Over the course of the previous month, a person brought to my attention back to a member of the "Nulhegan-Coos Band of the Abenaki Nation" group, an incorporated entity posing as an Indigenous Nation within VT/NH led by Donald Warren Stevens Jr. of Shelburne, Vermont, and wondered about the merits of this member's lateral ancestor Betsey (Guppy) Chamberlain.
So, I will start my evaluation (research) starting here:
Judith A. Ranta of White Plains, NY had contended (subjectively, I might add) that Betsey (nee: Guppy) Chamberlain was exceptional not only because of her literary output but ... "because she (Betsey) was a Native American!
Betsey (nee: Guppy) on the right in the stripped dress ???
NOT Betsey (Guppy) Chamberlain Photo
The source of the tintype, the Lowell Historical Society, which dated the photo to the 1860's, does not identify either of the two women as being Betsey
Indeed, on September 27, 2021, to Douglas Buchholz, the author Juanita Ranta kindly pointed out that "Betsey Guppy had been born in ca. 1797, so would Betsey have been in the 60's. In the 1860's she was also not living in Lowell. She resided in Illinois by that time." Judy
So let's take a deep dive into Ranta' book about Betsey:
She dedicates the book "To the Abenaki People, Past, Present, and Future"
Judith A. Ranta, acknowledges in the beginning of her book that she had received fascinating instruction in Abenaki history and genealogy from Nancy (nee: Coffin) Lecompte of Nancy's organization "Ne-Do-Ba". Ranta was also privileged to have met two of Betsey Guppy's cousin's descendants: Jill (nee: Cresey) Gross and Maurie Hill, who had generously shared their family files.
From the very start, Ranta claims that Betsey Guppy Chamberlain (ca. 1797-1886) was a "mixed-race writer of English and Algonkian heritage" ... "one of the first Native women to publish writings protesting Native People's persecution". "Drawing on ... Native oral and literary traditions, Chamberlain's writings ... " "tough as a squaw ..." Ranta, on Page 8 speaks of a "renaissance of Native culture, particularly in New England (yet more like its been a renaissance of race shifting!). She mentioned author and scholar Colin Calloway who have explored the pervasive early American ideology of the "disappearing" Indian. And in that ideology of the vanishing "the Last Of ..." steps in the race shifting dynamics to fill that vacuum; (Calloway had allied with race shifters and their white allies such as John Scott Moody for his sources). Ranta stated "Many Native Peoples intermarried with whites or blacks, as happened with Betsey Guppy Chamberlain's forebears. Those who settled down to the Euro-American life of farming, as did the Guppy family, attempted to assimilate or at least appear to, effacing their Native identities.
Page 9: Ranta proclaims that Harriet H. Robinson's remark that Betsey Guppy Chamberlain "had inherited Indian blood," as well as the Guppy family oral traditions going back many generations, SUGGEST that she possessed at least one-quarter Native blood. (Wow, a measuring cup on two legs working in a mill factory who could actually write and publish ... just amazing)
The Guppy family today maintains that their 18th century forebears in Wolfboro and Brookfield, New Hampshire, derived their ancestry in part from local Abenaki. According to family correspondence and other documents, Joshua Chamberlain, a Revolutionary War Soldier, and Betsey' paternal grandfather, had "married an Indian woman" in Wolfboro, NH.
Again, Ranta cited Robinson as recalling that Chamberlain "was proud of" her "Indian blood." The autobiographical details of her writings SUGGESTS that she (Betsey) did indeed consider herself Native or mixed-race and that she was proud of this heritage.
Oh so the woman was a bit or a lot like "Iron Eyes Cody" (born Espera Oscar de Corti) who was 100% Italian; or "Grey Owl" (born Archibald Stansfeld Belaney) who was actually 100% British/English ... and many other "historical"/hysterical/delusional documented race shifters [?] both in cinematography and/or literary worlds, just like Betsey (Guppy) Chamberlain had been.
Just because someone happened to be born in Wolfboro, and raised in Brookfield, NH doesn't make that person an Abenaki. Just because a family perpetuated an unfounded subjective oral history is not objective evidence that an ancestor was an Abenaki either.
