State of VT's Response to Petition for Federal Acknowledgment of the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of the Abenaki Nation of Vermont: Pages 111 to 120:

two hundred years earlier (Petition Addendum: 126). The new organization has been described by Calloway and Moody as the "reconstituted Abenaki band" (Calloway 1990b:xvi, see also Moody 4/24/1976).

The timing of the creation of the new Tribal Council is significant, just as it was in the Southeastern Cherokee Confederacy case. Each arose "during a time period—the 1970's—which saw the rise of both a renewed national interest in Indian identity and protests by militant Indian organizations" (BIA Southeastern Cherokee Confederacy 1985x:15). This was also a time in America in which "imposters trying to claim a distant relationship to an Indian in hopes of cashing in on new laws designed to help economically depressed Indian tribes" pushed themselves forward into the limelight. These Indian "wanna-bes," as the Native Americans call them, muddied the waters of tribal identification (Benedict 2000:59).
This coincidence in the emergency of the Abenakis in Vermont sheds some doubt on true continuity of the newly formed organization with the historical tribe. The federal regulations governing tribal acknowledgment address this phenomenon. They do not permit "groups formed in recent times" to be acknowledged (56 Fed. Reg. 47320, 47321). In fact, Criterion (a) is "intended to exclude from acknowledgment those entities which have only recently been identified as being Indian" (59 Fed. Reg. 9280, 9286).
The emergence of this new group claiming to be Abenaki Indians came as a surprise to many people. John Moody admitted that few, if any, whites knew of the Vermont Abenaki community until 1976). He conceded that even in the 1970's, "Most Abenakis from Odanak, even those presently living in New Hampshire and Vermont, had no idea an Abenaki community of any size still existed at Missisquoi" (Moody 1979:68, emphasis in original). Likewise the appearance of the Tribal Council was news to Vermont (Moody 1979

anthropologist William Haviland. 60. He sent off a quick inquiry to Gordon Day after seeing ID seeing an article about the Abenakis in Vermont in a publication of the Native American Solidarity Committee in 1976. He wrote as follows:

I just learned about the enclosed the other day. Do you know anything about this group? Their figure of 1500 Abenaki in Vermont seems high, to say the least. We are trying to find out more about them. (Haviland 4/22/ 1976).

We do not know what Day said in reply since it appears he responded by telephone. However, a few years later Day referred to these statements as "propaganda" (Day 4/27/1979).
The newly formed Abenaki Tribal Council also obtained short-lived state recognition of a sort, through an Executive Order issued by Governor Thomas Salmon (Salmon 11/24/1976). Governor Salmon's successor, Governor Richard Snelling, revoked the order a mere two months later (Snelling 1/28/1977). Since then the State of Vermont has never recognized the Abenakis as a tribe. The Executive Order issued by Governor Salmon was based on the report of Jane Baker, a consultant on Abenaki Indian Claims. She conducted "three months of intensive but obviously limited study,'" based extensively on interviews with members of the Abenaki Tribal Council (Baker 1976).
Despite this sudden new activity and the adoption of the Abenaki name by these
individuals, scholars continued to believe there was no Abenaki tribe in Vermont that had descended from the historic Abenaki community at Missisquoi. One researcher who conducted an extensive survey of Indian groups in the eastern United States published his
_______________
FOOTNOTE:
60. Haviland had begun studying the archeology and anthropology of Vermont Indians in the 1970's (Haviland 6/10/1970). He and Power published the first edition of their book The Orignial Vermonters in 1980.

findings in a book entitled We Have Not Vanished: Eastern Indians in the United States (Tamarin 1974). The purpose of Tamarin's study was to determine whether the Indians had vanished from the Eastern States, as was commonly thought. "To find the answer required long hours of research and weeks of travel—from the top of Maine to the foot of Florida" (Tamarin 1974:12). His investigation led him to the following conclusion: "Vermont is the home of over 200 American Indians, probably from tribes throughout the East as well as the rest of the country....Vermont's modern Indian citizens are not descended from the state's Original inhabitants." Tamarin was familiar with other Abenaki communities, such as one in Lake George, New York. He doubtless would have identified one in Vermont if it existed; but it was not there for him to see.

It is fascinating to examine writings of Gordon Day during this period as well. He was still in the height of his career and published five works on the Abenakis during this eight year period. Despite the fact that the Abenaki Tribal Council was formed in Swanton during this time and suddenly became visible within the state, Gordon Day's articles do not include any confirmation of any connection between the newly formed Swanton Abenaki group and the historic Abenaki at Missisquoi.
_______________
FOOTNOTE:
61. In his article about the "Western Abenaki" in the encyclopedic Handbook of North American Indians, Day maintained that Indians at Missisquoi abandoned their village and went to St. Francis after the American Revolution along with all the rest of the Western Abenakis in Vermont and New Hampshire (Day 1978:151-2). He observed "[b]eginning with World War I, the lure of industrial employment started small Abenaki communities in several northeastern United States cities" (Day 1978b:152). The cities with the most two articles Day wrote during this time included no comments on the fate of Missisquoi (Day 1974, 1979).

important Abenaki communities in the 1970's were Albany, New York, 62. and Waterbury, Connecticut. Vermont did not figure in this story.

Similarly in Abenaki Place-Names in the Champlain Valley," Day wrote that

The last village in the Champlain valley to be occupied by the Abenakis was Missisquoi, and this seems to have been abandoned during the American Revolution. From then until about 1960 there was more or less continuous visiting and short-term residence by Abenakis from Saint Francis to old familiar locations in the valley. (Day 1981a:230).

After the American Revolution, the center of Abenaki society remained Odanak/St. Francis. Vermont was simply a place for individual Indians to visit; it was not the site of a permanent tribal occupancy. In this article Day specifically listed the informants who gave him translations and stories behind the Abenaki place-names he describes. Not a single informant came from the Swanton group. Rather, the informants were the Obomsawins on Thompson's Point and residents of the village at Odanak/St. Francis (Day 1981a:231, Day 1948-1973).
He did not embrace the Swanton group as a new source of information. Day's 1981 work, "The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians," is the culmination of all his studies of the Western Abenakis. It synthesized all his previous work. In that important monograph, Day did not abandon his conclusion that the bulk of the Abenakis left Missisquoi after the American Revolution (Day 1981b:56). He repeated his view that Odanak was the center of Abenaki life. "Contact was maintained between these families and those in Odanak, and many returned in later life to live in Odanak" (Day 1981 b:62). He was silent on the existence of any Abenaki group in Swanton. While he incorporated some of John Moody's ideas in his discussion of the nineteenth century, he did not identify any late twentieth century group of Abenakis in Vermont (Day 1981b:57-58, 61-62). His reticence
_________________
FOOTNOTE:
62. Recall that the Obomsawins in Charlotte, Vt., had many Indian visitors from Albany. N.Y. (Royce 1969:2).

indicated he must not have thought they were actually tied to the historic Abenaki of the region. 63.

Day's specific reaction to the formation of the Abenaki Tribal Council, the Baker
report, and Governor Salmon's Declaration indicate exactly what he thought about this new group and its claims of historic descent. Gordon Day's papers at the Canadian Museum of Civilization include a copy of Jane Baker's report to Governor Salmon. It is filled with his annotations, as he made comments in the margin of almost every page. He questioned her suggestion that these people had unique cultural "traditions as hunters, fishermen and trappers" (Baker 1976:9). He asked, "How different from rural Vermonters." In response to her focus on this group's "conversations involv[ing] woodland and waterway adventure stories," he wrote, "Again, how different from rural Vermonters?" (Baker 1976:9). Day, a native Vermonter and woodsman himself, knew well how rural the state still was. Day was emphatic and direct in his comments on the conclusions stated in Baker's October 15, 1976, cover memo to the Governor (Baker 1976). Next to the following two following sentences he wrote, "no."

Evidence has shown, however, that the St. Francis Abenaki have always considered northern Vermont their true home and that they conducted regular summer migrations down the Richelieu River for at least the last hundred and fifty years. These visits stopped in the late 1960's for reasons unknown.

