Dated January 10, 1986
In Repsonse to the "Letter of Obvious Deficiencies and Significant Omissions"
Dated (6/14/1983).
Part B
Page 311: The Alanum family name has not been identified in either the present day Odanak or Missisquoi communities; although it is possible the name is a shortened version of Alomkassat (Annome Quisse/Casset) family from Odanak with Missisquoi roots traced to Robertson’s lease. 1423
Footnote 1423. Day 1981: 85. This family had a close link to Missisquoi in the 1830’s as Marie Kaiser, Peter Medor’s (Medard Kazia) sister, married to an Alomkasset and settled into Odanak about 1830. [Ibid: 78 & Marie Kesia card in Medor cards in AA].
Page 314: “Other missionaries including those who knew about the ‘wandering’ [off-reserve/reservation] relatives of Mary Kesia (Kasia/Medor) from Odanak essentially wrote them off as intransigent and impossible to find, as did virtually all historians of that period as well. 1433
Footnote 1433. Tuckerman 1821:20-34: Shea 1855: 151.
Page 317: Perry himself maintained that “a few [at least 70] continued steadfastly to maintain their foothold on the soils which had belonged to their fathers” in Swanton, Highgate, at the Monument village from 1790 to 1800. 1462 This was the period of the Swatson tradition given in detail here in Section 1 which stated that the Morits, Lampman, Gardner, Lapan, St. Francis and Winters families were still living with Chief Swasson Tanagite (Joachim Morits) at the Monument.
Footnote 1462. Perry mss @1850: 241
Page 331: [III. Missisquoi/Odanak relations from 1800 to present. Response to Item # 3 of Letter of Obvious Deficiencies.]
3. “The historical relationship from 1800 onward between the Abenakis of Odanak and Becancour and those of the aboriginal Missisquoi area is not discussed at length in the petition. Please provide a more detailed discussion of this relationship in different periods up to the present, including social contacts, migration in either direction, and shared territory and social activitites.”
The relationship between Missisquoi and Odanak/Becancour after 1800 has been discussed in some detailed in the Petition as well as in Day (1981) and Moody (1979). 1479 This response will summarize and cross reference these sources. New data on the familial relations between the Lake Champlain, Odanak and Lake George Abenakis has recently come to light which also is summarized here. Most of the discussion focuses on relations between Lake Champlain and Odanak. Becancour seems to have closer direct ties to Odanak and the New Hampshire/Western Maine area and is not discurssed vis a vis Missisquoi here. 1480 There has already been extensive discussion in this this Addendum Part B about the Odanak/Missisquoi relationship from 1790 to 1920. 1481 The intention here is to complement….
Footnote 1479. Moody: 41,-4, 47-9,51-5, 61-4, 73-7, 82-3; Day 1981: 45-9, 52-62, 75-9, 82, 85-88, 91-3, 104-5. RP: 5, 9, 23, 30, 32-5, 41, 51, 55, 58-60, 62, 69, 73, 78, 82, 95, 107, 133, 137, 149, 151, 155, 171.
Footnote 1480. The Phillips family, one of the Central Families at Missisqoui, is an exception to the general pattern. This family is similar to others at Becancour, exhibiting many relationships with New Hampshire and Maine history. [See Phillips family cards in AA; & Phillips Central family history in Section V; & p 81 fn 744a here].
The St. Aubin/Benjamin branch of the Barrat Central family at Missisquoi is a minor exception to the pattern as well. They are a major family Becancour family to this day and appear in the early genealogies of St. Albans Bay families thorugh intermarriage with the Antoine Young [RP:59 & Family chart #’s 8 & 17 in Appendix 11]. Another branch has come down through the Benajmin Barrat line discussed earliler here into the Derosier Small family. [Addendum Part B: 201-2 fn’s 824-30; & Family chart # 18 in Appendix 11]. In that case, the early link was to the Lake Memphramagog region in the Coos and St. Francis River watersheds in the early 19th century where Odanak, Durham, Becancour, and Coos families overlapped in a pattern similar to and linked with Missisquoi. [See pp 73, 81, 85 fn 744, 231-2 fn’s 978-82, 264-5 fn’s 1121-3, 298 fn 1305 here in this Addendum Part B].
