"Caniba" redirects here. For the 2017 documentary film, see
Caniba (film)
.
United States historic place
Norridgewock
was the name of both an Indigenous village and a
band
of the
Abenaki
("People of the Dawn")
Native Americans
/
First Nations
, an Eastern
Algonquian
tribe
of the
United States
and
Canada
. The French of
New France
called the village
Kennebec
. The tribe occupied an area in the interior of
Maine
. During colonial times, this area was territory disputed between British and French colonists, and was set along the claimed western border of
Acadia
, the western bank of the
Kennebec River
.
Archaeological evidence has identified several different sites associated with the settlement known as Norridgewock. The last one, where the French Jesuit priest
Sebastian Rale
had a mission, is today called
Old Point
, and is located in
Madison
. Other sites are located nearby in
Starks
and the present-day town of
Norridgewock
. Three of these historically and archaeologically significant areas have been collectively designated as the
Norridgewock Archaeological District
, a
National Historic Landmark District
.
Norridgewock village
[
edit
]
Norridgewock is a corruption of the word
Nanrantsouak
, meaning "people of the still water between the rapids."
[
citation needed
]
Their principal village, also called Norridgewock, was located near
44°46′01″N
69°53′00″W
/
44.767°N 69.8833°W
/
44.767; -69.8833
on a plateau within a broad bend of the
Kennebec River
, opposite its confluence with the Sandy River. A 1716 account by surveyor Joseph Heath describes the village as a square fort surrounded by a 9-foot (2.7 m)
palisade
fence, each side 160 feet (49 m) long with a gate at its center. The fort's walls faced the major points of the
compass
. Two streets connected the gates, forming an open square at the center marked by a large
cross
. The stockade enclosed 26 cabins "built much after the English manner"?probably of logs.
Canoes
were beached along the river, although
paddles
were stored in the cabins. Extensive fields were cleared nearby for cultivation of
maize
,
wheat
,
beans
,
pumpkins
and
squash
. Twice a year, summer and winter, the tribe spent a few months at the seashore catching
fish
,
seals
,
clams
,
oysters
and seafowl.
France claimed the Kennebec River because it provided a potential route to invade
Quebec
(as
Benedict Arnold
would demonstrate in 1775). English colonists claimed the St. George River because they held deeds, even though the
sachems
who signed them often believed they were only granting the right to use the land for hunting, fishing or safe passage. The French insisted that the sachems were not empowered to sell land, since the Abenaki territory belonged to the entire tribe. France and England were at peace, and New France could not take overt action against the settlements (and particularly their alarming
blockhouses
) in the disputed area. Instead, the French government secretly engaged the Indians, guided by their French
Jesuit
missionaries
, to hinder the expansion of English colonists. Missionaries with a dual loyalty to church and king were embedded within Abenaki bands on the Penobscot,
St. Croix
and
Saint John
rivers. However, Norridgewock Village was considered Quebec's predominant advance guard.
In 1694, Father
Sebastien Rale
(or Rasle) arrived at Norridgewock to establish a Jesuit
mission
, the first school in Maine. He built a chapel of bark in 1698, and despite objections from the
medicine men
, Rale converted most of the inhabitants to
Roman Catholicism
. The chapel burned in 1705, but it was replaced with a church in 1720. It stood twenty paces outside the east gate, and measured 60 feet (18 m) long by 25 feet (7.6 m) wide, with an 18-foot (5.5 m) ceiling. Forty Abenaki youths in
cassocks
and
surplices
served as
acolytes
. In a 1722 letter written to
John Goffe
, the church was described by Johnson Harmon and Joseph Heath as:
... a large handsome log building adorned with many pictures and toys to please the Indians ...
Speaking the Abenaki language fluently, Father Rale immersed himself in Indian affairs. His "astonishing influence over their minds" raised suspicions that he was inciting hostility toward the
Protestant
British colonists, whom he considered
heretics
.