The subsequent sentence read as follows:

It is the assumption of this writer that the Abenaki currently residing in Vermont are the natural consequence of centuries of movement up and down the Richelieu River.

Adjacent to this he put a question mark. The last sentence in the paragraph read:
_______________
FOOTNOTE:
63. At the time he wrote the "Identity of the St. Francis Indians," Day had seen Moody's research (Day 1981 b:vi). Although he acknowledged it and made references to it, he did not endorse Moody's view that the Swanton group was descended from the historic Missisquoi.

Many of the Canadian Abenaki were employed as sportsmen guides which implies that the summer visitations may have lasted months, increasing the chances of inter marriage and resettlement in Vermont.

To this he wrote, "not in Vt."

Day's most pointed comment was aimed at Baker's conclusory statement that "Today's claims are being presented by residents of the State who have proven their Indian heritage and relationship to the Abenakis of Odanak and Becancour." To this, he underlined the word "proven," and wrote "not yet" in the margin! (Baker 1976:29). He showed his skepticism of the proof by his notation next to this passage:

The census begun by the earlier Manpower staff has been continued by Mr. Canes in conjunction with the Tribal Council and they now have a list with 1,700 names and addresses of American Indians in Vermont. Approximately 80% of the names are coded Abenaki and Sokoki (another Abenaki group of the Connecticut valley) with the rest being Mohawk and other New England Indians. A few are resident American Indians from the western states.

Next to the line regarding coding the names as Abenaki, he wrote, "how?" (Baker 1976:15).

Day did not keep his criticisms of the Baker report to himself. His views were solicited by members of the Vermont Sportsmen's Federation and reported to the press. Day was well aware of these reports, as his files included various news articles and editorials sent to him by J. Earl Capron, Secretary of the Vermont Sportsmen's Federation. 64. These include one article reporting on a meeting of the Sportsmen's Federation. The article stated that Day seriously disagreed with Baker's report:

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 magazine, scathing editorial criticizing the Baker report and Salmon's decision.
___________________
FOOTNOTE:
64. Day's files are preserved at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec.

Randolph was at the meeting Sunday, and spoke at length on his views ID

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...."I can't claim to speak for Gordon M. Day, but I know that he would hotly contest the claims of genealogical studies in the Baker report," Randolph said. (Rutland Daily Herald 12/13/1976).

The Vermont Sportsman editorial, referred to above, recounted a conversation between Day and Baker regarding the lack of Abenaki descendants in Vermont. It read as follows:

On Aug. 13, 1976 Mrs. Baker met with Gordon M. Day, a former Vermonter now in the employe [sic] of the Canadian government at Ottawa. She was told by the veteran of 20 years of anthropological study on the Odanak Abenaki Indians that there were no more than 10 families now living in Vermont which could be proved direct descendants of the original or pre-colonial Vermont Abenaki. Though Day is the only ethnologist and anthropologist who could comment expertly on this critical and focal subject, Mrs. Baker apparently chose to ignore the central fact of her research or to deliberately delete it from her report to the governor of Vermont and the people he represented.

The facts unearthed by twenty years of research by Gordon M. Day, not by Mrs. Baker, are that published Vermont and New England histories are  inexcusably lacking in telling even the basic fact of the existence of Abnaki native Americans in Vermont at the time of white settlement. Mr. Day has also proved that there are Abnaki descendants of those original native Americans living in Vermont today, but they are but a miniscule remnant of a Population which moved more permanently to Canada well before the War of 1812, when the Odanak Abenaki sided with Great Britain against the new country and thereby relinquished by war their territorial claims to Vermont. (Vermont Sportsman 12/1976).

There is no record in Day's files of any correspondence to the Sportsmen's Federation or Vermont newspapers indicating any disagreement with the articles about him. All indications, from his own comments on the Baker report, to the

second-hand reports of his views, imply that he continued to doubt the presence in Vermont of the 1,700 Abenaki descendants of the historic tribe.

1982 to Present

External Observations
In 1982, the petitioner submitted the instant petition to the BIA. Since then its profile has been much more visible in Vermont. One significant event of the 1980's was a "fish-in" demonstration. This was a direct challenge to Vermont's fishing laws. When the participants in the fish-in were arrested and charged with fishing without a license, they asserted a defense in court that was aimed at obtaining tribal recognition. Petition, 130-31. In their defense they argued that they had aboriginal rights as Native Americans and thus were not subject to state regulation for fishing (State v. Elliott, 159 Vt. 102, 104; 616 A.2d 210, 211 (1992)). Through this lawsuit—which the fish-in participants invited by their conduct—they sought to obtain a court decision recognizing tribal rights (Petition: 130-3 1). They were unsuccessful.
Petitioner submitted the trial court's opinion in the case to BAR with materials it provided as supporting documents to the petition. However, to supply that lower court decision alone is misleading, because it was reversed by the Vermont Supreme Court (State v. Elliott, 159 Vt. at 104, 616 A.2d at 212). In its decision the Supreme Court made clear that it did not need to rule on the question of whether the fish-in participants constituted a tribe. The court said:

We do not decide whether the trial court ruled correctly on the issue of tribal status and assume for the purposes of this case that defendants are members of a bona fide tribe of North Americans. (State v. Elliott, 159 Vt. at 109, 616 A.2d at 214).

Since the Vermont Supreme Court did not rule on the issue of tribal status, it is wrong to contend that the Vermont courts have recognized the Abenaki as a tribe. The courts have not done so; the trial court's decision was overruled and has no precedential effect. The reason the Vermont Supreme Court did not recognize tribal status is because it held that even if recognized defendants were a tribe, their aboriginal rights had been extinguished ago long (State Elliott, 159 Vt. at 121, 616 A.2d at 221).

Summary of Failure of Evidence to Satisfy Criterions (a)
In order to satisfy Criterion (a), the petitioner must demonstrate that its group of Abenakis was identified as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900. It must produce "evidence providing a reasonable basis for demonstrating that a criterion is met or that a particular fact has been established." The comments on the final rule addressed the problems that arise when "evidence is too fragmentary to reach a conclusion or is absent entirely." In those situations, "a criterion is not met if the available evidence is too limited to establish it, even if there is no evidence contradicting facts asserted by the petitioner" (59 Fed. Reg. 9280). The implication is that when there is contradicting evidence the decision is easier. In those cases, the BIA will find that the criterion has not been met. This is summed up in the regulation itself:

A petitioner may be denied acknowledgment if the evidence available demonstrates that it does not meet one or more criteria. A petitioner may also be denied if there is insufficient evidence that it meets one or more of the criteria. (25 C.F.R. 83.6(d)).

The evidence presented by the petitioner is totally insufficient to satisfy Criterion (a). The additional evidence presented in the State's Response to the Petition contradicts the petitioner's contention that it existed as an Indian entity from 1800 to at least 1976, or even

1981. The numerous examples of scholars who searched but did not discover this Abenaki Indian entity weighs heavily against petitioner's claim. It stretches credulity to believe that petitioner existed as a tribe when Frank Speck, A. Irving Hallowell, Gladys Tantaquidgeon, Gordon Day, John Huden, and Alfred Tamarin were unaware of them. For the seventy-five year period between 1900 and 1976, there are simply no external observations of an Indian entity in northwestern Vermont—or anywhere in Vermont.