Page 334: Marie Kesia, Meda Kazia’s sister or cousin, was sent by Hick’s missionary society to ‘finishing school’ in Boston where she was earmarked to do just that! 1491
Footnote 1491. Day 1981: 78.
Page 339: In general, there are three basic family settlement patterns shared by Odanak and Missisquoi which show up in the records thus far. The first is exemplified by the Portneuf family. After 1800, the only clear indications of this Missiquoi family name is at Odanak. Thus far it appears that the family was entirely concentrated at Odanak after 1800. 1502
On the other extreme, families like the Maurice/Tanagite, Francis/St. Francis, Patenas/Patenode and Cajais’Kazia/Medor were barely present at all at Odanak and largely concentrated on Lake Champlain. 1503 There there are some families like Claude/Paganne/Glode, Capino/Pinawans/Crappo/Campbell, Benedict/Panadis/Paradis, Lazare, Hance/Annance/Herny/Anus, Watso/Mountain/Martin, Peter/St. Peter/Sabael and Laurent/Monlataque/St. Lawrence which have substantial familial lines in both regions. 1504
Also, Abenaki families like Mitchell, Denis, St. Denis, Thomas, Tahamont/Thompson, Joseph, Nicolas and Sabbatis/St. John/John have their strongest associations outside both communites with Lake George, Coos and other Abenaki enclaves while still having small family lines at Odanak and Missisquoi. 1505 Just the genealogical…
Footnote 1502. Day 1981:93, 105; Moody 1979:18,42-3,82-3; RP: 46,-7, 58-9, 95. See also Portneuf family cards in AA.
Footnote 1503. Day 1981:86, 78, 104-5; Moody 1979:41-2, 43 fn 22, 57-8, 63-4,73-4, 82-3; RP:58-65, 73-4, 76-83, 85-6, 207-210, 219, 222-5; & Family chart #’s 2, 3, 4 & 5-6 in Appendix 11.
Footnote 1504. Day 1981:76-9, 81-2, 86, 91: Moody 1979: 37-8, 51-5, 57, 60-1, 63-4, 73-5, 82-3; RP:54, 61-5, 73-4, 77-83, 95, 207-211, 222-3, 225; Family chart #’s 2, 3 & 5-6 in Appendix 11.
Footnote 1505: Moody 1979:44, 47-8, 6-1, 82-3; Day 1981:59-61; RP:57-65, 73-4. Note that the discussion in Secitons I and II of Addendum Part B here of several Odanak names appearing at Missisquoi/Lake Champlain in the 19th century. [See footnote #1485 above here]. There are also a number of the French/Abenaki names familiar at Odanak in evidence including Lapointe, Brisbois, Duhaime and others.
