is
that birds, animals, fish, and other non-human creatures carry
important messages. This is reflected in the opening pages of Malian's
Song when she slips and falls into the river, and later realizes that
the namassaak ("fish people") were trying to warn her that trouble was
coming.
General Jeffrey Amherst's Plans and Major Robert Rogers' Attack in 1759
During the French and Indian wars, Abenaki warriors gained a
reputation for ferocity during their battles against English colonists
who were encroaching on Abenaki territory. Their adversaries were New
England men who spent most of their lives enmeshed in military
conflicts as the English colonies tried to expand northward, meeting
Abenaki resistance every step of the way. Robert Rogers adopted
scouting and ranging techniques that blended military practices used
by the Scottish border patrols in Britain with Native American Indian
tactics and woodcraft.
In 1759, not long after his capture of Fort Carillon/Fort Ticonderoga
from the French, General Jeffrey Amherst sent Rogers' Ranger Captain
Quinton Kennedy northward carrying both proposals of peace for the
Abenaki (who were loyal to the French), and secret dispatches to
General Wolfe, who was then besieging the French town of Quebec. On
August 8, Kennedy, along with Lieutenant Hamilton, Captain Jacob
Naunaphataunk and six Stockbridge Mohicans set out. On August 24, they
were captured by an Abenaki hunting party and conveyed to St. Francis
where Father Pierre-Joseph Roubaud detained them. One oral tradition
suggests that a Stockbridge man was tortured and killed after he
refused to return to his St. Francis Abenaki wife. The officers were
abused, and Amherst was so incensed that he decided, as Rogers
recalled, "to chastize these savages with some severity."
General Jeffrey Amherst was moved to order an attack on the Abenaki at
Odanak/St. Francis as retribution for their long participation in New
England raids, their attack on British soldiers at Fort William Henry,
and, more recently, their capture of Captain Kennedy and the killing
of one of Captain Jacob's Stockbridge Mohican Indian scouts. Amherst's
specific instructions to Major Robert Rogers, sent from his camp at
Crown Point on September 13, 1759, read as follows:
You are this night to set out with the detachment as ordered
yesterday, viz. of 200 men, which you will take under your command,
and proceed to Misisquey Bay, from whence you will march and attack
the enemy's settlement on the south-side of the river St. Lawrence, in
such a manner as you shall judge most effectual to disgrace the enemy,
and for the success and honour of his Majesty's arms.
Remember the barbarities that have been committed by the enemy's
Indian scoundrels on every occasion, where they had an opportunity of
shewing their infamous cruelties on the King's subjects, which they
have done without mercy. Take your revenge, but don't forget that tho'
those villains have dastardly and promiscuously murdered the women and
children of all ages, it is my orders that no women or children are
killed or hurt.
When you have executed your intended service, you will return with
your detachment to camp or join me wherever the army may be. Your's, &c.
Jeff. Amherst. Camp at Crown Point
(Journals of Major Robert Rogers 1769, pp. 131-132, reprinted
Bargersville, IN: Dresslar Publishing 1997, pp. 131-132).
Major Robert Rogers led a group of 142 English regulars, including
officers, volunteers, and provincial soldiers, north up Lake Champlain
towards St. Francis. They were accompanied by 24 Mohican Indians from
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The known names of the Indians who
accompanied Rogers included 2nd Lieutenant William Hendrick Phillips,
Captain Jacob Cheeksaunkaun, Captain Jacob the younger, Sergeant
Abraham Wnaumpos, and Sergeant Philip, in addition to Rangers John
Maunaummaug, Jacob Miscoukukk, Jeremiah Maukhquampoo, John Jacob, Wonk
Napkin, Andrew Wansant, Daniel Nepash, and Samadagwis.
They left Crown Point in mid-September and headed for Missisquoi Bay,
but their numbers were soon diminished; forty men were sent back, some
having been burned in a gunpowder accident, and others being sick. To
add to their difficulties, the weather was stormy and raining for much
of the journey, as Rogers' company continued north on foot. Rogers'
whaleboats were discovered, and scuttled, by the French and the
Missisquoi Abenaki. French scouts soon reported seeing English
soldiers in the forests east of Montreal, heading towards the St.
Francis River.