The petitioner's evidence is on par with that presented in the Chinook case where the BIA held: "A few identifications during a three-year period of the three-quarters of a century between 1873 and 1951 does not constitute 'substantially continuous' identification" (BIA Chinook Indian Tribe 2002:46205). Even shorter gaps in identification of the Indian entity have resulted in a failure under Criterion (a). The Muwekma record lacked evidence for at least a third of a century after 1927, and therefore did not satisfy the criterion for "substantially continuous" identification (BIA Ohlone/Costano Muwekma Tribe 2001:14). The Duwamish record exhibited a break of continuity from 1900, when the federal government last dealt with the "Duwamish and other allied tribes," and 1925 when the new group was formed (BIA Duwamish Tribal Organization 2001:15).
Even if somehow the regulations were interpreted in an unprecedentedly broad
fashion and the St. Francis/Sokoki Abenaki were deemed to have provided sufficient evidence of external identification since 1900, the BIA would still be required to consider the total absence of evidence of identification from 1800 to 1900. That is because the result of a determination under the 1994 federal regulations must be the same as it would have been under the 1978 regulations. When the regulations regarding acknowledgment were revised in 1994, the Department of Interior said: "None of the changes made in these final

State of VT's Response to Petition for Federal Acknowledgment of the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of the Abenaki Nation of Vermont: Pages 101 to 110:

mentioned that a few "trickled back," but was aware of no concentration of Indians in the state after that. He continued to search for information, putting out requests such as this one at the end of his article:

If you have any information of any kind, traditional, legendary, or whatever it may be, which might assist us and Dr. Huden in unraveling the confusion and lack of knowledge about the Indian story in Vermont, Dr. Haden will welcome it at this address...(Huden 1956a:25).

There was no indication in his later publications that he uncovered any tribe of Abenakis existing in Vermont in the 1950's. The two-part article that followed on Joseph Gill, "The White Chief of the St. Francis Abnakis—Some Aspects of Border Warfare, 1690-1790" contained acknowledgments of scholars, Abenaki speakers, and resources in Canada—not Vermont (Huden 1956c, 1956d:347). Huden's summary of his Abenaki research efforts, written in 1957, recounted many discoveries of material and sources, but again contained no mention of any contemporary Abenakis in Vermont—save the Obomsawins (Huden 1957). His list of "Indian Groups in Vermont," published in 1958, mentioned none after 1790 (Huden 1958).
John Huden"s writings on Abenakis were noticed by Gordon Day, the man who would later become the foremost authority on the Western Abenakis. It was newspaper stories about Huden's research and the address of Stephen Laurent to the Vermont Historical Society that led Day to meet William and Marian Obomsawins and Stephen Laurent in 1955 (Day 1948-1973). These people, and their relatives at Odanak/St. Francis, provided Day with material for study for the next three decades. The details of Day's journey to find Abenaki Indians are described in the meticulous journal that he kept from 1948 to 1973. This manuscript records dozens of visits to the homes of Abenakis in Quebec, New Hampshire, Maine, New York, and Vermont. It tells who accompanied him, how many hours of audio

tape he recorded, and whom the informants suggested he contact next. In all the pages of the journal, there is not a single reference to any Abenakis around Swanton. He never identified the presence of a contemporary Abenaki tribe in Vermont in the quarter century he kept that journal. In fact, the only Abenakis in Vermont whom Day notes are William and Marian Obomsawin in Charlotte and their sister Elvine Royce in Montpelier (Day 1948-1973:9).

The fact that Day was unaware of any tribe of Abenaki in the state is solid evidence that there was none. If anyone was going to find Abenaki Indians in the 1950's and 1960's in Vermont, it would be Gordon Day. He was born and raised in Vermont, lived nearby in New Hampshire, and had dedicated himself "to saving Abenaki culture from oblivion."

(Foster & Cowan 1998:3, see Foster & Cowan's "Introduction" for a lengthy biographical essay about Gordon Day). Day seemed to strike up conversations with anyone who knew anything about Abenaki Indians, as this entry illustrates:

Nov. 6 [1961]
Left Contoocook by car and got stranded in N. Woodstock, N.H., all day and overnight with starter trouble. The garage man's son, Joe Huot, remembers Robert Nolet 55. who was killed by a car in the '40's here and knew his son Bob, who returned to work at Indian Head a summer or two ago. Also a daughter, Bernadette. (Day 1948-1973:65).

In light of this, it is most remarkable that we find the following entries:

July 7 [1960]
Drove thru "The Islands". 56. Could not identify just where Simon's Sandbar village was. Figured Missisquoi village was at falls at Swanton. Did not investigate Maquam for cranberry.

July 8 [1961 ]
Drove to Swanton, Vt. for week's vacation.

July 10
We visited the site of the monument established on the old village site in 1909 and to Highgate Springs.
_________________
FOOTNOTES:
55. Robert Nolet was a member of the Nolet family from Odanak (Day 1948-1973:17-20).
56. This refers to Lake Champlain Islands, which comprise Grand Isle County.

July 14

Viewed village site from other side of river, just opposite Wildlife Service building.

July 22
Visited Alburg Springs. (Day 1948-1973:36, 61).

In these entries there is not a whisper of evidence of present-day Indians in Franklin or Grand Isle counties (Day 1948-1973:58 mentioning stops at Alburgh, St. Jean, and Caughnawagha).

A review of Day's publications during these years also discloses no discovery of any Abenaki Indian group in Vermont during those years. In his 1965 article, "The Indian of Vermont," he disputed the assertion, made by some writers, that there was no Indian occupation of Vermont (Day 1965). He prompted the Vermont readers of his article to share his questioning of those writers by drawing on their local knowledge:

If these writers were correct, there would be little for us to say here, but I suspect that their statements do not sound quite right to you readers of Vermont history. For one thing, you are aware of archaeological remains testifying to early Indian occupation, and for another, you know that the historical record is quite clear about the presence of Indians at Missisquoi, on the upper Connecticut River, and at Lake Memphremagog just before the Revolution. (Day 1965:366).

Notably, he did not cite the existence of any contemporary Abenaki group in Vermont descended from the historic tribe as evidence. Had he known of such a group, it would have been well to include it in this essay.

Two facts from Day's experience speaks volumes about the non-existence of any Indian entity in Franklin and Grand Isle Counties from 1948 to 1973. The first is that Day spent years visiting, and conversing with Abenakis in Odanak and at Thompson's Point but was never told about a community of Abenakis in northwestern Vermont. The second is that he traveled to Swanton and Alburg, to locate the historic village and did not discover any contemporary Abenakis. These absences are even more powerful than the inability of

student researchers to find the MaChris (BIA MaChris Lower Alabama Creek Indian Tribe 1987:14). Given the number of years Day devoted to his study and his frequent presence in Vermont, it is even more telling than Frank Speck's lack of awareness of the Webster/Dudley Nipmucs (BIA Webster/ Dudley Band of Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuc Indians (#69B) 2001:84). In both the MaChris and Nipmuc cases the failure of these curious and diligent ethnographers to discover the tribe belied their very existence.

Day's next article about the Abenakis gives further insight into his understanding of the present-day location of the Missisquoi. His research led him to the following conclusion:

Saint Francis has been regarded as a melting pot, but the significant fact about it is that, despite its speckled history, it is now essentially composed of descendents of families from Lake Champlain. The Missisquoi band was the last sizeable band to settle at Saint Francis, and it came into a village considerably attenuated by wars and epidemics. As a result, about 85% of the family names in the band over the last 150 years had their origins in the Lake Champlain region. (Day 1971:1 19).

Two years later, in 1973, Day gave an address to the Northeast Anthropological Association meeting in Burlington, Vermont. He chose as his topic the "abandoned Abenaki Indian village of Missisquoi, partly out of deference to our Vermont hosts" (Day 1973). He did not describe Missisquoi as a place currently inhabited by Abenaki Indians. He traced its history, noting "the departure of the bulk of the village about 1775" (Day 1973:55).
However, he explained that the ethnographer of the 1970's could still learn about Missisquoi culture from the descendants of those eighteenth-century villagers. The key is to go to Odanak/St. Francis, he said. It is "through the memory and traditions of a large element of the [Odanak/]St. Francis band, we have knowledge of Missisquoi ethnography in detail" (Day 1973:56). It is at St. Francis in Quebec that "one can still hear the language which was spoken at Missisquoi. One can hear trickster and transformer stories, whose

setting is the Champlain Valley" (Day 1973:56). Day did not suggest that ethnographers consult any Abenaki group in northwestern Vermont; none of his research had ever indicated the existence of such a group. 57.