Page 340: …data for the families listed above and earlier in Sections I & II here suggests that a full accounting of all the Abenaki families would show extensive familial networking for social reasons throughout the 19th century. 1506
A clear argument can now be made that virtually all of the know Odanak Abenaki basket and tourist trade migration patterns in Western Vermont were a direct outgrowth of kinship relations with Lake Champlain Abenakis. The Benedicts, and now the Claudes, who came to Highgate Springs in the late 19th to early 20th centuries had Morits, Benedict/Bartemy and Glode/Ladue kin at Missisquoi. 1507 The Bluto family in the present community derive from the Claude/Paganne Missisquoi family, and the Gonyo Small family may be from “Missisquoi”. 1508
Sophie Molisse (Maurice/Morits) was known at Odanak to be from “Missisquoi”. She as a ‘traditional” who passed on many of the older oral traditions Gordon Day recorded from her grandson, Theophile Panadis, at Odanak in the 1950 to 1960 period. 1509 As noted already in the Petition, Sophie’s sister, Mary, was another…
Footnote 1506. It should be nosted here that the complete story of these interactions is really just emerging. Day’s 90 names are associated with historic Odanak, a community of variously 300 to 1100 persons. [Day 1981:104-5]. A similar number of names have been found for the Missisquoi community although work on same has barely begun on the scale that Day has accomplished for Odanak. [Moody 1979:82-3; RP: 222-6; Family chart #’s 2-22 in Appendix 11; Name lists in Appendix 7A-D]. Of the Odanak count, Day counts fourteen names (14) which have origins at Missisquoi. An additional eight (8) listed by Day are appearing in new data about Missisquoi and can be added to this number. They are Benedict/Panadis, Cajais/Medor/Kazia, Denis, Lazare, Nicolas, Sabattis/St. John, St. Dennis and Thoms. In addition, thirteen (13) other names listed by Day have been found in the Missisquoi area after 1800 and may in fact have origins there. They are Basil, Brisbois/Wood, Capino/Pinawans/Crappo/Campbell, Congalollett, Hannis, Kanasa, Masta, Ontalawalomet (Ondalamagouin), Otondosone (common origins with Watso), Stanislas, Taksus, Watso/Martin, Wiontimente/Tahamont/Thompson. Ths makes a total of 38 names found at both Odanak and Missisquoi in some form from the earliest times to present day. While that is strong evidence for close interaction, it is clear the stories of the other 60 names from Odanak and an even larger figure from Missisquoi, still remain untold.
Footnote 1507. See Family chart #’s 16& 19 in Appendix 11.
Footnote 1508. See Family chart #’s 11, 12, 13 & 16 in Appendix 11.
Page 341: Continued. …Missisquoi Maurice/ Morits family member who married to an Odanak Obomsawin William Simon O’bomsawin and settled down in Grand Isle where they lived in the late 19th century. 1510 There also was a direct link between the Gardner/Denn/Morin/Morits family and this couple on Grand Isle in this period as well. 1511
One of the clearest measures of how the separation within families and between families affected knowledge of Missisquoi at Odanak comes through this Obomsawin family on Grand Isle. When Gordon Day did his oral histories with the Charolotte, Vermont Abenaki man William Simon Obomsawin, he asked about the Obomsawin’s known to be on Grand Isle in the late 19th century. In about 1960, Simon responded that he had heard of them, they were distant cousins who he had heard of and never met. 1512 Accounts from both Charlotte and Grand Isle on Lake Champlain make it clear that neither of these small Abenaki enclaves were isolated. Rather, this distant memory reflects the later number of families and individuals involved who must be kept track of over the years and generations. It also confirms the growing distance between Odanak and Missisquoi which was the character of the 1900 to 1970 period.
On the Missisquoi side, Murray Cameron has an account of an old Indian basketmaker, who lived with her family in Milton for a while when she was child. 1513 Given the Grand Isle tradition that William Simon Obomsawin left for Milton about 1900 when Mary was a child, it is possible he moved to her parent’s home as they were Murray (Morits) family members.”
Footnote 1509. Day, Field Notes, 1956-1979; Moody, Field Notes, 1977-1984. RP: 81-3; Moody 1979:73 fn 50, 74-5. See also Obomsawin, Morits & Bluto family cards in AA.
Footnote 1510. Moody 1979:63-4 fn 40: RP: 81-3.
Footnote 1511. See Addendum Part B: 293-4 fn’s 1273-4 here.
Footnote 1512. Day, Field Notes, 1956-1979.
Footnote 1513. 2076, 12/3/80:10, 16-7.