On October 1, 1759, a force of 100 French soldiers and Abenaki men set
out from Odanak to search for Rogers' men. They went north along the
St. Lawrence River to Wigwam Martinique, following information that
claimed that the attack would come from the north. In fact, the
intelligence was correct, but Major Robert Rogers had changed his
plans after the loss of his boats and some of his men. On October 3,
some Abenaki women washing in the St. Francis River spotted wood chips
floating on the water – oral traditions suggest that these might have
been from rafts or bridges that Rogers' men built to facilitate
crossing the St. Francis River near what the Abenaki called the
"little woods" around St. Joachim.
The moon was nearly full when Robert Rogers claimed he snuck into the
village during the night of October 3 and "found the Indians in a high
frolic or dance." During that same night, one of Rogers' Stockbridge
Mohican scouts, a man named Samadagwis, delivered a warning about the
impending attack to a young teenaged girl (Maliazonis) during the
dance at the Council House, as shown in the book, Malian's Song.
The exact number of people in the village that night is unclear, but
tradition suggests that more than 100 people hid near the ravine at
Sibosek. Some stayed at the Council House loading up muskets to fight
back. Of the approximately 40 people who stayed behind in their
houses, 32 died, most of them women and children. Most of the wooden
houses at Odanak were destroyed. One tradition says that the bell of
the church kept ringing as that building burned..
News was often slow to travel in the New England colonies, and the
first reports of Rogers' Raid that reached Sir Jeffrey Amherst from
French sources were ominous. Amherst's journal entry for November 2,
1759 notes:
Mons de Cadillac said M Rogers Party had burnt the settlement at
St Francis, killed some Indians, women & children. I fancy he is
mistaken about the women & children & that some Indians & Canadians
had assembled & attacked M Rogers in his retreat at night. (Jeffery
Amherst. The Journal of Jeffrey Amherst, Recording the Military Career
of General Amherst in America from 1758 to 1763. Edited by J. Clarence
Webster. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 1931, p. 186.)
A few days later, Amherst received a letter containing Major Rogers'
version of the attack, which sounded far more successful, from the
English perspective:
At half an hour before sun-rise I surprised the town when they
were all fast asleep, on the right, left, and center, which was done
with so much alacrity by both the officers and men, that the enemy had
not time to recover themselves, or take arms for their own defense,
till they were chiefly destroyed, except some few of them who took to
the water. About forty of my people pursued them, who destroyed such
as attempted to make their escape that way, and sunk both them and
their boats. A little after sun-rise I set fire to all their houses
except three in which there was corn that I reserved for the use of
the party.
The fire consumed many of the Indians who had concealed themselves
in the cellars and lofts of their houses. About seven o'clock in the
morning the affair was completely over, in which time we had killed at
least two hundred Indians, and taken twenty of their women and
children prisoners, fifteen of whom I let go their own way, and five I
brought with me, viz. two Indian boys and three Indian girls. I
likewise retook five English captives, which I also took under my
care. (Robert Rogers, Journals of Major Robert Rogers, 1765, reprinted
Corinth, NY: Corinth Books 1961, pp. 105-107.)
Rogers lost only one man during the fighting in the village –
Samadagwis, the Stockbridge scout who warned Maliazonis (he was found
later that morning, and, at his request, was "baptized" before he was
killed by the Abenaki).
When Rogers left Odanak, he took with him at least 6 Abenaki people as
captives, including Nanamaghemet (Marie-Jeanne Gill), wife of Chief
Joseph Louis Gill, and 5 children. His prisoners told him that a large
force of 300 French and Indians were situated at the mouth of the St.
Francis River, and another 200 French and 15 Indians were at Yamaska.
During the disastrous return journey, as Rogers' men were hotly
pursued by Abenaki and French fighters, he split up the company and 43
rangers – more than half of his remaining men – died of wounds or
starvation.
Abenaki oral traditions and the Rangers' own journals recall the
extreme state of starvation that Rogers' men were in by the time they
attacked Odanak. The Rangers stole some corn, but they were forced to
flee so quickly out of the village that there was no time to hunt, and
they scrabbled for ground-nuts and lily roots to avoid starvation. In
desperation, some of the raiders cannibalized their own dead. One
Abenaki captive, Marie-Jeanne Gill, was killed and eaten by the
rangers during the retreat, according to the diary of Lieutenant
George Campbell, who wrote:
Ye Chef's wife expired & may have been kill'd by ye Stockbridges.
