The Abenaki - all we don't know. Part 1
The Abenaki - all we don’t know. Part 1.
In the 1990s Robert Goodby, a NH anthropologist, posed this question to his UNH classes. “When did the first human beings arrive in New England?” The answers were invariably 1620 or 1492.
No, not the Pilgrims or Columbus.
The answer? About 13,000 years ago.
Europeans were the newcomers. The Abenaki, part of the Algonquin nation, were present across what is now Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine as well as eastern Ontario, Quebec, and the maritime provinces of Canada thousands of years ago.
Paleoindian sites have been found in what is now New Hampshire – including Seabrook when the nuclear power plant was built, Swansey when a new school was being built, and most recently Jefferson and Randolph, north of the notches in the White Mountains. The Paleoindian period dates from when the glaciers receded in this area to 10,000 years ago.
Horace Greeley penned a well-known line “Go west, young man” but the first great migration across what is now the United States and Canada was not east to west but west to east by indigenous peoples. And they were everywhere. Estimates range from about one million to 18 million indigenous people lived in North America, north of the Rio Grande River.
However, the numbers of Indians in the northeast may have dropped by as much as 95% in the epidemic of 1616-1619, originally described as smallpox but now considered an unknown virus of European origin. There were many French and English fur traders, fishing fleets and some French colonists on the northeast coast, the Isles of Shoals perhaps, and inland along the St. Lawrence River. Any of these may have brought this plague but no one has been able to pinpoint a ship or a group responsible.
North Hampton’s only published history, The Way it was in North Hampton, has limited mentions of Indians, and only in terms of colonists and the global wars of the European powers of England, France, and Spain, King Philip’s War (1675 – 1676) and the French and Indian War (1754 – 1763).
Some of the first structures in this “northern frontier” of Hampton were garrisons, built to provide “protection from hostile Indians.”
In 1703 when five colonists were killed in what is now Seabrook by Indians, the royal governor ordered towns to build more centrally-located garrisons, and one was built on North Hill Common (in current North Hampton).
My stab at the earlier history of our area is still a rough draft. I’m ending this piece with the descriptions of two State historic markers and a Canadian antiquarian’s remarks to descendants of such settlers.
North Hampton’s Breakfast Hill historic marker (located on the east side of Lafayette Road near Greystone and Rye town line). "On the hillside to be seen to the north of this location a band of marauding Indians and their captives were found eating their breakfast on June 26, 1696, following the attack at the Portsmouth Plains. When confronted by the militia the Indians made a hasty exit leaving the prisoners and plunder. This locality still enjoys the name of Breakfast Hill."
The Portsmouth Plains marker (located on Rt. 33 in Portsmouth, about 2 miles east of I-95 on Middle Rd.) “In the pre-dawn hours of June 26, 1696, Indians attacked the settlement here. Fourteen persons were killed and others taken captive. Five houses and nine barns were burned. This plain was the Training Field and Muster Ground. Close by stood the famous Plains Tavern (1728-1914) with its Bowling Green where many distinguished visitors were entertained.”
In recent years, local historians, indigenous historians and academic scholars have provided a more nuanced point of view of this and other conflicts. And a few such people much earlier. In a presentation to descendants of settlers in Ontario many years ago, a Canadian lawyer, businessman, and antiquarian, William Perkins Bull (1870-1948) said:
"From time immemorial, people who fought and died for their native land have been acclaimed as patriots and sung as heroes...the North American Indian will be given credit for motives similar...In their struggles to repel the invader from their homes...you old timers represent the invaders."
For others interested in beginning their own research. Robert G. Goodby’s new book A Deep Presence: 13,000 Years of Native American History
Indigenous New Hampshire Collaborative Cooperative website at https://indigenousnh.com
For a broader and more Francophone perspective, all you never knew about Samuel de Champlain and his thirty plus years visiting and living in North America, Robert Hackett Fischer’s Champlain’s Dream