Page 343: The most recent, confirmed account of direct Missisquoi/Odanak interaction at Misissquoi comes from a Hance/Hanks/Annance family citation in the 1910 St. Albans census records. There, a Roberts (Robert-Obomsawin) “Indian” family from Canada was lving with an old “Indian” grandfather, Edward Hance, in one of the local neighborhoods. 1516 This Edward was also cited at the death of his daughter in Swanton in 1876. Edward Hanks (Hens/Henry/Hance) raised a large family at Missisquoi in the 19th century, and appears in the Wells and Hoague Central family genealogies. 1517 This family goes by Annance at Odanak, and has been found at Odanak since at least 1760. 1518
Also in 1910, in Highgate, a Bouman (Obomsawin) and Brisbois family appear in the records of Missisquoi. 1519 These two families hail from central Vermont and the Lake George community. Their presence suggests that migration back and forth to that area as well as Odanak was still occurring in 1910. In fact, oral tradition from the Bowman Joseph Bruchac family and the Maurice Denis Adirondack Abenaki family has confirmed the existence of the Vermont Abenaki community in the 20th century. 1520
Footnote 1515. Moody 1979: 63-4; Addendum Part B: 298-300 fn’s 1304-13.
Footnote 1516. See Robert and Hanks family cards in AA; household # 214 in 1910 St. Albans census in Appendix 1B; & Family chart # 15 in Appendix 11.
Footnote 1517. See Family chart #’s 2 & 15 in appendix 11; & Hanks Ancestral family history in Section V.
Footnote 1518. See Hanks family cards in AA. It is important to note that this Edward Hance/Hances was listed as a “Canadian-Indian” in the 1910 census while clearly being a Swanton resident his whole life. Also, it is clear that he was just as much an Abenaki “Indian” in 1876 as he was in 1910 though this is the only time he was listed as an Indian in any of the 20 citations involving him on file in the AA.
Footnote 1519. See Household # 232 in 1910 Highgate, Vermont Census in Appendix 11.
Footnote 1520. 2282, 8/5/83: 2283, 8/5/83: 1-4.
Page 344: In the Bouman Bowman family, present family members recall when their grandfather Jesse E. (Elmer) Bowman would “disappear” for awhile to go visit relatives “in Vermont” in this century.
Also see and read these various books written by Joseph Bruchac:
“Bowman’s Store, A Journey to Myself” by Joseph Bruchac © 1997. Pages 10 & 11, 153 & 154.
“Roots of Survival, Native American Storytelling and the Sacred” by Joseph Bruchac © 1996. Pages 179 to194 … Pay close attention to those particular pages.
Page 185 …“Bomazeen: The name comes from Obum-sawin. It means “Keepers of the Ceremonial Fire.” It is a name which has been spelled many ways by Abenaki people, some of whom still carry variations of that name. Joseph Obowmaswine was a veteran of the War of 1812, fighting on the Canadian side. Today, at Odanak (the Abenaki reserve on the St. Francis River in Quebec Province), the Obomsawin family still lives. And the name Cowin, which was that of a family of Indians in Vermont in the late 1880s, probably came from Obomsawin. Names are changed frequently from father to son among the Abenaki. Sometimes …
Page 186: …an Abenaki name has been Gallicized, then re-Abenaki-ized, andthen Anglicized. Sabbatist. Saint Jean-Baptiste. Sabbatist. St. Pierre. Sa Bial. Sabael. Obum-sawin. Bomazeen. Bowman. The name of mother’s father -- Jesse Bowman.”
“The Heart of a Chief” by Joseph Bruchac © 1998. Author’s Note (In Part) “I decided, however, not to set this novel on a real reservation. Some of the issues in the book, such as casino gambling, leadership, and alcohol abuse, are too sensitive for me to do that. Instead, I have imagined a reservation where none currently exist, although they should: in New Hampshire. The Penacook are one of the nations of my own Western Abenaki people; but there is, at present,no state or federally recognized Penacook community.”
In a telephone interview with Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), by Eliza T. Dressang, to accompany the October 6, 1999 discussion of Native American literature for children and teenagers, on CCBC-Net, Mr. Joseph Bruchac (in part) has this to say:”I belong to the Abenaki Nation which is a non-recognized nation in the United States. My great-grandfather [Louis Bowman] came from the little village of Odanak in Canada. I do not have a card from a federally recognized Native American nation.”
Joseph Bruchac’s younger sister, Margaret Bruchac, repeatedly in publications claims to be a Missisqoui Abenaki woman.