The BIA decision in the Southeastern Cherokee Confederacy case is instructive here. Federal acknowledgment was denied in that case in part due to the fact that the petitioner, the Southeastern Cherokee Confederacy of Georgia, was not the "historical and legal successor to the Cherokee Nation," as claimed; rather, the actual successor existed continuously in Oklahoma and North Carolina separate and apart from petitioner (BIA Southeastern Cherokee Confederacy 1985a:4). This bears on the question of continuity in identification of the tribe by external observers. The identification of an Indian entity is not continuous if the petitioners represent a new group that emerged late on the scene, when another group has a clear line of connection to the historic tribe.
Such may very well be the case with the Sokoki/St. Francis Abenaki petitioner here. Gordon Day and others have stated that the historic Missisquoi were absorbed into the Abenaki melting pot at Odanak/St. Francis (Day 1971:119; Calloway 1986:221).
Moreover, Day proved that the culture and language of Odanak/St. Francis is traceable back to these Lake Champlain immigrants (Day, 1973:55-56; 198 1a:231). His thorough research, probing and expansive than anyone else's on the Western Abenakis, concluded that at Odanak/St. Francis in the mid-twentieth century were the current successors of the Missisquois. Such statements, backed as they are by Day's two decades of ethnographic research, leave no room for a claim of historic continuity by the petitioners who only appeared to outsiders as an entity in the mid-1970's.
_______________
FOOTNOTE:
57. Day continued his research and writing into the 1980's. Those writings are discussed below.

A few other scholars also wrote about Indians in Vermont during the 1960's. One

was Thomas Daniels. Born and raised in Vermont, part Chippewa and Sioux, this Fish and Game Warden was a repository of a wealth of knowledge about prehistoric culture in Vermont (Daniels 1963:7-9, 59-61). In his treatise, he described what he learned from over forty years of excavating more than seventy-five Indian archaeological sites in Vermont. He did not once mention any interactions with Abenaki individuals or groups in Vermont. Yet, it appears he would have welcomed an opportunity to learn from such people, had they existed. He wrote of visiting the Penobscot Indians at Old Town and Perry, Maine, to learn from them how some of the tools he found were used (Daniels 1963:10). Writing specifically about the Missisquoi River valley, he affirmed that "the last Indians who lived here were the Abnakis, St. Francis and Micmacs" (Daniels 1963:14). He was not acquainted with any who lived there at the time of his explorations or writing.
Expressing his debt to both Daniels and Huden, Elbridge Colby documented his own research on Indian place names (Colby ca. 1964). Colby had been a Captain in the U.S. Army Professor of Journalism at the University of Vermont from 1933 to 1938, and later was head of the Journalism Department at George Washington University. 58. (Colby 2001, Vermont Historical Society 1968). Even while living in Washington, D.C., he spent his summers at Thompson's Point, in Charlotte, Vermont (Vermont Historical Society 1968).
_______________
FOOTNOTE:
58. Colby's sensitivity to discrimination of minority groups is demonstrated by the following incident. In 1925 he distinguished himself, and damaged his military  career, by denouncing the acquittal of the murderer of a black soldier who was shot upon refusing to step off a sidewalk to let a white man pass (Colby 2001).

Colby's 1960's manuscript 59. supplied the meaning of Indian place names that one call find on "a modern road map ...easily at hand at any gasoline filling station" (Colby ca. 1964:3). As he guided the reader on a tour of the state, he did not point out a single Indian group then living in Vermont, although he mentioned one individual Indian who "only although lived" in southern Vermont, almost on the Massachusetts line (Colby ca. 1964:29). In the section on the Missisquoi River he wrote:

At its mouth, through most of the 1700s, there stood a very important Indian through called "Missisiasuk" now disappeared. There the "people of the great grassy meadows" lived, but both the town and the people are gone. (Colby ca. 1964:19).

Yet again, we have a Vermont researcher with a great interest in Indian Culture expressing no knowledge of any Abenaki group in northwestern Vermont, or anywhere in Vermont, in the 1960's.
Furthermore, Colby's survey reminds us how important it is to confirm the tribal identity of Indians who one does encounter in the state. As the variety of Indian place names reveals, Vermont has historically been traveled and lived in by Indians from many places and tribes. He summarized the information found by Huden in his analysis of place names on historic maps, including names no longer in use in the 1960s. While there were over 100 place names from the Abenaki language, there were also 43 Mohawk, 14 Mahican, and 15 Natick place names (Colby ca. 1964:30).
Two Canadian authors wrote about the Abenakis during the 1960's. One was W.E. Greening who wrote an article about Odanak/St. Francis for the Canadian Geographical Journal. This journal is a publication of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society; it falls
________________
FOOTNOTE:

59. Although the manuscript is undated, the author refers to Daniels' Vermont Indians (1963) and Huden's Indian Place Names in New England (1962) as "a pair of books, recently printed in this decade" (Colby ca. 1964:2).

somewhere between popular press and erudite scholarship. In his article, Greening recounted the history of the Abenaki nation of Canada, covering both its New England and Canadian phases. As he brought his story to the present, he remarked that "[t]he only other Abenaki settlements in North America today are one near, Old Town, Maine, and one at Becancour, [Quebec]" (Greening 1966). He mentioned no Abenaki group in Vermont.

The second Canadian author writing in the 1960's was a true scholar who contributed greatly to the understanding of Abenaki history and culture. This was Father Thomas M. Charland. His volume Histoire des Abenakis d'Odanak was published in 1964. One of his goals was to expand on the Histoire des Abenakis written a hundred years earlier by fellow French Canadian, the priest Joseph-Anselme Maurault (Charland 1964:7). Charland was well-aware of the connection between Odanak/St. Francois and Missisquoi. One of the things he wanted to include in his work, which Maurault had left out, was the eighteenth history of the "exodus of the Abenakis to the Missisquoi River where their establishment lasted more than 30 years" (Charland 1964:7 translated from the French). Among Charland's sources were conversations with Abenakis living at Odanak from the 1940's to 1960's. (Charland 1964:8). He told the history of the Abenakis up to the 1950's (Charland 1964:338, 340). Thought he commented on the dispersal of Abenakis from Odanak to other parts of Canada and the United States, he never mentioned the existence of any Abenaki tribal community in Vermont in the twentieth century (Charland 1964:341).

Other Material Attests to Absence of Abenaki Tribe From Vermont
There are two other sources that may be consulted during the 1948 to 1973 time period for views of Indians. The first are the three federal censuses. Like those that

preceded it, the 1950 census showed very few Indians in the state—only 30 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1952:14, Table 14; 41, Table 47). The 1960 census showed a significant increase—but not in the Missisquoi region. The total Indian population that year was identified as 57. However, only 1 individual was identified in Franklin County, and none was found in Grand Isle County. The larger Indian populations were in the two southeastern Counties of Windham and Windsor with 15 and 17 each (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1961:13, Table 15; 38, Table 28).

In 1970, the census showed a major increase in the Indian population. The statewide total jumped from 57 to 229 in one decade (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1973:54, Table 34; 61, Table 38). These figures may reflect a new consciousness of Vermonters' Indian ancestors. It is striking, however, that the large increase in reporting did not reveal a concentration of Indians in Franklin or Grand Isle Counties. Once again, it was the southern counties joined by those in the central region of the state, which showed the sudden increase. Only 9 Indians were identified in Franklin County, and only 1 in Grand Isle (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1973:Table 34). This seems to belie the contention that there was a thriving ID Abenaki tribe living in Swanton throughout the twentieth century (See Table 1 above).
The other source of information on Abenakis in Vermont in the 1960's is a short
essay written by Mrs. Ellsworth Royce in 1969 entitled "The Last of the Abenakis in Vermont" (Royce 1969). Mrs. Royce was a white woman who married the son of Elvine Obomsawin Royce. Her husband's aunt and uncle were William and Marion Obomsawin of Thompson's Point, Charlotte, Vermont, who were Gordon Day and John Huden's friends and informants in their research (Royce 1969:1, Day 1948-1973:1-2, 1981a:231; Huden 1955:25). Her husband's grandfather was Simon Obomsawin, who moved to Vermont in the

first decade of the twentieth century (Haden 1955:25). Although she was not totally an outsider observer of the Abenakis, she did not appear to have adopted any Indian ways herself.