Ye Major has asked me not to reveal this probability that Jenkins
Stockbridges kill'd ye Chefs Squaw. – She led them toward ye French on
Loch Champlain. Her flesh kept them alive, except poor Jenkins who did
not eat... (Lieutenant George Campbell, December 12, 1759, original
manuscript in the possession of Burt G. Loescher, excerpted in The
History of Rogers' Rangers. Vol. 4. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books 2002, p.
259)
In Abenaki traditions, the resort to cannibalism is an atrocious act
that signals a terrible transformation out of human form. Traditional
stories contain warnings about cannibal giants and other spirits that
might harm the unwary. In the first pages of Malian's Song, Abenaki
readers may recognize the veiled reference to these stories in the
humorous exchange between Malian and her father about the "water
monster" who "eats whoever is last." This is also a poignant reference
to later events, since Malian, who reached the house first that
morning, survived the raid while her father perished.
The Jesuit Father Pierre-Joseph Antoine Roubaud was away during the
attack, but he returned that afternoon to find the church burned to
the ground, the sacred objects looted, the corn stores stolen or
burned, and many families just returning from their sheltered place at
Sibosek. In a letter to the Count de Vergennes, Roubaud briefly
described the scene, and the effect of the Abenaki pursuit of one of
Rogers' detachments of soldiers:
Most of the village was burned to ashes including my house.
Considerable Indian corn and Indians were burned. Ten men and
twenty-two women and infants [dead]. I gathered my savages and the
next day we pursued the assailants with our complement. Because of
lack of provisions, Major Rogers divided his party. My savages took
prisoners and destroyed three-fourths of the detachment. (Father
Pierre-Joseph Antoine Roubaud, letter to Count de Vergennes, Lourdes,
2 March, 1776, original in Paris, copy in National Archives of Canada,
FM, 5, Vol. 515, pp. 12-13.)
The historians who have compared English, French, and Abenaki records
now generally agree that Rogers exaggerated the success of his raid,
and inflated the numbers of the Abenaki dead, in large part to cover
his own losses. The French and Abenaki records agree that only 32
Abenaki people actually died during the raid, among them 10 men and 22
women and children who were burned in their homes or shot while trying
to escape. Several hundred people survived, thanks to the warning
delivered by Samadagwis. Roubaud's account of the number of dead and
looting of the church was corroborated by Bishop de Pontbriand, who
wrote to the Bishop of France:
The Mission of the Abenaquis Indians of Saint Francois has been
utterly destroyed by a party of English and Indians, who have stolen
all the vestments and sacred vessels, have thrown the sacred Hosts on
the ground, have killed some thirty persons, more than 20 were women
and children. (Bishop de Pontbriand, Montreal, letter to a Bishop of
France, November 5, 1759, Documents Relative to the Colonial History
of the State of New York, Volume X, p. 1058.)
Some information about the Rangers' retreat came from the Missisquoi
Abenaki community, situated about 80 miles south of Odanak. Monsieur
de Sabrevois, who had been out hunting at Missisquoi Bay with the
Abenaki, reported:
...while crossing the bay in bark canoes, they had seen few men
shooting at ducks. Then, some of the Abenakis set out to go by land to
their fort on the Missisquoi River, which they had deserted since the
beginning of the campaign [1759]. When they arrived, they saw a heavy
smoke rising up. Coming nearer cautiously, they heard English words,
and they noticed that of the five horses they had left only four were
remaining; the English must have killed one for food. (Thomas
Charland, "The Lake Champlain Army and the Fall of Montreal" in
Vermont History 28(4), 1960, p. 298.)
Sir Jeffery Amherst started receiving various reports as Rangers
trickled in to English outposts. In his journal entry of November 8,
1759, he noted that several Rangers returning from Otter Creek "were
loaded with wampum & fine things they took at St Francis" (The Journal
of Jeffrey Amherst, 1931, p. 189). In the decades since, weapons and
other items lost during the hasty retreat have periodically turned up.