King William's War
[
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]
Raid on Oyster River
[
edit
]
During
King William's War
, on July 18, 1694, French soldier
Claude-Sebastien de Villieu
with about 250 Abenakis from Norridgewock under command of their
sagamore
(paramount chief), Bomazeen (or Bomoseen) raided the English colonial settlement of
Durham, New Hampshire
, in the "
Oyster River Massacre
". The French and Abenakis killed 45 English settlers and took 49 more captive, burning half of the village, including five
garrisons
. They destroyed the crops and killed all of the livestock, causing famine and destitution for the survivors.
Queen Anne's War
[
edit
]
Abenaki couple, an 18th-century watercolor by an unknown artist. Courtesy of the City of Montreal Records Management & Archives, Montreal, Quebec
When
Queen Anne's War
broke out, with New France and New England again fighting over the border between New England and Acadia,
Massachusetts
Governor
Joseph Dudley
arranged a conference with tribal representatives in 1703 to propose that they remain neutral. On the contrary, however, the Norridgewock tribe in August joined a larger force of
French and Indians
, commanded by
Alexandre Leneuf de Beaubassin
, to attack
Wells
in the
Northeast Coast Campaign
. Father Rale was widely suspected of inciting the tribe against English colonists because their settlements and blockhouses encroached on Abenaki land (and so uncomfortably close to Quebec), but also because they were Protestant and therefore heretics. Governor Dudley put a price on his head. In the winter of 1705, 275 English colonial militia under the command of Colonel Winthrop Hilton were dispatched to seize Rale and sack the village. Warned in time, the priest escaped into the woods with his papers, but the militia burned the village and church.
[3]
Raid on Wells (1703)
[
edit
]
As part of the
Northeast Coast Campaign (1703)
, 500 Indians, including those from Norridgewock and a few French, commanded by Alexandre Leneuf de Beaubassin, raided
Wells
on August 10 and 11, 1703.
[4]
Raid on Norridgewock (1705)
[
edit
]
In retaliation, there was a bounty put on Father Rale. Finding the village deserted in the winter of 1705 because its occupants, including Rale had been warned of an impending attack, Colonel
Winthrop Hilton
ordered his 275 English colonial militia to burn the village and the church.
[3]
[5]
With the
Treaty of Utrecht
and
Treaty of Portsmouth (1713)
, however, peace was restored between
France
and
England
. Terms of the treaty required that the French yield Acadia to the English. The boundary of Acadia remained in dispute. The two nations disagreed, and consequently imperial boundaries between Quebec and the
Province of Massachusetts Bay
remained unclear and disputed until the
Treaty of Paris
in 1763.
In 1713, the Norridgewocks had sought peace with English at the
Treaty of Portsmouth
, and accepted the convenience of
trading posts
operated by English settlers on their land (though they protested the tendency of the settlers to cheat them). After all,
beaver
and other skins could be exchanged for cheap goods following a journey of one or two days, when travel to Quebec up the Kennebec, with its rapids and
portages
, required over 15 days.
Father Rale's War
[
edit
]
An incendiary attack
But their acceptance of English settlers faded as Rale instigated the tribe against the encroachment of houses and blockhouses that followed trading posts. He taught the Abenaki that their territory should be held in trust for their children. On July 28, 1721, 250 Abenakis in 90 canoes delivered a letter at
Georgetown
addressed to
Governor
Samuel Shute
, demanding that English settlers quit Abenaki lands. Otherwise, they would be killed and their settlements destroyed.
Raid on Norridgewock (1722)
[
edit
]
In response, Norridgewock was raided in January 1722 by 300 English colonial militia under Colonel
Thomas Westbrook
. They discovered the village almost deserted, with the gates wide open. The tribe was gone hunting. Troops searched for Rale but found only his papers, including letters from New France Governor-general
Vaudreuil
promising
ammunition
for Abenaki raids on English colonial settlements. The tribe retaliated for the invasion by attacking settlements below them on the Kennebec, burning
Brunswick
on June 13, 1722. Some of the raids were accompanied by Rale, who would occasionally allow himself to be seen from houses and blockhouses under
siege
. On July 25, 1722, Massachusetts Governor
Samuel Shute
declared war on the eastern Indians.
Battle of Norridgewock (1724)
[
edit
]
Indian warrior with scalp
The site of the Norridgewock Native American village in Maine, in what is now Madison. The rock at the side of the road bears a plaque marking the site.