The significance of her essay is its description, or lack thereof, of the Indian significance community of which the Obomsawins were a part. The other Indians who were mentioned in the essay lived at Trois Rivieres, Quebec; Intervals, New Hampshire; and Albany, New York (Royce 1969:1). The latter seemed to visit frequently, as illustrated by this passage:

When I visited Thompson's Point with my husband and children there were always many Indians from Albany, New York[,] whose wives and children stayed there through the week and their husbands came weekends. (Royce 1969:2).

There was not a single mention of Abenakis farther north on Lake Champlain, in Franklin County, or even anywhere else in Vermont. In the 1960's it appeared that the Obomsawin family was an isolated family, not associated with any larger tribe of Abenaki in the state. Their only connections to other Indian families were outside the state, thus suggesting, there was no Abenaki tribe in Vermont with which they could associate. Similar evidence worked against satisfaction of Criterion (a) in the Dudley/Webster Nipmuc case (BIA Dudley/Webster Band of Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuc Indians (#69B) 2001:83). It weighs against Criterion (a) here as well.

1974 to 1981

External Observations
During the mid-1970's a group of individuals came together and created the Abenaki Tribal Council and the Abenaki Self-Help Association, Inc. As the petitioner itself admits, this was an attempt to "re-create" the community of Indians that had lived in Franklin County

State of VT's Response to Petition for Federal Acknowledgment of the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of the Abenaki Nation of Vermont: Pages 93 to 100:

inhabitants, that they were in the habit of drifting back in bands of eight or ten families to favorite camping grounds to spend part of the year up to as late as camping grounds 1835 or 1840. (Swanton Courier 12/4/1913a).

An article on page 15 of the paper gave a detailed description of Indian relics found Swanton Village, but again made no mention of any present-day Indian inhabitants. The town was obviously proud of its Indian history. The fact that "Swanton is rich in Indian history and is the mecca for relic hunters" was listed alongside the fact that it boasted four railroads and an electric streetcar line, a live Board of Trade, and several thriving businesses (Swanton Courier 12/4/1913b). These were all included on a list of Swanton's notable features in a column meant to boost support for the town. (Swanton Courier 12/4/1913c). These articles do not provide evidence to satisfy Criterion (a), rather they support a negative finding on that issue (BIA Ohlone/Costanoan Muwekma Tribe 2001:5; BIA Nipmuc Nation (#69A) 2001:85).
The petitioner does not cite any newspaper articles that give contemporary twentieth century descriptions of Indians in Vermont during this time period. In fact, the petitioner admits that its ancestors were not identified as Indians in the local press until the 1970's (Petition: 154).

Swanton Birth Records
The only evidence of external identification cited in the petition for 1900 to 1929 is a few birth records in Swanton that petitioner claims indicate the individuals are Indian or Indian-White (Petition: 147). Examination of the actual records does not confirm this. Most of the records actually indicate no race or "White" for the children. These are analyzed in detail in the section Criterion (e): Petitioner's Evidence of Indian Births is Contradicted by

Original Records. Copies of the birth records are included in the Exhibits (Swanton, Vermont, Town Clerk 1904-1920). Furthermore, petitioner states the indications of Indian race in these listings (to the extent there are any) are attributable to an Indian midwife (Petition: 147). This presents two problems as evidence of identification as an Indian entity.

The first is that these birth records are not identifications of an Indian entity; they are identifications of individuals. As such they represent only scattered identification of separate persons during a very small window of time—a time that is otherwise devoid of external identifications. This is insufficient evidence for Criterion (a) (BIA Chinook Indian Tribe 2002:46205). Secondly, if the midwife was Indian, as the petition asserts, then these records are not identification by outsiders.

1930 to 1947

External Observations Silent on Existence of Any Contemporary Abenaki Tribe
In 1934, Gladys Tantaquidgeon presented her survey of New England Indians to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior. She identified nine tribes in the New England states of Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Her report does not mention a single group in Vermont (Tantaquidgeon 1934).
The 1930's was also the time period during which Elin Anderson conducted her research on ethnic groups in Burlington (Anderson 1937). Anderson's primary tool was a set of questions that were posed orally to individuals in Burlington. During the interviews, the surveyors asked for the respondents' perceptions of fourteen other ethnic groups: French Canadians, Irish, Americans/Yankees, English Canadians, Italians, Jews, Germans, Syrians, French, Scottish, Greeks, English, Scandinavians, Chinese, and Negroes (Eugenics Survey of

Vermont [1932-1936]). There was no surveying of attitudes toward Abenaki Indians or Native Americans of any kind. This shows they were not identified by outsiders as an entity in the Burlington area in the 1930's.

The 1930 federal censuses identified 36 Indians in the State of Vermont, the largest number since the census had begun. However, only three Indian individuals were identified in Franklin County, and none in Grand Isle County (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1932:1131, Table 17). As with previous census reports, no central grouping of Indians emerged from the census. The historic area of Missisquoi and its surroundings was not viewed as an Indian village or congregating place for Indian inhabitants. In 1940, the number of Indians identified by the census in the state dropped to 16 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1943:90, Table 6).
Two documents reveal the absence of any Indian identity in the 1940's. One is the chronology of Vermont prepared by the Vermont Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration in 1941. It included the following entry for 1856: "Last native Indians in state leave Bellows Falls 54. for Canada. November" (Richmond 2/ 10/1941; see also Works Progress Administration 1937:83-84).
The other is a series of articles entitled "Growing Up in Vermont" published in the Swanton Courier in 1941 and 1942. These articles mentioned some of the petitioner's ancestors by name but included no designation of them as Abenaki or even as Indian. The series was written by Walter Scott at age 74 and described Swanton and its inhabitants when he was a child growing up there (Swanton Courier 1941-1942). He mentioned the following individuals from petitioner's genealogy:
________________
FOOTNOTE:
54. Bellows Falls is a village in the town of Rockingham in the southeastern portion of the state along the Connecticut River.

Ancestor Named in Article

his (Walter Scott) next door neighbors, Dannie and Mattie Colomb
Date of Article: August 14, 1941

William Morits, a beggar
Date of Article: October 23, 1941

Duck Brow, who worked in the meat market
Date of Article: October 30, 1941

Salina Freemore, aunt of William Greenough, posed as model for a marble statue;
Date of Article: November 13, 1941

Scott did not identify a single one of these individuals as Indian. However, he did describe Louis Button as "part Indian," though there does not appear to be a Button family in the petitioner's genealogical charts (Compare Swanton Courier 1/22/1942 with petitioner's Family Descendancy Charts). The existence of news articles naming petitioner's ancestors, but not identifying them as Indian do not satisfy Criterion (a) (BIA Webster/Dudley Band of Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuc Indians (#69B) 2001:82, Ohlone/Costanoan Muwekma Tribe 2001:2). To the contrary, this evidence confirms these people were not viewed as Indian by the rest of the community.

1948 to 1973

Researchers Failed to Discover Any Contemporary Vermont Abenaki Tribe

As with the previous time periods, there are no external identifications of Abenaki in Vermont during the twenty-five year period from 1948 to 1973. Three anthropological surveys were published during this period and none identifies a tribe of Abenaki Indians in during Vermont.

The first was William Haden Gilbert, Jr.'s "Surviving Indian Groups of the Eastern United States" in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution (1948). This report was

prepared for the "purpose of indicating the extent to which Indian blood still remains noticeable in our eastern States population" (Gilbert 1948:407). It was based on an analysis of the 1930 federal census, which could only be favorable to Vermont Indians since that census listed more Indians than any previous one (Gilbert 1948:407; see also Table 1 above).