Page 15: the biography traced Betsey Chamberlain' ancestors back four or more generations, and considered the familial and historical heritage that shaped her character and writings. Ranta, explained that while some documentation had linked her (Betsey) Native Ancestry from her Guppy paternal line, she could have also inherited "Indian blood" from yet undiscovered sources on her mother's side, "since mixed- race people tended to intermarry with one another" more so than straight white people did is the inference. Guppy family oral tradition and Nicholas Guppy's "Genealogy of the Guppy Family" maintain that Betsey Chamberlain's paternal grandmother, Sarah (nee: Loud) Guppy, was an ALLEGED Abenaki woman.
WHERE was Judith Ranta getting her information? She cited where she obtained her information in the Notes section of her book for Pages 9-19: An unpublished type 3-page family tree script "Genealogy of the Guppy Family," by Nicholas Guppy, (1990) wherein he had typed that "Joshua Guppy married Sarah Loud, an Abenaki Indian woman." See also Guppy family correspondence in the possession of Jill (nee: Cresey) Gross, of Westford, Mass., March 2000.
Page 24: Ranta wrote, that several records SUGGEST that Sarah (nee: Loud) Guppy might have been an adopted or illegitimate daughter of the presumably European-American Loud family of England. Sarah was POSSIBLY born in Portsmouth, NH, but because she was illiterate; her presumed mother and sister were not illiterate. A 1779 deed selling a parcel in Barrington, NH, land owned by widow Abigail Lowd, as well as by "Joshua Guppy Yeoman (a land holder of English Descent) and his wife of Middleton" and other family relatives, confirmed that Joshua's wife was indeed Sarah Loud, the daughter of Solomon and Abigail (nee: Dame) Loud. Because she could not sign her name betrayed Sarah (nee: Loud) Guppy's illiteracy. Both Abigail, her mother, and her sister Ann (nee: Loud) Guppy signed their names, so they had obtained some literacy. Ranta' reasoning to lean toward an adoption or illegitimacy for Sarah, apparently was due to the literacy or the lack there of, between mother and daughters. Ranta then speculates subjectively yet again, that Sarah may not have been the natural or legitimate daughter of Abigail (Dame) Loud but was PERHAPS adopted or illegitimate.
AGAIN, I have seen this MYTH of an Abenaki woman dropping their infant child off on the doorstep of some WHITE people (or the "Abenaki Baby in the Basket" on the doorstep) nonsense before in other Northeast families.
As if Abenaki women were just dropping babies all over the Northeast and abandoning them to white folks, because Abenaki women didn't love and cherish their infant child as much as a White person loves their infant.
Abigail (nee: Dame) Loud (the mother of Sarah (nee: Loud) Guppy, and grandmother mother of Betsey Guppy Chamberlain) had died about or a little after 1822. Her death record as of ca. 2003 apparently had not been located. The Guppy Family had once owned considerable properties (lands) in Middleton and Brookfield townships in New Hampshire, yet fell into poverty and difficult times in the 1820's.
Ranta claims in her book, that the gaps in genealogical records for Betsey' mother's father Lieut. Clement Meserve' wife, Abigail (nee: Ham) and other ancestors of Betsey Guppy Chamberlain's ancestors remains unexplained, because because 18th and 19th century Americans tended to hide or deny evidence of Indigenous ancestry. There had been less ambiguity in Ranta' tracing of Clement Meserve' ancestry. [The John Moody trick ... i.e. "if you can't an ancestor for X that MUST mean they were Abenakis"] Ranta states that "in any event, it is possible that Betsey (nee: Guppy) Chamberlain also had Native ancestry among her maternal ancestors." AGAIN, quite subjective.
Page 51: Judith A. Ranta goes about writing about Betsey (nee: Guppy) Chamberlain's children. One of whom was Comfort Chamberlain (born about 1823) who married Austin Barnum on November 28, 1850 in Kane County, Illinois. Another VERY likely son of Betsey and Josiah Chamberlain, by the name of Ivory Chamberlain, born in Brookfield, NH, perhaps named after his uncle Ivory Chamberlain who had died in 1818.
Page 52: Ranta noted that while we [Nancy Lecompte and herself?] cannot yet account for the puzzling or missing genealogical records, some possibilities suggest themselves based upon what is known of Betsey (nee: Guppy) Chamberlain's life. The gaps in the genealogical record may reflect racism's impact upon families considered to have Native ancestry. Ivory Chamberlain perhaps wished to hide his parentage to avoid being stigmatized as the son of not only a lowly factory girl but one of Indian blood. AGAIN SUBJECTIVE the author, Judy A. Ranta, insists on entertaining the idea that allegedly for-a-fact that Betsey through her ancestry was somehow an Abenaki Indian.