Detail of the memorial plaque.
During
Father Rale's War
, at about 3:00 pm on August 23, 1724
(N. S.
), a force of English colonial militia attacked Norridgewock for the last time. A force of 208 militia had left Fort Richmond (now
Richmond
) and divided, leaving about 80 militiamen including three
Mohawks
under the command of Captain
Jeremiah Moulton
. His militia quietly approached the village, which at that time no longer had a stockade. A startled Indian emerging from a cabin gave a war whoop, then darted back inside to get his
musket
. Norridgewock women and children ran from houses to swim or ford across the river and up into the woods. In the confusion, about 60 braves fired guns wildly but did little harm. At that point the militia, ordered to withhold fire until after the enemy's first volley, took aim?with deadly effect. The warriors fired again, then fled across the river, leaving 26 dead and 14 wounded. Bomazeen (or Bomaseen), the
sachem
, who with Sebastien de Villieu had led 250 Abenakis to
Durham, New Hampshire
on July 18, 1694, for the Oyster River Massacre, was shot fording the Kennebec at a place thereafter called Bomazeen Rips. From a cabin, old Chief Mogg shot one of the Mohawks, whose brother then shot him. Meanwhile, from another cabin Father Rale was firing at the militia. Refusing to surrender, he was shot through the head while reloading his gun.
Scalps
of the dead were collected for
bounties
in
Boston
. The militia plundered 3 barrels (0.48 m
3
) of
gunpowder
, together with a few guns, blankets and kettles, before returning to their
whaleboats
at Taconic Falls. One of the Mohawks, a brave named Christian, slipped back to set the village and church on fire, then rejoined the militia. The 150 survivors of Norridgewock returned the next day to bury the dead. Subsequently, most abandoned the area and, "in deplorable condition", relocated to
Saint-Francois
and
Becancour
in Quebec. A few years later, however, many survivors returned to the Upper Kennebec from their refuge in Quebec, and a Jesuit missionary, Jacques de Sirenne, was assigned to their spiritual care.
Legacy
[
edit
]
Norridgewock Village is the setting for the 1836 poem
Mogg Megone
by
John Greenleaf Whittier
.
Archaeological investigation of the Old Point area has identified three separate areas that are historically associated with the appellation "Norridgewock". The principal site at Old Point has long been well documented, and was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
in 1973 as "Old Point and Sebastian Rale Monument", recognizing not just the site itself, but also the placement of a commemorative marker at the site in 1833.
[6]
A second site called Tracy Farm is located about 500 metres (1,600 ft) north of the confluence of the Sandy and Kennebec Rivers in Starks, on the west side of the Kennebec. This site was first professionally excavated in 1983, with finds matching historical descriptions of very early references to Norridgewock. Extensive excavation in 1990 collected 15,000 artifacts from the Late Woodland and early contact periods, and identified the site of at least one
longhouse
. Another site, located nearer the confluence of the two rivers in Starks, also yielded evidence of habitation during the Late Woodland period. This site showed evidence of repeated flooding, suggesting that the habitation areas were later moved to the higher grounds of Tracy Farm and Old Point. These three sites were collectively designated a
National Historic Landmark District
and added to the
National Register of Historic Places
in 1993.
[2]
[1]
[7]
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- Endnotes
- Texts
- Fiske, John
(1902). "Norridgewock and Louisburg".
New France and New England
. Houghton Mifflin. pp.
233
?257.
- Parkman, Francis
(1893).
A Half-Century of Conflict
. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.
- Prins, Harald E.L (with B. Bourque), 1987, "Norridgewock: Village Translocation on the New England Acadian Frontier."
Man in the Northeast
, No. 33, pp. 137?58.
- Sylvester, Herbert Milton (1910).
Indian Wars of New England
. Vol. III. Boston: W.B. Clarke Company.
ISBN
978-0-7884-1079-6
.
- Matteo Binasco. "Few, Uncooperative, and Endangered: The Troubled Activity of the Roman Catholic missionaries in Acadia (1610-1710)", in Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Journal, vol.10 (2007), pp. 147?162.
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