“The Winter People” by Joseph Bruchac © 2002. Pages 160 to 168. Pay close attention to Page 163: “For many years I thought of writing about the events of Roger’s Raid. It was, in part, a personal thing. My own great-grandfather Louis Bowman was born in St. Francis.”
“Hidden Roots” by Joseph Bruchac © 2004. Pages 130 to 136.Pay close attention to Pages 31 to 44; and 134 of the Author’s Notes. “Sophie” wife to “Uncle Louis” in the book is in reference to Sophie Senecal; and “Uncle Louis” is in reference to Louis Bowman (Sophie nee: Senecal’s son).
“March toward the Thunder” by Joseph Bruchac © 2008. Pages 291 to 293. Pay close attention to Page 293: “My great-grandfather was Canadian, but a Canadian of Native descent whose ancestral roots were in what became the United States. Records list his birth place as St. Francis, the name then used for the Abenaki Indian reserve of Odanak, a mission village made up largely of refugee Indians from New England who fled north to escape the English during the eighteenth century.” … “Like numerous other young Canadian Indian men, my great-grandfather came south to find work because little was available around the reserve. And, 1864, it was in the United States that a recruiter for the Irish Brigade found him.”
From Jesse Bowman Bruchac (son of Joseph Bruchac) Date: Wed, 06 May 2009 01:12:29:
“The suggested Bowman/Obomsawin connection has been made by many, but directly to us by an Odanak elder Maurice Denis who proposed to my aunt and father in the 1970s that it was a name change. Maurice Denis was my father’s mentor at the time and I spent many days as a young child in his kitchen hearing the Abenaki language as he taught my dad the traditional stories of long ago. Maurice Denis lived not far from us and ran an Indian village in Old Forge NY where we spent many summers. Anyway, he believed we were Obomsawin, but this has not and likely cannot be proved. In addition, as suggested in this thread it may not be the case at all. However, even without a name change, Bowman itself is a very old Eastern Algonquin family name. On the record in the 17th century in Massachusetts among the Nantic people. To present it remains a common family name of the Nipmuc, Stockbridge Munsee Mohicans and is also connected with the Wampanoag families, many of whom trace their Native ancestry through Bowman lines.
Page 344: Addendum Continued… “After 1910, there are few specific indications of Odanak/Missisquoi relations before 1974/5. The Petition and the Day (1981) [Identity of the St. Francis Indians Paper No. 71 Published in 1981] St. Francis identity work on Odanak both underscore the disruptive effects of WW 1, the Depression and WW 2 on the family trading and travel networks. 1521 National security combined with economic protectionism to prevent the Odanak Benedict/ Panadis family from returning to work at Highgate Springs from [1906] 1915 to 1930 [ca. 1935].” While virtually every family interviewed in the present Vermont Abenaki community recalls connections to Canadian reservations and families spread throughout the northeast, most of those ties are said to date from the early 20th century. Thus, family ties and community interactions that were weakened by loss of lands and hunting territories in the early 19th century, were effectively cut off by 1920 if the available data is correct.
There are a number of accounts of individual Indians from other areas visiting their kin at Missisquoi that date after World War I. One in the Lampman/Morits family involved an Indian veteran of the war who walked the entire way from the ‘reservation in Canada’ to visit Martha Morits and other relatives at Missisquoi. 1522 Lapan, Martin, St. Francis, Cameron, Maskell and other family members in the current membership recall similar visits since the turn of the 20th century. 1523 Usually, these accounts have surfaced in the context of the Missisquoi Abenaki tradition of ‘taking everyone in’, rather than from a specific origin point for the Indias involved. And finally, some members like the Hammond Small family…
Footnote 1521. RP: 88ff; Day 1981: 61-65.
Footnote 1522. 78 in Moody, Field Notes, 1983.
Footnote 1523. 2074, 12/2/80:1-2; 2102, 6/81:2-3.
