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Norridgewock
Norridgewock (Abenaki: Nanrantsouak) was the name of both an Indigenous village and a band of the Abenaki ("People of the Dawn") Native Americans/First Nations, an Eastern Algonquian tribe of the United States and Canada. The French of New France called the village Kennebec. The tribe occupied an area in the interior of Maine. During colonial times, this area was territory disputed between British and French colonists, and was set along the claimed western border of Acadia, the western bank of the Kennebec River.
Archaeological evidence has identified several different sites associated with the settlement known as Norridgewock. The last one, where the French Jesuit priest Sebastian Rale had a mission, is today called Old Point, and is located in Madison. Other sites are located nearby in Starks and the present-day town of Norridgewock. Three of these historically and archaeologically significant areas have been collectively designated as the Norridgewock Archaeological District, a National Historic Landmark District.
Norridgewock is a corruption of the word Nanrantsouak, meaning "people of the still water between the rapids."[citation needed] Their principal village, also called Norridgewock, was located near 44°46′01″N 69°53′00″W / 44.767°N 69.8833°W on a plateau within a broad bend of the Kennebec River, opposite its confluence with the Sandy River. A 1716 account by surveyor Joseph Heath describes the village as a square fort surrounded by a 9-foot (2.7 m) palisade fence, each side 160 feet (49 m) long with a gate at its center. The fort's walls faced the major points of the compass. Two streets connected the gates, forming an open square at the center marked by a large cross. The stockade enclosed 26 cabins "built much after the English manner"—probably of logs. Canoes were beached along the river, although paddles were stored in the cabins. Extensive fields were cleared nearby for cultivation of maize, wheat, beans, pumpkins and squash. Twice a year, summer and winter, the tribe spent a few months at the seashore catching fish, seals, clams, oysters and seafowl.
France claimed the Kennebec River because it provided a potential route to invade Quebec (as Benedict Arnold would demonstrate in 1775). English colonists claimed the St. George River because they held deeds, even though the sachems who signed them often believed they were only granting the right to use the land for hunting, fishing or safe passage. The French insisted that the sachems were not empowered to sell land, since the Abenaki territory belonged to the entire tribe. France and England were at peace, and New France could not take overt action against the settlements (and particularly their alarming blockhouses) in the disputed area. Instead, the French government secretly engaged the Indians, guided by their French Jesuit missionaries, to hinder the expansion of English colonists. Missionaries with a dual loyalty to church and king were embedded within Abenaki bands on the Penobscot, St. Croix and Saint John rivers. However, Norridgewock Village was considered Quebec's predominant advance guard.
In 1694, Father Sébastien Rale (or Rasle) arrived at Norridgewock to establish a Jesuit mission, the first school in Maine and referred to the settlement as Narantsouak. He built a chapel of bark in 1698, and despite objections from the medicine men, Rale converted most of the inhabitants to Roman Catholicism. The chapel burned in 1705, but it was replaced with a church in 1720. It stood twenty paces outside the east gate, and measured 60 feet (18 m) long by 25 feet (7.6 m) wide, with an 18-foot (5.5 m) ceiling. Forty Abenaki youths in cassocks and surplices served as acolytes. In a 1722 letter written to John Goffe, the church was described by Johnson Harmon and Joseph Heath as:
... a large handsome log building adorned with many pictures and toys to please the Indians ...
Speaking the Abenaki language fluently, Father Rale immersed himself in Indian affairs. His "astonishing influence over their minds" raised suspicions that he was inciting hostility toward the Protestant British colonists, whom he considered heretics.
During King William's War, on July 18, 1694, French soldier Claude-Sébastien de Villieu with about 250 Abenakis from Norridgewock under command of their sagamore (paramount chief), Bomazeen (or Bomoseen) raided the English colonial settlement of Durham, New Hampshire, in the "Oyster River Massacre". The French and Abenakis killed 45 English settlers and took 49 more captive, burning half of the village, including five garrisons. They destroyed the crops and killed all of the livestock, causing famine and destitution for the survivors.