Page 85: While it is unlikely that the magazine's Euro-American readers knew they were reading a Native author, they were nonetheless experiencing and being influenced by a Native mind and sensibility.
While Betsey (nee: Guppy) Chamberlain never explicitly identities herself as Native, her words express much Native content as well as suggestions of her mixed heritage. References to Native people or significant pro-Native subjects offers further evidence of her "Indian blood," Ranta quoting Robinson's terms, and her identification with Native people. ... In her autobiographical local-color sketches, Betsey (Guppy) Chamberlain suggests her ancestry in several narratorial self-portraits. I guess because she wrote that she had a face "as round as the moon" and cheeks "as red as a peony" and that hard work had rendered her "tough as a squaw" suggested her heritage! I think not.
Page 86: Ranta cites Evan T. Pritchard' book "No Word For Time" yet his own Indigenous self-identity (Micmac) is in question/doubt as well.
Page 229: Appendix A: Pedigree Chart for Betsey (nee: Guppy) Chamberlain born December 29, 1797 in Wolfboro, Carroll County, New Hampshire, married in Brookfield, NH on June 25; 1820 to Josiah Chamberlain; and she remarried to Thomas Wright on April 12, 1834 in Lowell, MA; and later a 3rd marriage to Charles Boutwell in Illinois. She died on September 24, 1886 in Illinois.
Page 231: Appendix B: Brief Chronology of Betsey Guppy Chamberlain's Life 1797 through 1863.
Page 232: Appendix B: Brief Chronology of Betsey Guppy Chamberlain's Life 1866 through 1886.
Page 246: Ranta cites Evan T. Pritchard's book entitled "No Word for Time" ©1997 (yet again) ... then Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki) ...
Excuse me but like Betsey (nee: Guppy), the Bruchac's are not Abenakis, and neither were the Bowman's, that the Bruchac's descend from. Sorry boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, you've been led to believe what is not truth and reality; not only by Betsey Guppy Chamberlain in the 1800's, but by Joe & Marge in post-1970's to present about their respective ancestors.
"Ranta' book and her heavily cited and quoted edition of Chamberlain's writings were a welcome addition to the growing literature on the so-called mill worker girls, as well as women's history, American Studies, and - POSSIBLY Native American Studies.
Ranta, a reference librarian, had conducted thorough research in archives and among secondary sources. She had also consulted with Nancy (nee: Coffin) LeCompte (of Lewiston, Maine), a genealogist with considerable knowledge of Abenaki history. Yet, Nancy Lecompte herself had subjectively claimed herself to be Abenaki as well retrospectively.
The author, Judith A. Ranta readily admitted that Betsey (nee: Guppy) Chamberlain's tribal affiliation was uncertain yet provided several of her arguments regardless, that Betsey MAY HAVE BEEN Abenaki." Again, SUBJECTIVE... IF Betsey wasn't actually Native, she wouldn't have tribal affiliation. Obviously, she NEVER lived in an Abenaki Community.
Siobhan Senier as a Professor of English and Coordinator of the Women's Studies Program at the University of New Hampshire supports the dynamic of race shifting and giving platform and space to them, as I have evaluated by reading her book "Dawnland Voices" (which is full of the writings of race shifting persona's claiming to be "Abenakis"). She's the author of Voices of American Indian Assimilation and Resistance and Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Writing from Indigenous New England. Siobhan Senier even wrote 'a book review for this Betsey Guppy Chamberlain by Judith A. Ranta in December 2004, in the New England Quarterly Pages 672-675. [See below]
You can read her diatribe about author Darryl Leroux and his book "Distorted Descent" here:
As for her "If you are a non-Indigenous scholar, or just an interested learner trying to do your due diligence by Indigenous people, please do not rush to judgment and assume that all Abenaki scholars, writers, artists and others in the U.S. are ethnic frauds. In particular, please don’t rush to judgement based on hearsay or vitriolic social media posts. Continue to listen to Abenaki people, read their work carefully, and always vet the reputation and reliability of your sources"
Well suffice to say, perhaps Ms. Siobhan Senier ought to have taken her own recommendation to heart, before hypocritically implying that she had actually LISTENED to actual Abenaki People, instead of giving race shifters platform and space, and subsequently trying to denigrate scholar Darryl Leroux.