Treasure hunters are still searching for the church relics, two of
which may have been found in the early 1800s, according to a November
15, 1869 letter from E. Harrington to Louis Gill at Odanak:
In 1827, an incense vessel, believed to have been left by one of
Rogers' men, was found on an island in the Watopeka river where it
empties into the St. Francis, at Windsor Mills, Quebec, and in 1838,
one Robert Orme, of Vermont, found a large image of a saint at the
mouth of the Magog river, and gave it to a priest then living in
Sherbrooke. (Letter from E. Harrington at Magog to Louis Gill at
Odanak, November 15, 1869, in "Major Rogers and the Abenakis'
Treasures" by Jacques Boisvert, Sherbooke Daily Record, March 20,
1987, available on-line at the Ne-do-ba website
<http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_4.html>
Two of the Abenaki captives that Rogers' men brought back – girls who
were said to have been relatives of Eunice Williams (an English girl
captured by the Mohawk from Deerfield, Massachusetts in 1704) died of
smallpox at Albany. One of the captives was reunited with a familiar
face, in one of the more poignant encounters after the raid, when he
met with Susannah Johnson, who had been captured by the St. Francis
Abenaki five years earlier. Johnson wrote from Charlestown, New
Hampshire in late October of 1759:
He [Major Rogers] brought with him a young Indian prisoner, who
stopped at my house, the moment he saw me he cried, my God, my God,
here is my sister; it was my little brother Sabatis, who formerly used
to bring the cows for me, when I lived at my Indian masters...When he
got to Otter Creek, he met my son Sylvanus, who was in the army with
Col. Willard; he recognized him, and clasping him in his arms, "My
God," says he, "the fortune of war!" - I shall ever remember this
young Indian with affection. (Susannah Johnson, A Narrative of the
Captivity of Mrs. Johnson, original 1796, reprint of the 3rd edition
from Windsor, Vermont 1814, Springfield, MA: H. R. Hutting 1870, p.
133-4.)
Recollections of Rogers' Raid in Abenaki Families
In the years after the attack, Malian Obomsawin combined her memories
with those of the teenaged girl we have named Maliazonis, who was a
close relative, when she passed the oral tradition on to her
granddaughter, Mali Msadoques, at some time in the early 1800s. An
elderly Mali Msadoques passed the story on to her young niece, Elvine
Obomsawin, when Elvine was a child in the late 1800s.
In 1959, 200 years after the attack, when Elvine Obomsawin Royce was
living in Vermont, she recorded the family recollections of Rogers'
Raid on audiotape for the ethnologist Gordon Day. When Day first heard
Elvine Obomsawin's family tradition, he thought that perhaps she was
describing a Mohawk attack, until he recognized events related to
Rogers Raid. In Abenaki, the word Magwak usually referred to Mohawk or
Iroquois people, but the literal translation is "man-eater," a term
that could refer to any especially fearsome enemy. Traditions vary
about precisely what words Rogers' Stockbridge Mohican scout,
Samadagwis, spoke, but it is clear in all versions that he carried a
warning about strangers who were planning an attack the next morning.
The Obomsawin family tradition recalls Samadagwis saying:
Akwi sagezi. ("Don't be afraid.")...Kwidobawo nia -- ni nigik
alnobak -- magwak pilewakak --odaino yo kpiwsi. ("I-am-your-friend --
and those Indians -- Iroquois strangers [Rogers' Rangers]
--they-are-here in-the-little-woods") Alemi môdziidit alemiwigwômwôk,
mziwi môdzoldimek ni alemi tebakak nidzi mziwi ogadi nhlônô,
ozanôbamewô, ni odzikseminô kedodanawô, ni nebaiiôn nia wadzi
wawôdokwlan. ("When they-leave [the Abenaki] for-their-home, all
leaving and during-the-night then-will all [Rogers' men] they-will
kill-them, their-husbands, and they-burn-it your-village, and I-come I
for warning-you.") (Elvine Obomsawin's original interview recorded by
Gordon Day in 1959, reel 29, side 1, in the collections of the Museum
of Civilization, Hull, Ontario)
Malian's story was a particularly sad one, since shortly after her
father Simôn rescued her, he was killed, when an English soldier fired
his gun at the sunlight glinting off of the silver brooch that Simôn
wore on his hat. Day realized that the warning had saved Malian and
most of the village, but he was puzzled that one of Rogers' own scouts
would take such a risk.