Page 345: …with Odanak Robert-Obomsawin ancestry, the Keating Small family which Sadoques ancestry, the Marshalls with Nagajoa and Benedict ancestry, and Mary Murray Lafrance with Littlefield ancestry, all represent ties to Odanak Abenaki families based in the northeastern United States. 1524 After 1974, the public emergence of the Vermont Abenaki community was quickly noted by Odanak families living Vermont. Within two years, a series of meeting had occurred with representatives of the Odanak Abenakis which led to the Vermont community’s first major public acknowledgement in over 200 years. 1525 Shortly after, the Quebec Federation of Indians followed Odanak and Becancour’s lead and accepted their official recognition of the St. Francis/Sokokis Band of the Abenaki Nation in Vermont as well. 1526
Footnote 1524. [Missing from original text of Addendum Document].
Footnote 1525. Haviland Powers 1981:253-5; RP: 107, 155, 213.
Footnote 1526. Indians of Quebec Association General Assembly, August 22-4, 1976: 11-12, 27 & Resolution #12. The resolution is identical to the one passed by the Odanak and Becancour Band Counsels on August 20, 1976. [RP: 213].
Page 353: Of course, numerous oral traditions which link the present community to their 18th and 19th century ancestry have also appeared in the research. The Swasson Morits story is not only a traditional naming tradition, but also a clear sign of linguistic and inter-family continuity at Missisquoi. 1563
Footnote 1563. Addendum Part B: 69-74 fns 291-5.
Douglas Lloyd Buchholz' Research:
There is a Joseph Sanagite or Sanaghiki (Morrisseau) who married to Agnes Portneuf in September 1827 in L'Annonciation de la Bienheureuse Vierge Marie Church, at Oka, Quebec, Canada.
It appears that the man, Joseph Sanagite, was the son of an Algonquin father with the name Guillaume Kajigowich (sp.?) … and an Iroquoian mother named Ann Iawanouwe (sp.?), based on what the marriage record states in September 1827. It would appear that documentarily that this couple Joseph Sanagitte / Morrisseau and Agnes Portneuf were the parents of Sophie Morrisseau (who later married Theophile Panadis on 21 Sep 1846 at Odanak, Qc, Canada). Clearly her mother Agnes Portneuf was identified as Abenaki, per Agnes' marriage record).
Michel Tahamont had a brother, Swanssin Joachim Tahamont born on 17 Oct 1817 at Odanak, Quebec, Canada.
Marie Anne Sanagite ? /Morrisseau remarried a second time, to Guillaume O'Bomsawin on 17 Nov 1856 … at Odanak as well. He was the son of Simon O'Bomsawin and Monique Wawanolett, having been born on 31 Mar 1833 at Odanak, Quebec, Canada.
Marriage Record for Theophile Panadis and Sophie Morrisseau
September 21, 1846
Saint Francois du Lac, Yamaska County, Quebec, Canada
1
Sophie (nee: Morrisseau) Panadis' Death Record
November 29, 1910
Odanak Abenaki Community, Yamaska County, Quebec, Canada
April 24, 1976: Letter from John Scott Moody to Gordon Day. “There are presently some people working on reconstituting Abenaki identity in Northern Vermont who are interested in my work.”
Dr. Day apparently sent John Moody some materials on May 14th, 1976 following this letter received by Day from John Moody the month before.
Decemeber 13, 1976: Rutland Herald Newspaper. The ‘Baker Report’ came under sharp attack by the Sportman’s Federation here Sunday, with several delegates referring to it as ‘slipshod’ and ‘highly subjective.’ …. “John Randolph, who has been asked to serve on the newly created Commission on Indian Affairs (see story), is perhaps the leading spokesman for the anti-recognition camp. As editor of the Vermont Sportsman magazine, Randolph wrote a scathing editorial in the December issue criticizing the Baker Report and Gov. Thomas Salmon’s decision. Randolph was at the meeting Sunday, and spoke at length on his views concerning the Indians and on his contact with Dr. Gordon M. Day, an anthropologist who works for the National Institute of Man in Ottawa, Canada.
“Dr. Day told me that he was surprised that the state has not asked for any verification of the descent of these people,” Randolph said.