Gilbert addressed each of the eastern states individually and wrote: "No surviving social groups of Indians are recorded for Vermont, although the census records a few scattered individuals" (Gilbert 1948:409). While Gilbert noted that the census numbers are often understated, he did not reject them wholesale. He used the figures in conjunction with numerous anthropological and historical works cited in his bibliography (Gilbert 1948:436-38). He was aware of unofficial estimates of Indian populations as well (Gilbert 1948:407). Using all these sources, Gilbert still concluded there were no Indian tribes in Vermont.
In assessing evidence under Criterion (a), the BIA has rejected scenarios that depict only scattered individual Indians such as that shown here. The evidence necessary to satisfy Criterion (a) would identify an Indian entity viewed by outside observers as a coherent Indian group (BIA Ohlone/Costanoan Muwekma Tribe 2001:12).
Four years after Gilbert's report the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology
published John Swanton's The Indian Tribes of North America (1952). This tome was a comprehensive compilation of information on all the known Indian groups in North America. In it Swanton recognized the historic Abenaki group in Vermont, stating that "[a]n Abnaki band known as the Missiassik was at one time settled on Missisquoi River in Franklin County" (Swanton 1952: 18). He said that the main body of Abenakis was located in Maine, with the Mississiak  representing a "late intrusion" into Vermont (Swanton 1952:13). He observed that all of them "finally withdrew to Canada where they were settled at Becancour

and Sillery, and later at St. Francis, along with other refugee tribes from the south" (Swanton 1952:14-15). This description depicted an historic tribe that had long since ceased to exist in Vermont by the 1950's. Such evidence suggests a negative finding on Criterion (a). (BIA Ohlone/Costanoan Muwekma Tribe 2001:5).

In the following decade, another team of anthropologists from the Smithsonian sought to fill in gaps in the knowledge of Indian groups by focusing on the eastern states just as Gladys Tantaquidgeon and William Gilbert had before them. This team was comprised of William Sturtevant and Samuel Stanley. In a 1968 article in the Indian Historian, they described the challenge of tracking down non-urban Indians in the eastern states due to the fact that they never had a special relationship with the federal government like the tribes west of the Mississippi (Sturtevant & Stanley 1968).
Sturtevant and Stanley were well aware of the difficulties they faced in undertaking this study. They pointed out that:

It is much more difficult in these states than elsewhere to define the term "Indian" and to identify Indians....At one extreme are communities which fit all the usual criteria of Indianness: self-identification, distinct cultural characteristics including the survival of an Indian language among at least a "conservative" nucleus of the group, obvious Indian biological ancestry (at least among a significant proportion of the population), existence as a among separate well-bounded rural community, and a tradition of derivation from a historic tribe which is accepted by all observers—by lay members of both Indian and non-Indian communities, and by scholars. At the other extreme are a few groups who are rural social isolates suffering from discrimination by the majority of their neighbors, but not accepted as being Indians by these neighbors and of whom it is not known by scholars whether they themselves claim Indian ancestry, nor whether they exhibit indentifiable [sic] Indian biological characteristics.
Between these extremes are many groups with intermediate characteristics. (Sturtevant & Stanley 1968:15-16).

The authors then proceed to present a table summarizing available data on "Eastern Indian or possibly Indian communities" (Sturtevant & Stanley 1968:17).

The table may very well overstate some claims to Indian identity and understate others. However, their purpose was to identify places and people who might be Indian and encourage field research to assist in the identification that the Indians deserve (Sturtevant & Stanley 1968:17).

Given this attempt at thoroughness and the authors' intent to identify missing groups, it is noteworthy that they write that "Vermont and New Hampshire are in this region but have no known Indian communities" (Sturtevant & Stanley 1968:15). Their failure to locate any Indian groups in Vermont cannot be explained by lack of attention to small groups. Their chart showed a group of 25 Abenakis in New York State (Sturtevant & Stanley 1968:18). If there were really hundreds Abenakis in Franklin County, as the petitioner has claimed, they should have appeared here.
When anthropologists and ethnologists actively seek Indians in Vermont and fail to uncover any tribal entities, the scales tip against fulfillment of Criterion (a). (BIA Webster/Dudley Band of Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuc Indians (#69B) 2001:84, BIA Webster/Dudley Band of MaChris Lower Alabama Creek Indian Tribe 1987:14).
In addition to anthropologists on the national scene looking for Indians, there were local researchers addressing the task. The person who did the most to uncover information about Abenaki history in Vermont during the 1950's was John Huden. Huden held a doctorate from Yale University and was an educator who served as president of Castleton Teachers' College and Professor in Education at the University of Vermont. In the 1950's he conducted research on Indians in Vermont (Vermont Historical Society 11/1959). Huden's article "Indians in Vermont—Present and Past," revealed his knowledge of the presence of Indians in the Vermont of his day. He wrote:

Very few Indians make their homes in Vermont today, Anno Domini 1955. Down Charlotte way, at Thompson's Point, some twenty-odd Abnakis lived up to about 1939; now only William and Marion Obum-swam, an aging brother-sister team, linger there in the little cottage their father built when he migrated from Canada back in Teddy Tedd Roosevelt's administration....They are migrated probably the last Indian-speaking Indians in the Champlain valley.

A hasty survey of Lake Champlain and Connecticut River townships has revealed no Indian residents other than the Charlotte basketweavers. (Haden 1955).

Huden frequently asked people at public meetings and social gatherings, "How many here have any Indian blood?" From these "spot checks and other evidence obtained in follow-up interviews" he learned of people in Vermont with "strains of Abnaki [sic], Montauk, Mohegan, Pequot, Wampanoag, Penacook, Narragansett or other tribal sanguinary fluid" (Haden 1955:25). However, he did not discover any active Indian communities through these conversations. While he wrote about individuals with varying amounts of Indian ancestry and knowledge of their background; he observed no tribal entities. This undercuts any positive finding on Criterion (a). (BIA Ohloiie/Costanoan Muweknia Tribe 2001:12).
Huden's interest in Indians and his role as a board member of the Vermont Historical Society led to Stephen Laurent's address to the Society in 1955. Stephen Laurent was introduced as the "hereditary chief of the Abenakis" of Odanak/St. Francis, as he was the son of Chief Joseph Laurent (Laurent 1955). Laurent was born in 1909 at Odanak, and came to live year-round in northern New Hampshire in 1940 (Boston Globe 6/2/2001). In Laurent's Vermont address, he made no mention of any Indian communities existing at that time.
Huden's further studies of Abenaki place names and history led him to conclude that "our Indians fled to Canada," from Vermont around 1760 (Huden 1956a:23-24). He

State of VT's Response to Petition for Federal Acknowledgment of the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of the Abenaki Nation of Vermont: Pages 82 to 92:

1900 to 1929

Researchers Identify Vermont Abenaki as Tribe of the Past
The Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology published a Handbook Ethnology of American Indians North of Mexico in 1907, edited by Frederick Webb Hodge. This large and authoritative study "treats all of the tribes north of Mexico, including the Eskimo." Hodge stated the handbook's goal:


It has been the aim to give a brief description of every linguistic stock,
confederacy, tribe, subtribe or tribal division and settlement known to history or even to tradition, as well as the origin and derivation of every name treated. whenever such is known... (Hodge 1907:viii).

In this work, Hodge described the history of the "Abnaki," tracing their displacement from Maine to Canada. He noted that "[t]he descendants of those who emigrated from Maine, together with remnants of other New England tribes, are now at St. Francis and Becancour, in Quebec, where, under the name of Abnaki, they numbered 395 in 1903" (Hodge 1907:3-4). In addition, he noted the number of Eastern Abenakis—namely the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy-- in Maine.
As for the portion of the Western Abenaki who historically lived at Missisquoi in the eighteenth Century, Hodge recognized the "Missiassik" as an historical subgroup. However, he did not see it as an entity presently in the United States at the time of his writing. He stated that it was "[a]n Algonquian tribe or body of Indians belonging to the Abnaki group, formerly living on Missisquoi r. in N. Vermont" (Hodge 1907:87-2). He explained that "[t]hey had a large village at the mouth of Missisquoi r. in Franklin co., on L. Champlain, but abandoned it about 1730 on account of the ravages of an epidemic, and removed to St. Quebec" (Hodge 1907:872).

Hodge's reference to the Missisquoi, or Abenaki of northwestern Vermont, in the past tense as "formerly living" in northern Vermont, is in keeping with the same observations made by Samuel Drake in 1845 and Henry Schoolcraft in 1851-1854, as well as the local history written by John B. Perry in 1863. 48. These characterizations of the tribe as a past entity, one that no longer exists in the area, require a negative finding on Criterion (a). The Nipmuc Nation Proposed Finding states that characterizations of a tribe as extinct as opposed to a viable contemporaneous entity would support a negative finding on Criterion (a). (BIA Nipmuc Nation (#69A) 2001:85). That is also the conclusion reached in the Muwekma case (BIA Ohlone/Costanoan Muwekma Tribe 2001:5, 9, 12). An example of inadequate evidence of this type was described by the BIA in that case:

The petitioner cites Alfred Kroeber's Handbook of the Indians of California, published in 1925, as an identification of the petitioning group. Kroeber denied, however, that a Costanoan group continued to exist in 1925, despite his recognition that a "few scattered individuals survive...." These individuals "of mixed tribal ancestry," he contended, had long ago "abandoned" the natives' "old habits of life" and were living "almost lost among other Indians or obscure Mexicans." In this view, the surviving Indian descendants had lost a distinct culture and any distinct settlements. Therefore, although he knew that individual descendants of the Costanoan existed, Kroeber concluded that, "The Costanoan group is extinct so far as all practical purposes are concerned." (BIA Ohlone/Costanoan Muwekma Tribe 2001:5).

Another scholar sought to describe all the Indian groups he could find in 1914.
Warren K. Moorehead included a chapter on "Indians Today," in his book The American Indian In the United States; Period 1850-1914: The Present Condition of the American lndian: His Political History and Other Topics; A Plea for Justice. His description moved through the eastern United States as he identified groups of Indians continuing to live in tribal relations, such as the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy in Maine (Moorehead 1914:31-
________________
FOOTNOTE:
48. See discussion above in section Nineteenth Century: Travelers, Historians, and Surveyors of In Indians.

33). He found no group in large enough to mention. After describing the Indians in Maine, he wrote that "[t]o discover the next body of Indians of more than three or four hundred, we must go down South" or to New York State (Moorehead 1914:33). He noted that although the census of 1910 lists a few Indians in the eastern states, most of them "are white people in every way, save color" (Moorehead 1914:33, 35).

A notable Vermont author also wrote about Indians during this period. In Vermont, The Green Mountain State, Walter Hill Crockett surveyed the evidence of Indian habitation in Vermont up to 1921 (Crockett 1921:49-64). He wrote of the Indians entirely in the past tense. He acknowledged no contemporary settlement or community of Indians. Statements such as these described them as largely disappearing in the late eighteenth century:

--"some remained until the white men settled here,"

--fishing, hunting grounds in Sheldon "held tenaciously by [the St. Francis Indians], being yielded with great reluctance."

While he believed "that so far as Vermont is concerned the Indian population generally has been underestimated" historically, he was not aware of any Indians community in Vermont in is day (Crockett, 1921:5 1, 60, 64).
One of the most well-known anthropologists, Frank G. Speck, conducted a
considerable considerable amount of research on both the Western and Eastern Abenakis. He published articles on the Eastern Abenakis in Maine (Speck 1915, 1919), and articles referring to the Western Abenakis in New Hampshire and Odanak/St. Francis, Quebec (Speck 1947). Speck researched the Abenaki language and culture and made several visits to Odanak/St. Francis

where he spoke with various Abenakis including Chief Joseph Laurent. 49. In one article, he described the Wabanaki group south of the St. Lawrence River by the following boundaries:

beginning with the Pigwacket of New Hampshire embracing the Sakoki, Aroosaguntacook and Norridgewock, and the better known Wawenock, Penobscot, Passamoquoddy, Malecite and Micmac, with an approximate native population of some 6,000. (Speck, 1926:282).

This description did not include any to the west of New Hampshire in Vermont.
It was not for lack of searching that Speck failed to mention Abenakis in Vermont. He was aware of Abenakis near Vermont, as shown by the fact that his papers included photographs of Abenakis at Lake George, New York, in 1952 (Speck 1952). There is additional evidence that Speck was familiar with a possible Abenaki village at Lake George, New York. A researcher in the 1950's referred to Speck's familiarity with an Abenaki woman at Lake George in a letter written to Speck's colleagues after Speck's death. The inquiry was for material regarding

an old St. Francis (Canada) Indian named Sabael (1745-1855) who settled in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. In talking with his great grand- daughter Mrs. Maud Nagazoa, I understand that Prof. Frank Speck once talked with her – I presme [sic] more about the Abenaki language. The locale language of this interview might have been lake George, or Sorel in Canada. (Cadbury 2/28/1959).

These materials demonstrate Speck's knowledge of the Abenaki in Quebec, Maine, New Hampshire, and New York. A survey of his published works and indexes to his papers at the American Philosophical Society has turned up no references to a community of Abenakis in northwestern Vermont or anywhere in Vermont. It is striking that an anthropologist who
_______________
FOOTNOTE:
49. Two such visits and conversations with Chief Laurent are referred to by Odanak/St. Francis Chief Joseph Laurent's son in an address to the Vermont Historical Society (Laurent 1955:187). As Chief Laurent died in 1917, these visits must have taken place before then (For Laurent's dates, see Hume 1991:104-105).

spent so much time researching the Abenakis did not mention any in Vermont in all his did mention in all his works.

Speck was not the only anthropologist to study the Western Abenakis during the first three decades of the twentieth century. A. Irving Hallowell also conducted research among the Abenaki at Odanak/St. Francis in Canada throughout the 1920's (Hallowell 1928:102, [biographical sketch] n.d.:1). While this article on kinship terminology discussed Abenakis [biographical at Odanak and Becancour, as well as the Eastern Abenakis in Maine (the Penobscot), it made no mention of any Abenaki tribe in Vermont during those years (Hallowell 1928:104). During

It is very significant that two anthropologists studying Abenaki language, society, and culture, over an extended period of time in the first half of the twentieth century, did not discover any Abenaki community in Vermont, or any individual Abenaki informants for their research. This failing is relevant to Criterion (a), as in the MaChris Proposed Finding in which the BIA noted the failure of student researchers to discover any reference to the MLACIT or its individual members (BIA MaChris Lower Alabama Creek Indian Tribe 1987:14).
Likewise, the Webster/Dudley Band of Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuc Indians cites the absence of that band from Frank Speck's research as a reason why Criterion (a) was not met there (BIA Webster/Dudley Band of Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuc Indians (#69B) 2001:84). In that case, Speck's interviews with one band of Indians did not turn up any mention of the Dudley/Webster group. Despite the fact that he was in the same area researching Nipmuc Indians, Speck made no visits to the Dudley/Webster descendants. This lack of identification by the renowned anthropologist weighed against a finding of acknowledgment under Criterion (a) (BIA Webster/Dudley Band of Nipmuc Indians (#69B)

2001:54). As this Response to the Petition will show, scholars searched for Abenakis in the 1950's and 1960's as well. Then, too, they found no Abenakis in Vermont or surrounding areas.