Samadagwis' action reveals the presence of some friendships and family
ties between Mohican and Abenaki people, despite their conflicting
loyalties to the English and French. When Day first wrote about this
event in the 1970s, he speculated that Samadagwis's tribal identity
was Schaghticoke, primarily because so many "Schaghticoke Indians" had
moved to Odanak during the 1740s. This is a common error, however.
Samadagwis actually identified himself as "Mahikan," a variant
spelling of Mohican. By the 18th century, the Mohican Indians who
lived in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, along the Housatonic River, were
primarily Housatonic Mohican from the lowlands of the Berkshire
Mountains. They were entirely separate from the Connecticut River
Valley Indians (Pocumtuck, Nonotuck, Woronoco, etc.) who had recently
relocated to the refugee village of Schaghticoke, New York, which
happened to be situated in Mohican territory near the Hudson River.
"Schaghticoke" is a locative name that references a place where two
rivers come together. An entirely different tribal group, the
Schaghticoke tribe, is located in northwestern Connecticut. Some
historians have also been confused by the similarity of "Mohican" to
the name "Mohegan," yet another tribal group located in southern
Connecticut.
Since Odanak had also become a refugee community over time, there were
marriages between people from several different Abenaki bands. There
were also close political relations, military alliances, and some
marriages between Abenaki people living at Odanak on the Canadian
side, and Abenaki people living at Missisquoi, Lake George, Cowass,
and other enclaves on the United States side of the border. Those
family connections still cross the border today. There were also some
family connections with Mohawk people from the Catholic mission
villages at Kahnawake and Akwesasne. Francis Annance's Abenaki mother
was away from the village when the fighting broke out, but his Mohawk
father, Gabriel Annance, rushed back to the house to rescue him:
Simon Annance's grandfather, Gabriel Annance, was a Mohawk Indian.
Gabriel Annance occupied the house where Ignace Masta lives now, the
SAME house, and he and his family fled into the brook in rear of the
house, and in their fright they forgot their young child FRANCIS --
who was born the day that Quebec surrendered to the English -- and his
father returned into the house through the back window and got out of
the back window with the child just as the soldiers entered the front
of the house by breaking in the door... (E. Harrington, 1869
interviews with Abenaki at the village of St. Francis, manuscript copy
from Louis Annance, available on-line at Ne-do-ba
<http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_3.html>.)
According to Abenaki oral tradition, one of the Native men who guided
Rogers to Odanak hid in the brush during the raid, but came back to
Odanak, many years later, with his daughter and son. In 1869,
historian E. Harrington collected this story from Simon Annance:
Pissenne was the guide of Major Rogers when, by order of General
Amherst, he made an attack upon the Abenakis Indians at their village
on the Saint Francis river in Canada, in the year 1759. Pissenne did
not belong to the Abenakis Tribe at Saint Francis, but the first that
they knew of him he came through the great forest to their village
from Penobscot. He had no relations at Saint Francis except one woman
who was his cousin, and she died at Saint Francis when she was very
old...Sometimes he lived for a while at Saint Francis; and, when very
old he came here to stay, and died here at the age of about 115
years...He was a very funny man, and entertaining in his narratives,
and everybody liked his pleasantries. But he had guided a strong and
stealthy band of soldiers to the secluded village of Saint Francis,
and this had resulted in a "horrible massacre" of the Indians, and the
Abenakis never trusted him, but always respected him...When he became
too old to hunt, or trap, or work any more, and he became blind, too
-- he lived mostly on the charity of the Indians of Saint Francis
village. The women and the girls would take care of him and carry him
plenty of food -- as if he had never been their enemy in war. One
night, he ate a hearty supper, and smoked his pipe, both with much
enjoyment, and the next morning was dead in his bed, his prominent
breast apparently collapsed, or sunk in. He sleeps profoundly in the
same cemetery that contains those slain by Rogers. July 31, 1869. (E.
Harrington, 1869 interviews with Abenaki at the village of St.
Francis, manuscript copy from Louis Annance, available on-line at
Ne-do-ba <http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_3.html>.)
Other Abenaki families preserved other details of the oral tradition.