He termed the Baker Report, “insufficient”, very subjectively done and sketchily written.” He said that the state acted on “insufficient background information” when the executive order was signed.
“I can’t speak for Gordon M. Day, but I know that he would hotly contest the claims of genealogical studies in the Baker Report,” Randolph said.
August 02, 1977: Letter to John Moody from Gordon M. Day. “As I remember it, one of the families who came to Highgate Springs each year until the 1920’s was the Panadis family. I have more names in my notes, but they are not indexed. If I run across them I’ll let you know. St. Laurent and Coolomb are French names, and I have never found them as the names of Abenakis. For Abenakis around Waterloo, Quebec, the area around Brome was the hunting territory of the Portneuf family in the early 1800’s, but as far as I know they were all found at Odanak later on. I think perhaps we covered your other questions in your telephone call.
April 27, 1979: Letter to John Moody from Gordon M. Day. “Dear John, One of the few things I accomplished during my lay-a-bed five weeks was reading your article. I read it completely and with interest. I even reread some of it. You surely deserve commendation for your industry and for the way you integrated that volume of scattered, and as yet incomplete data, into a new hypothesis. I know from my own experience that census and church register data is very intractable [meaning: difficult to manipulate] stuff, especially when it includes the vagaries of Indian nomenclature.
I have made only a few comments on the manuscript, which is being returned with, or at least in the same mail, as this letter. And these are not uniform in any way, because there is so much to say about several of the points you make. Perhaps I can make up for some this deficiency here. Both your new data and your hypothesis are very pertinent to the paper I am writing on the identity of the St. Francis band. I had to lay this down last November 1, but I plan to get back to it in a week and finish it by September. My concern is to identify, as far as possible, the linguistic and ethnographic information I obtained between 1956 and 1978 (although there will be a dribble for a few years yet). At present I don’t think I need to carry the historical processes much beyond 1800, since the village was practically complete by this time, and further finer-graded identification will probably have to be pursued through oral tradition and the clustering of linguistic traits.
In any event, there is much to do on both our fronts. Let me mention what strikes me as our main problems with our data as I see them, although I suspect you are well aware of them.
Church registry data often leaves us uncertain whether the people mentioned were residents in the vicinity or transients.
Unless our combined data is complete with the degree of “indianness” of persons with French or English family names, that is, is a given name a French name applied in baptism to a real Indian or does it represent the marriage of a French or English person with an Indian woman and with what subsequent results with respect to Indian or European marriages and offspring:
We are often left with the problem of interpreting family names as disfigured Indian names and without a trustworthy Indian tradition we must bring a high degree of subjectivity to the job; for example, we agree on the notion that “Compient” was a bad transcription of Capino, but I would not know how to prove it with the data I have seen so far.
You ask how I feel about your theme of a verifiable Abenaki community in Vermont. I have no feelings about this, since I try never to fight against the facts. Your new information is very welcome indeed. The increased number of Abenakis remaining in one guise or another, in the Missisquoi region helps enormously in clarifying the old problem of just what happened to the tribe after circa 1775. I have always, I think, left this open-ended in my writings. It is clear that a sizeable portion of the tribe did move to Odanak, otherwise how can we account for the large number of descendants there, even the 1820’s? You have shown that an unexpectedly large portion remained, or returned and settled, in the Missisquoi region. Isn’t this about as far as our facts go at present?
You remember that I never said there were not Abenaki descendants on Lake Champlain. I said there were. I didn’t realize how many. From the time of the first propaganda by Ronnie Cannes and company my position about the Abenaki “Nation” at Swanton was: examine their genealogies and see instead of taking anti-polar positions and arguing.
If you and I have any differences in our conclusions – and we both must be tentative – I think they are no more than differences of interpretation, particularly as to what your new information will mean to the Swanton “community.” And after we have assembled the data and given them our interpretations, the political decisions will be in someone else’s hands anyway.