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Norridgewock
Norridgewock (Abenaki: Nanrantsouak) was the name of both an Indigenous village and a band of the Abenaki ("People of the Dawn") Native Americans/First Nations, an Eastern Algonquian tribe of the United States and Canada. The French of New France called the village Kennebec. The tribe occupied an area in the interior of Maine. During colonial times, this area was territory disputed between British and French colonists, and was set along the claimed western border of Acadia, the western bank of the Kennebec River.
Archaeological evidence has identified several different sites associated with the settlement known as Norridgewock. The last one, where the French Jesuit priest Sebastian Rale had a mission, is today called Old Point, and is located in Madison. Other sites are located nearby in Starks and the present-day town of Norridgewock. Three of these historically and archaeologically significant areas have been collectively designated as the Norridgewock Archaeological District, a National Historic Landmark District.
Norridgewock is a corruption of the word Nanrantsouak, meaning "people of the still water between the rapids."[citation needed] Their principal village, also called Norridgewock, was located near 44°46′01″N 69°53′00″W / 44.767°N 69.8833°W on a plateau within a broad bend of the Kennebec River, opposite its confluence with the Sandy River. A 1716 account by surveyor Joseph Heath describes the village as a square fort surrounded by a 9-foot (2.7 m) palisade fence, each side 160 feet (49 m) long with a gate at its center. The fort's walls faced the major points of the compass. Two streets connected the gates, forming an open square at the center marked by a large cross. The stockade enclosed 26 cabins "built much after the English manner"—probably of logs. Canoes were beached along the river, although paddles were stored in the cabins. Extensive fields were cleared nearby for cultivation of maize, wheat, beans, pumpkins and squash. Twice a year, summer and winter, the tribe spent a few months at the seashore catching fish, seals, clams, oysters and seafowl.
France claimed the Kennebec River because it provided a potential route to invade Quebec (as Benedict Arnold would demonstrate in 1775). English colonists claimed the St. George River because they held deeds, even though the sachems who signed them often believed they were only granting the right to use the land for hunting, fishing or safe passage. The French insisted that the sachems were not empowered to sell land, since the Abenaki territory belonged to the entire tribe. France and England were at peace, and New France could not take overt action against the settlements (and particularly their alarming blockhouses) in the disputed area. Instead, the French government secretly engaged the Indians, guided by their French Jesuit missionaries, to hinder the expansion of English colonists. Missionaries with a dual loyalty to church and king were embedded within Abenaki bands on the Penobscot, St. Croix and Saint John rivers. However, Norridgewock Village was considered Quebec's predominant advance guard.
In 1694, Father Sébastien Rale (or Rasle) arrived at Norridgewock to establish a Jesuit mission, the first school in Maine and referred to the settlement as Narantsouak. He built a chapel of bark in 1698, and despite objections from the medicine men, Rale converted most of the inhabitants to Roman Catholicism. The chapel burned in 1705, but it was replaced with a church in 1720. It stood twenty paces outside the east gate, and measured 60 feet (18 m) long by 25 feet (7.6 m) wide, with an 18-foot (5.5 m) ceiling. Forty Abenaki youths in cassocks and surplices served as acolytes. In a 1722 letter written to John Goffe, the church was described by Johnson Harmon and Joseph Heath as:
... a large handsome log building adorned with many pictures and toys to please the Indians ...
Speaking the Abenaki language fluently, Father Rale immersed himself in Indian affairs. His "astonishing influence over their minds" raised suspicions that he was inciting hostility toward the Protestant British colonists, whom he considered heretics.
During King William's War, on July 18, 1694, French soldier Claude-Sébastien de Villieu with about 250 Abenakis from Norridgewock under command of their sagamore (paramount chief), Bomazeen (or Bomoseen) raided the English colonial settlement of Durham, New Hampshire, in the "Oyster River Massacre". The French and Abenakis killed 45 English settlers and took 49 more captive, burning half of the village, including five garrisons. They destroyed the crops and killed all of the livestock, causing famine and destitution for the survivors.