Sophie Morice, born at Missisquoi, told her grandson Theophile Panadis
a family tradition with more details about the dance and the warning.
She also told him that Rogers' men were pursued as they retreated down
the St. Francis River and split into three parties. Those events are
corroborated by the personal journals of Rogers and his men. In the
Panadis family tradition, Samadagwis warning was:
Polewadikw polewakhokw kedawôsizemowôk ta kebahamwomwôk ni
ktsayomwôk. ("To-escape to-make-escape your-children and your-women
and your-old-men.") Pamidebakak nita akwôbi nabiwi wzômi saba
spôzewiwi kwakwataolgona. ("This-very-night as-soon-as-possible
because tomorrow morning they-kill-you.") (Theophile Panadis' original
interview recorded by Gordon Day in 1961, reel 27, side 1, in the
collections of the Museum of Civilization, Hull, Ontario)
Theophile Panadis told Gordon Day how, the morning after the attack,
some Abenaki men found the Stockbridge Mohican scout lying wounded on
what is now Louis Paul Road. They raised a hatchet to kill him, but he
asked to be named and baptized first. So they named him "Samadagwis."
Then they killed him.
In the book Malian's Song, Malian and Maliazonis are excited about a
dance and feast being held at the Council House. According to the
Annance family tradition, the celebration had been going on for nearly
a week, and was so loud that some Abenaki families had moved their
bedding to an island below the village just so they could sleep.
The Indians had been having a triumphal dance every night for
nearly a week, and some of them had retired to the first island below
the church for undisturbed rest. When the killing began, some fled to
the islands, and some were shot in the river while trying to get to
the island, or to the opposite shore of the river...
When Rogers came, Simon Annance's father was a boy, about ten
years old, and his name was Bartholomew Annance. His mother --
Bartholomew's mother -- was tired of the dancing, and the boisterous
noise, and she took her boy, Bartholomew, and went down to the great
island, about a mile and a half below the village, to sleep in quiet,
and the next morning she was waked by the guns of Rogers' onslaught.
Rogers pillaged and burnt the Indian church. (E. Harrington, 1869
interviews with Abenaki at the village of St. Francis, manuscript copy
from Louis Annance, available on-line at Ne-do-ba
<http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_3.html>.)
Some Abenaki oral traditions about the attack became entangled with
other events, and were confused in the mists of time. One of the
Abenaki people who spoke to Harrington said that the priest was killed
while kneeling at the foot of the cross; this event did not actually
take place at Odanak, but during an earlier attack at Norridgewock,
another Abenaki mission and refugee village on the Kennebec River in
western Maine, where Father Sebastian Rasles was murdered by English
militia in 1724.
According to the Annance family, Malian Obomsawin was not the only
child rescued in the nick of time. Dr. John B. Masta told Harrington
that his mother, Marguerite Annance, who was in the house with her
brother Bartholomew and Francis Annance when Rogers' men arrived,
recalled rushing to escape:
...her father said to her brother; "Where is your gun?" Her
brother said; "I don't know." Her father said to him; "Have not I told
you to have your gun always ready? - for you do not know when the
enemy may come. Run, both of you, into the bush and hide." They were
running along a little path, and there was in the path at one place a
little depression with water in it, and they turned a little out of
the path, for a few steps, to shun the water, and an Indian was close
to them and he said, "Run, little girl, just as fast as you can." And
she said; "I will run fast as I can." The Indian saw one of Rogers men
coming from the bush in the path that the children were in, and he
would meet the children. So the Indian went down on one knee and shot
his gun at the man. (E. Harrington, 1869 interviews with Abenaki at
the village of St. Francis, manuscript copy from Louis Annance,
available on-line at Ne-do-ba
<http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_3.html>.)
In the years after the raid, although many Abenaki families fled back
to the old places, in present-day Vermont, New Hampshire, upstate New
York, and elsewhere, others returned to Odanak. The village was
rebuilt, and today, it is a peaceful place, with few reminders of the
devastation of 1759. On a boulder in front of the church, there is a
bronze plaque that reads:
NEMIKWALd**nANA We Remember This area is planted as a living
memorial to the Saint Francis Indians, men, women and children, who
died in Rogers' raid October 4, 1759
Living With Oral Traditions
When Gordon Day published the Abenaki accounts, in an article titled
"Rogers' Raid in Indian Tradition," historians were amazed. Elvine
Obomsawin's granddaughter, Jeanne Brink was awestruck to hear the
Abenaki perspective on Rogers' Raid.
