2. Wobanakik: The Dawn Land

Wobanakik: The Dawn Land

Long before the founding of the New England colonies, the northeastern corner of the United States was known as Wobanakik, the Dawn Land. For at least ten thousand years, this area was inhabited by numerous distinct, indigenous tribes of the Algonquin language group, now collectively called the Abenaki, meaning People of the Dawn. By about three thousand years ago, these Native Americans had honed a Woodland culture with semi-permanent villages, incorporating seasonal migrations for the purposes of hunting, fishing and gathering food. Those now known as the Western Abenaki, who settled throughout much of today’s Vermont, New Hampshire, and Quebec, Canada, also engaged in farming; while the Eastern Abenaki, generally of Maine and northeastern Canada, made extensive use of the sea.

By 1600 A.D., a typical Western Abenaki village in New Hampshire accommodated one hundred or more individuals, spanning several generations of extended families. Some villages, such as one inhabited by the Pennacook tribe just north of present-day Concord, were palisaded for defense against any warring invaders. Most of the homes were dome-shaped wigwams made from wooden supports and covered with birch bark mats, sufficiently strong to weather the fierce northern climate.

The Cycle of Seasons

Seasonal rounds of the Abenaki were guided by a communal understanding of monitou—a spiritual connection with nature that defined a reciprocal relationship between the people and their environment. The lunar cycle helped the people navigate this relationship by structuring their migrations, hunting and farming activities throughout the year.

The spring began with Zogalikas (the sugar maker moon), whose arrival drew the women and children out of their winter homes to collect sap from sugar maple trees. Maple syrup and maple sugar were important sources of protein for a people about to begin their nomadic cycle.

During Kikas (the planter) and Nokkahigas (the hoeing moon), families moved to riverside camps to take advantage of the first spring foods – spawning fish, wild birds, and edible greens, roots, and ground nuts – and to plant fields of maize, beans, squash and pumpkins. The Abenaki people actively manipulated and improved the land to suit their needs: Nitrogen-rich beans replenished nutrients depleted by corn; small fish were planted as fertilizer. They practiced controlled burning to clear fields for farming and to attract game, especially deer, bear, and sometimes moose.

As days lengthened into summer, some bands traveled to the seacoast to fish and to gather shellfish. Some built dams of brush and stone to capture fish at the mouths of streams (The Wiers at Lake Winnipesaukee was a favorite spot for this practice). The Pennacook spent much of their summer at Namaoskeag (Amoskeag Falls), a bountiful fishing place, where they had great success relying on stone spears, seines and nets made from wild hemp.

In the shadow of Demezowas (the harvesting moon), the Abenaki gathered medicinal plants and offered prayers of thanks and gifts of seeds or ceremonial tobacco to replace what was taken. In the company of Benibagos (the leaf-falling moon), everyone helped with the first harvest before heading north to ancestral hunting grounds. Year-end celebrations were filled with feasting, singing, dancing, and storytelling. Young men played babaskwahamawogan (later named lacrosse by Frenchmen due to the shape of the stick), over which whole villages were often caught up in the excitement and competition.

Winter set in under Pebonkas, and families stayed close to their settlements, venturing only far enough to ice fish or participate in the occasional hunt. Any inter-tribal wars were suspended during the harsh winter months. Days at home were productive: the families worked with hides, sewed clothing (decorated with porcupine quills or shell beads), wove baskets, and made or repaired weapons, tools and canoes.

Passaconaway and the Pennacook Confederacy

Northeastern Woodland tribes commonly established alliances for purposes of trade and protection. The Pennacook tribe, primarily found along the Merrimack River between today’s Manchester and Franklin, New Hampshire, had its largest village just north of today’s Concord. Another sizable Pennacook village was located at Amoskeag Falls. The Pennacook had a population of about 3,000 people, and a distinguished and influential chief, or sachem, named Passaconaway (Pappisse Conewa, meaning Child of the Bear). Under Passaconaway’s leadership (c.1610 to c.1660), seventeen distinct tribes, bands and villages totaling as many as 12,000 people made up the Pennacook Confederacy – an alliance that stretched from the Connecticut and Merrimack River Valleys of southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts, eastward to the coastal region, and north to Lake Winnipesaukee. Included as members were the Souhegan, Amoskeag, Winnipesaukee, Pentucket, Wamesit, and Ossipee tribes of New Hampshire, along with three tribes of Massachusetts and many smaller bands. The Confederacy provided access to seasonal resources, trade partnerships, and a common defense from enemies.

Passaconaway was renowned for his physical fitness, bravery in war, and even supernatural abilities and feats. These attributes, recounted in shared stories throughout the tribes, secured his seemingly boundless influence over the impressive alliance. He was respected, even revered, by his people. Despite the potential force of the Pennacook Confederacy, Passaconaway decided to wage peace rather than war upon the settlers of Plymouth Colony. Why he pursued this peace in the 1620s is subject to speculation (it is said he first tried sorcery to rid the region of the settlers, and resorted to peace only when that failed). However, an infectious epidemic (likely smallpox) lasting from 1616 to 1619 had severely reduced the Pennacook population. The Pennacook had also recently been raided by the Micmacs from the north and were increasingly in conflict with the Mohawks to the west. Passaconaway was no fool. Historians believe that he wisely summed up the situation before accepting the futility of subduing the arrival of English colonists. Consequently, and for the rest of his long life, Passaconaway strove for peace in the face of major change.

Throughout much of the seventeenth century, tribes of the Pennacook Confederacy maintained peaceful trade relations with the European settlers. The natives supplied furs and taught the Europeans many skills, survival techniques, and trail locations. In return, they received manufactured goods: guns, brass pots, kettles, metal needles and fishhooks, and cloth.

Exposure to smallpox and other European-induced epidemics repeatedly dealt a terrible blow to the indigenous tribes. By the time of Passaconaway’s death in 1669, the Pennacook Confederacy and many other tribes had suffered a mortality rate as high as 95% along the seacoast and 75% inland from diseases against which they lacked immunities. Their depleted populations were ill-equipped to counter the ever-increasing numbers of European arrivals intent on establishing claims to the New World.

In the late seventeenth century, further disease and episodes of armed conflict forced the displacement of New England tribes, including the Pennacook and their last chief, Kancamagus (grandson of Passaconaway). Many took refuge with tribes of the Great Lakes region or with the French Jesuits in Canada. Today, thousands of direct descendants of these tribes maintain their native ties to the northeast, living on reservation lands and in towns and cities throughout Quebec, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire.