Wabanaki in Midcoast Maine

A Bowdoin College student publication from 1839. It includes poetry and a "sketch" about the Kennebec tribe in the April 1839 issue and "Tale of '76" in the September 1839 issue.

Father Sebastian Rasles (also spelled Rale) was a Catholic missionary who lived among the Norridgewock along the Kennebec River beginning in 1691. According to Eugene Vetromile, writing in the 1860 preface of Alnambay Uli Awikhigan, Rale’s dictionary was: "taken away from the author, together with his chests and papers, by a party of English, from New England, who in 1722, under Col. Westbrook, pillaged the church and the village of the Abnakis, at Norridgewock, on the shores of the Kennebec. This manuscript has been always regarded as precious remains of Philology by all men of Science. The amateur of letters and the antiquarian will lament for ever the cruel death of Father Rale, who, having spent about thirty-five years among the Abnakis, was the only man capable to give a perfect dictionary and grammar. But unfortunately, in 1724, the Indians and Missionary were taken by surprise by a number of English and Mohawks. Father Rale fell a martyr at the foot of the cross erected in the mission, where his body was found, hacked and mangled in a savage manner, and where it remains buried by his beloved Abnakis. So the dictionary of Father Rale will remain incomplete for ever." John Pickering's is the first (and likely only) published version of this seminal French-Abenaki dictionary. The original manuscript of Rale's dictionary is at the Houghton Library, Harvard University and has been digitized; Rale's strong box is part of the collections of Maine Historical Society.

The November 25, 1826 issue of this Bowdoin student publication includes an essay entitled the “Penobscot Indians."

Joseph Laurent was chief of the Abenaki Indian village of St. Francis, near Quebec. His work was the first vocabulary ever published related to their language and included the Abenaki alphabet, the key to the pronunciation and many grammatical explanations, synoptical illustrations showing the numerous modifications of the Abenaki verbs, and an etymology of Wabanaki names of certain lakes, rivers, and other localities. According to the preface, Laurent’s aim in publishing the book was “to aid the young generation of the Abenakis tribe in learning English.  It is also intended to preserve the uncultivated Abenakis language from the general alterations which are continually occurring from want, of course, of some proper showing the grammatical principles upon which it is dependent.”

Nicolar was an elder and political leader of the Penobscot nation who self-published this work in 1893 in order to preserve Penobscot history and culture for future generations. His is one of only a handful of published English-language accounts written by a member of the Eastern Algonquian-speaking people during the nineteenth century. The work includes the creation story of Klose-Kur-Beh, “The Man From Nothing,” and tracks the experience of the Penobscot through the arrival and settlement of Europeans. The work was published in a second edition by Duke University Press in 2007.

Packard discusses Smyth's objections to the Cherokee removal policy.

John Pickering was the first linguist to study and publish Sebastian Rale's dictionary of the Abenaki language.

A missionary among the Mi'kmaq Indians of the maritime provinces of Canada, Rand compiled this, the first English to Mi'kmaq dictionary over a forty-year period. The limitations of Rand’s work become clear when one compares his output to the current Mi'kmaq language reclamation project (see: https://www.mikmaqonline.org/), yet Rand’s work remains one of only a handful of printed Mi'kmaq dictionaries.

An anonymous first-hand account of Brunswick in a series of letters signed “P. N.” Bibliographic evidence identifies the author as Henry Putnam (1778-1827), a Brunswick resident and lawyer who was born in Reading, Massachusetts, a graduate of Harvard (A.B. 1802, A.M. 1805), and an honorary degree recipient of Bowdoin (1807). Putnam records interactions with the Wabanaki, detailed information about their history, and accounts of their travels to the blueberry fields under the Bowdoin pines. At or near the time of this work's publication, Molly Suctomer, a Wabanaki woman, and her daughters lived in the small house next to Putnam on Maine Street.

According to Vetromile, “When the French first arrived in Acadia, the Indians used to write on bark, trees, and stones, engraving signs with arrows, sharp stones, or other instruments.  They were accustomed to send pieces of bark, marked with these signs, to other Indians of other tribes, and to receive back answers written in the same manner, just as we do with letters and notes.”  By the time of Vertromile’s writing in 1866, the writing was still in use by the Mi'kmaq, but had fallen out of favor by other Wabanaki tribes.  He also notes that some of the hieroglyphics he reproduced here can also be seen among the writings of Father Rale.

Vetromille published this Roman Catholic prayer book in the Abenaki language for "the benefit of the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, St. John's, Micmac, and other tribes of the Abnaki Indians."

An Italian-born Jesuit minister, Vetromile ministered to the Penobscot for more than a quarter century.  According to Brunswick’s Reverend Edward Ballard, Vetromile was the only person who could “read a verse of John Eliot’s Indian Bible with a true understanding of the words.” Vetromile produced several books to employ in his missionary work, including Aln'amby Uli Awikhigan, a volume of devotions and instructions in various Abenaki dialects; Ahiamihewintuhangun, a collection of hymns set to music, an "Abnaki Dictionary" in three folio volumes, which took him twenty-one years to produce, and this work, Vetromile Wewessi Ubibian. Not another “Indian Bible” in the sense of Eliot’s Algonquian Bible, this work is instead a collection and retelling of Biblical history and stories in Penobscot, Micmac, and/or English. Foretelling the importance of such works for language preservation, Harper’s Weekly noted in 1861: “In a few years this book will be a curiosity in literature, as a memorial of a language no longer spoken or understood.”

A petition by the citizens of Brunswick, Maine, to the United States House of Representatives and Senate urging that the Cherokee not be forcibly removed.

Letter from Josiah Pierce, Jr (Bowdoin Class of 1846) to his father, Oct 16, 1844. Written from Brunswick describing an “encampment of Indians down by the banks of the river."
The letter is part of the collections of the Maine Historical Society and is available online as part of the Maine Memory Network.