Many details occurred to me as I read your article, too many to discuss here. Most of them have no great import unless you are planning to publish the article. They are, for example, cases of two spellings of the same Indian name being taken for different names. If I ever make my return trip to speak to the VAS, perhaps we can have fun going into the details.
Best regards, Sincerely,
Gordon M. Day
Eastern Canadian Ethnologist
Canadian Ethnology Service.
“The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians” by Gordon M. Day National Museums of Canada, Ottawa, 1981:
PREFACE: “I have incurred a more recent debt to John Moody of Sharon, Vermont, for sharing with me new information on the background of the Missisquoi Band. I hope his work, which I have had to cite here in manuscript, will soon appear in print.”
Page 48: Frisch stated that Abenaki names were distinguished in the Saint Regis Register until the 1820’s, and John Moody found a certain Medard Cahia who was apparently bon there St. Regis in 1834 and raised at Missisquoi (Frisch 1971: 28; Moody 1979: 60). It is probable that some did return, and Moody’s perspective analysis of the church registers has detected a three way movement in the 19th century between Odanak, Missisquoi and Saint Regis (Moody 1979: 70-75).
Page 57: “As Moody pointed out, they could not be expelled unless they were there.” (Moody 1979: 26)
“Moody pointed to Masta’s tradition of 50 wigwams in Swanton in 1790, but I doubt that we can rely on this today.”
Page 58: “Moody, however, has accumulated considerable evidence that, rather than emigrating, some of the Indians deprived of their corn lands, withdrew to more marginal parts of the area and persisted, with some white intermarriage, as family groups known to each other as Indians.”
“Moody has also accumulated considerable evidence pointing to persisting Indian communities at Milton, Vermont, and on Burton’s Island near Saint Albans. (Moody 1979: 61 fn 39; 73 fn 51 et al).
Page 78: Cajiais. “Moody has traced a Medard Cajiais who was born at St. Regis of Abenaki parents in 1834 and was raised at Missisquoi (Moody 1979: 60-61). The case of Louis Cayia, for example, is a particular problem. He was listed among the whites who had occupied land on the Saint Francis Reserve (Thomas M. Charland 1964: 244 fn 240).
Page 85: Mitchell. In 1765 Joseph Michel is names in the Robertson lease of Missisquoi lands, which inclines me towards the view that Michel was Missisquoi family. The presence of an Abenaki Mitchell family among the Iroquois at Saint Regis and the apparent connection between Saint Regis and Missisquoi strengthens this view somewhat (Frish 1970:69). There were Mitchells at both Saint Francis and Missisquoi in the 19th century (Censuses of 1873 and 1875; Register of the Mission of Saint-Francois de Sales; Moody 1979:53, 57-59).
Page 86. Morice. Alexis Morice appears in the 1829 census. After his name in the 1830 census was written “venu iroqois”. I take this to mean that he moved to some Iroquois village. If so, his stay was brief because he was back in the 1932 census listed without children. The last person of that name to appear in the Saint Francis censuses was Sophi Morisseau (Sophi Môlis), widow of Theophile Panadis, in the censuses of 1873 and 1875. She was remembered by her grandson, Theophile Panadis, as having come from Misssisquoi. Moody (1979: 43, fn 22) found what he believed to be seven variations of this name --- Maurice, Morins, Molisse, Morisseau, Morrisey, Moricette and Morits, and he found several appearances of the family name in records of parishes in the lower Lake Champlain and upper Richelieu River region. Some members of the family are remembered as living in the Thousand Islands around the turn of the century. In Abenaki the name is Môlis, plural Môliszak.
Page 94: Sanagite. Marianne Sanagite, daughter of Joseph Sanagite and Agnes Portneuf, was married to Michel Winitahamant in 1848 (Register of the Mission of Saint-Francois-de-Sales).
Page 119: NOTES # 14. “I am indebted to John Moody for this crucial reference.”
Page 132: REFERENCES CITED. John Moody 1979 Missisquoi: Abenaki Survival in Their Ancient Homeland. Manuscript in the possession of the author, Sharon, Vermont. 91 pp.