Mr. Darryl Leroux did not 'rush to judgement' and 'assume' that 'all' scholars, writers, artists and others claiming to be "Abenakis" are "ethnic frauds" (as she IMPLIED in the above post on her website). Siobhan Senier has a bias and a book to "protect", you see and read it for yourself in her website and book, that's full of documented race shifting "Abenakis" (Doris Seale, Judy Dow, Suzanne Rancourt, et al), so she hasn't actually been exactly listening to actual Abenaki people when it comes to VT & NH. Perhaps she ought to stop, sit down, and do a re-evaluation of her positions?
But back to my post in regards to Betsey ....
So Nancy Lecompte and Judith A. Ranta consulted with one another? Personal communication on April 23, 2000. Interesting. And what did Nancy do?
http://www.nedoba.org/bio_guppy01.html
Nancy (nee: Coffin) Lecompte announced that "it is an honor for Ne-Do-Ba to present the following stories written by this very courageous Dawnland Woman, Betsey Guppy Chamberlain. She has come home to her People! The Wabanaki People are grateful to Judith Ranta for making it possible."
Each woman supported one another. Judith asserted that Besty (nee: Guppy) Chamberlain was an Indian woman of the Wabanaki Peoples, with her subjective narratives ... and in turn ... Nancy welcomed Betsey with open arms, exclaiming in a hearty "Welcome Home Betsey!"
Like What the _____ ? went through my brain as I followed these pieces of the puzzle.
Ranta, for her part, attempted to convince the reader of her biography of Betsey, that because Betsey was subjectively identified as having "Indian blood" by her fellow mill worker friends, such as Harriet Hanson Robinson, in her 1898 memoir, "Loom and Spindle" and because Betsey scribbled some wee stories in her angst against anti-Indian racism, Betsey MUST be an Indian herself. Secondly her place of birth: Wolfboro, Carroll County, New Hampshire.
Ooooooh unceded Abenaki Territorial Homeland. And last but not least, the third argument by Ranta was that some of descendants, direct or lateral, remembered her paternal grandmother, Sarah (nee: Loud) Guppy, as an Abenaki woman.
Argument No. 1 is SUBJECTIVE, right along with 2. and 3.
Page 274: Judith A. Ranta cites in her Selected Bibliography, Frederick Matthew Wiseman's book entitled "The Voice of the Dawn: An Autohistory of the Abenaki Nation" (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, ©2001.
Well well well. Ranta cites Frederick M. Wiseman PhD of Vermont who also claimed that his paternal grandmother Katherine (nee: Erno) Wiseman was also an Abenaki Indian woman.
Nope, as I have shown very clearly, that woman and none of Fred M. Wiseman's ancestors were Abenakis, not even an Indian in the 1600's like Homer St. Francis or his wife Patsy. Not one Indian ancestor at all. Just like Betsey (nee: Guppy) Chamberlain (1797-1886) was not an Abenaki Indian woman either.
December 04, 2004
In the New England Quarterly, Page 672, Siobhan Senior (of Dawnland Voices website and book) did a book review on Judith A. Ranta' book "The Life and Writings of Betsey Chamberlain: Native American Mill Worker" (Boston: Northeastern University Press ©2003) ...
The New England Quarterly, on December 2004 specifically Pages 672-675, Siobhan Senier had written (Pg. 674) that "Indeed, if Betsey Guppy Chamberlain was Abenaki ... for the time being such interpretations must remain highly speculative."
Page 675: "One disappointment of this books is that is does not engage significantly with the many contemporary Abenaki historians and scholars - Joseph Bruchac and his sister Marge (nee: Bruchac) Kennick, John Scott Moody and Donna Louise (nee: Carvalho) Charlebois - Moody, Lisa Tonyo (nee: Brooks) Pouliot, or Frederick Matthew Wiseman PhD - who (according to Siobhan Senier) were best positioned to shed light on Betsey Guppy Chamberlain and her work."
It didn't take long for Marge Bruchac Kennick to take notice of Judith A. Ranta' book about Betsey Guppy Chamberlain, for in 2012, Margaret Bruchac reviewed the book as well.
URL LINK: Review of Judith Ranta _em_The Life and Writings of Betsey Guppy Chamberlain
University of Pennsylvania, mbruchac@sas.upenn.edu