Federal Government Records Identify Only a Tiny Number of Individual Indians

The first two federal censuses for the twentieth century included special enumerations of Indians. In 1900 census workers were specifically told to look for Indians, "both those on reservations and those living in family groups outside of reservation" (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1900c Census). A special form, Schedule 1, was to be used whenever a family composed mainly of Indians was found. This form recognized that Indians were frequently transient. The enumerators were required to indicate whether the Indians were living in a temporary structure such as a tent or tepee, or in a fixed permanent structure. The 1900 census indicated there were five Indians in Vermont, but none in Franklin County where the historical village of Missisquoi was located (U.S. Bureau of Census 1901:561).
There were also no Indians indicated in adjacent Grand Isle County, the one which encompasses the Lake Champlain islands. Three of the enumerated Indians were listed in Essex County on the other side of the state, bordering New Hampshire and the Connecticut River. 50. The other two individuals were listed in central parts of the state, Rutland and Washington counties. This lack of Indians in Vermont cannot be attributed to a general invisibility. Abenaki Indians were fully visible in areas not far away, as the 1900 federal
________________
FOOTNOTE:
50. There is some evidence that Indians seen in Essex County could be from Old Town, Maine. Thomas Daniels wrote "[a]s late as 1910, Indians from Old Town, Maine traveled up the Androscoggin River to St. Johnsbury, where they gathered bark from the swamps to make dye" (Daniels 1963:13).

census for the area of Lake George, New York, indicates (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1900a, 1900b).

The 1910 census also sought out Indians for special enumeration. 51. As with the prior census, Franklin County does not stand out as a center of Indian habitation. To the contrary, of the 26 Indians listed in the state that year, only five were listed in Franklin County (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1922:1049). No Indians were identified in Grand Isle County. Nine are listed in the central and southern counties of the state. The largest concentration is the nine listed in Chittenden County. These tiny numbers indicate that the census takers were not aware of a group of Indians inhabiting the area of the historic village of Missisquoi. The picture painted by the 1920 census is similar. Twenty-four Indians were identified in the state, yet none resided in Franklin or Grand Isle counties (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1922:1049, Table 7). Moreover, as discussed below in Criterion (e), none of the Indians identified in the censuses from 1870 to 1910 is listed as an ancestor of petitioner.
Federal census records are a standard source of external identification consulted in federal acknowledgment cases. They are considered a reliable source (BIA Duwamish Tribal Organization 21001:24). The fact that none of the ancestors of the petitioner is identified as Indian in the census records can be a major obstacle to federal acknowledgment as it was in the MaChris Proposed Finding (BIA MaChris Lower Alabama Creek Indian Tribe 1987:6).
__________________
FOOTNOTE:
51. Prior to 1900 there was one other special census of Indians in 1890. In Vermont, this census listed 34 Indians not on reservations. Although the individual listings of the 1890 census were destroyed in a fire, a compilation summarizing the results of the Indian census survived. This ccompilation shows the counties in which those 34 Indians lived, none lived in Franklin or Grand Isle counties. The largest group containing 13, was located in Essex County, on the eastern side of the state bordering New Hampshire. Another 12 were located in central or southern counties. That leaves 8 listed in Chittenden County, and in Orleans between Franklin and Essex (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1894:602).

The instant petitioner, the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of Abenakis, concedes that the census did not list its ancestors as Indian (Petition: 145).

One source that the BIA has used in evaluating petitions for acknowledgment is military records (BIA MaChris Lower Alabama Creek Indian Tribe 1987:12). Draft registration forms for World War I were located for ancestors of the petitioner and have been examined for indications of Indian identity. Twenty-two such registration forms were examined; not a single one listed the individual as Indian. These are included in the exhibits filed with this Response. There is no reason to believe that individuals would be inclined to hide their Indian identity at the time these forms were filled out in 1917 and 1918. If, as the petitioner contends, the Eugenics Survey created an atmosphere of distrust and fear, it still would not affect these registrations, which pre-dated the survey by nearly a decade.

Records of the Vermont Eugenics Survey Do Not Identify Any Abenakis
One characteristic of the evidence in the Muwekma case that occurs in the instant petition is the identification of the Indians in the region as belonging to another Indian tribe belonging or group. In order to be federally acknowledged and meet the requirements of c. the ancestors of the petitioning groups need to be identified by the correct tribal name. This is to make sure they have not broken off from another tribe that is otherwise recognized, or that they are not a newly formed group that did not exist historically. In the Muwekma case, there were various Indian settlements in the area, so it was important to determine to which group petitioner belonged. Since the evidence in that case associated petitioner with another tribe—not the historic Verona or Muwekma Indians—the balance weighed against acknowledgment on Criterion (a). (BIA Ohlone/Costanoan Muwekma Tribe 2001:2-4).

The Eugenics Survey of Vermont contains similar evidence. Buried amongst the

thousands of pages of material in that survey are a few references to possible Indian ancestry of a few individuals. However, not a single one identifies an Indian as Abenaki.
Furthermore, only a few of these individuals are even ancestors of the petitioner  according to the genealogical material submitted to the BIA in 1995. Family Descendancy Charts. Specifically, the references to Indians in the Eugenics Survey who are listed by petitioner as ancestors are as follows: 52.

Antoine Phillips
"Matilda Leopard Phillips (Young Matilda) ... says that Old Antoine had Indian blood and had something to do with the Kickapoo Indians. 53. (Agent H.E.A. thinks that the above statement is probably rather doubtful except for the fact that Old Antoine did have Indian blood and probably was related to some of the inhabitants of an Indian reservation in southeastern Canada.[)]"

Peter Phillips
listed in Eugenics Survey as a son of Antoine. "Peter Phillips the first was part Indian, part French, and part Negro. On his death certificate he is recorded as colored. He was very decidedly Negroid in appearance. [Police] Chief Russell of Burlington remembers Old Peter Phillips who looked like an Indian."

Alexander Bissette
listed in Eugenics Survey as son of Julia Phillips and
__________________
FOOTNOTES:
52. The relevant pages from the Survey arc included in the Exhibits (Eugenics Survey of Vermont 1926-1930]a and [1926-1930]b).
53. There is other evidence of some people of Kickapoo descent in Vermont (Needham 1965).

Andrew Bissette; Julia is listed as a daughter of Antoine Phillips. When he was admitted to the Vermont State Hospital, "[h]e said that his mother was Indian."

There are two other people whose descriptions in the Eugenics Survey include
references to Indian heritage, but they did not have any descendants among petitioner's members:

Delia Bone
listed in Eugenics Survey as wife of Peter Phillips. She
"was part Indian and part French. She came from an Indian Reservation Caughnawagha, sixteen miles from Montreal." According to the Phillips Family Descendancy Chart, she married Peter Phillips (individual #2). No children are listed, thus her line does not continue to today's petitioner.

George Peters
"The Peterses were half French and half Indian."
According to the Phillips Family Descendancy Chart, he is shown as marrying Jane Virginia Phillips (individual #7). No children are listed; his line does not continue to today's petitioner.

Lastly, one other individual is mentioned as having some Indian blood, but he does not show up in petitioner's Family Descendancy Charts at all:

George Louis Jerome
"The Jeromes were part French and part Indian, and
probably part negro."

As for other ancestors of the petitioner who were profiled by the Eugenics Survey, most of them are described as French. The following are notable examples:

Nezer St. Francis

St. Francis Family Descendancy Chart (individual #5).

Clara Hoague
Hoague Family Descendancy Chart (individual #11)

Joseph Hoague
Columb Family Descendancy Chart (individual #54)

Emeline/ Minnie Vincelette
Married Joseph Hoague.

One is described in the survey as Irish:

William Morits
Married Mary Zelda Hoague. John Morits Family Descendancy Chart (individual #16)

Newspapers Fail to Identify Any Abenaki Tribe in Vermont
The December 4, 1913, issue of the Swanton Courier newspaper ran three articles related to, or referring to, Indians. All spoke of the Indians as a past feature of Swanton; they made no mention of any continuity to any existing community of people in the area. The first article, on the front page of the paper, was entitled "The Indians." It discussed the relics that had been found in Franklin and Grand Isle Counties and went on to give a concise history of Indian occupation of the area. The last sighting of Indians was given in the following
following passage:

[After the treaty of 1763] The Indians, who had sided with the French in the wars of the past, were now left in the hands of their enemy [the English], and their gradual withdrawal from this territory followed. They continued to occupy, however, up to at least as late as 1800, and it is said by old