To think that my grandmother had known that story, and that no one
had heard the Abenaki version in over two hundred years...it really
made me see my grandmother in a different light, when I realized that
she knew this amazing piece of history.
The technique of passing oral traditions from the eldest people to the
very young had long helped to ensure that accuracy was maintained over
time. For generations, Abenaki children grew up continuing to learn
the details of the historical, medicinal, spiritual, occupational, and
other knowledges their families carried until they, themselves, were
old enough to pass them on. Over time, other practices began to take
the place of oral tradition as the primary means of passing on
knowledge. The shift from speaking Abenaki to speaking French or
English, the institution of regular schooling rather than traditional
learning, changes in lifeways, movements away from familiar territory,
and the practice of writing things down all resulted in a loss of some
of the traditional knowledge that lived in the spoken word.
Rogers' Raid was one attack, on just one Abenaki village, but it has
had a lingering impact on Abenaki history ever since. The Abenaki
community at Odanak is recognized as a First Nation by the Canadian
government, but the Abenaki community at Missisquoi, which has also
persisted to the present, has yet to be federally-recognized by the
United States government. Enclaves of Abenaki families persisted in
other places, around Lake George, Pennacook territory, and elsewhere,
but the connections throughout Ndakinna are still poorly understood by
many historians today, in part because of the emotional impact of
Rogers' Raid, and the mistaken illusion that Odanak was the only
homeplace of Abenaki people. During the 1950s, and 1960s, many Abenaki
elders tried to protect their children from prejudice by not teaching
them their Native language, and not talking to them about their
history. Some, especially those who lived in New England lived in
fear that one day, the descendants of Rogers' Rangers would come to
finish them off.
Over the past few decades, as increasing numbers of Native people have
begun trusting and working with white historians, more indigenous
narratives like these have been emerging to complicated the
straightforward narratives of American history. Non-Native historians
are now struggling with their attempts to devise standards for
verifying all of these "new" oral traditions, while failing to
recognize that orality is older than writing. The written record is
not more inherently "truthful" than any spoken text. All texts have
their peculiarities, biases, and flaws, some more than others.
Indigenous oral traditions, when rooted in the memories of a living
community, are typically connected to specific families, objects,
events, and moments in time, and depend upon an intimate knowledge of
the language and landscapes within which those events took place.
Until we know Native people, and the language, and the land, as they
do, we should not presume to know their history.
Today, Jeanne Brink, and many other Abenaki people, refuse to live in
fear anymore. They are finally speaking the truth about the past,
sharing their family history, and their life stories, with anyone who
is willing to listen.
Suggested Further Reading:
Jeffery Amherst. The Journal of Jeffrey Amherst, Recording the
Military Career of General Amherst in America from 1758 to 1763.
Edited by J. Clarence Webster. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press 1931.
Joseph Bruchac. The Winter People. New York, NY: Dial Books 2002.
Steven Brumwell. White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery, and
Vengeance in Colonial America. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, Perseus
Books Group 2004.
Gordon Day. "Rogers Raid in Indian Tradition," in Historical New
Hampshire. Vol. XVII June 1962, pp. 3-17.
Gordon Day. The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians. Canadian
Ethnology Service Paper No. 71. Ottawa, Ontario: National Museums of
Canada 1981.
E. Harrington. Interviews with Abenaki at the village of St. Francis
1869. Manuscript copy in possession of Louis Annance, available
on-line at Ne-do-ba <http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/rrr_3.html>.)
Burt Garfield Loescher. The History of Rogers' Rangers. Vol. 4. Bowie,
MD: Heritage Books 2002.
Robert Rogers. Journals of Major Robert Rogers (1769) reprinted in
Warfare on the Colonial Frontier: The Journals of Major Robert Rogers
etc. Bargersville, IN: Dresslar Publishing 1997.
Timothy Todish. The Annotated and Illustrated Journals of Major Robert
Rogers. Fleischmanns, New York: Purple Mountain Press 2002