May 1998
Abenaki Letter to Gov. Shute
Arrowsic Island July 1721
The following is a transcription of a letter written in French and delivered by a flotilla of approximately 90 Abenaki canoes to Capt. John Penhallow at Watts Garrison Arrowsic Island.
This transcript is copied from:
BLACK ROBE ON THE KENNEBEC
by Mary R. Calvert
Monmouth Press, 1991, ISBN 0-9609914-6-8.
The graphic following the letter is scanned from:
DAWNLAND ENCOUNTERS:
Indians and Europeans in Northern New England
by Colin G. Calloway
Unv. Press of New England, 1991, 0-87451-594-7.
Great Chief of the English:
You see by the peace treaty, of which I send you a copy, that you must live peaceably with me. Is it to live in peace with me to take my land against my wishes? My land that I have received from God alone, my land of which no king nor any foreign power could or can dispose of in spite of me, that which you have nevertheless done for several years, in establishing and fortifying yourself therein against my will, as you have done in my river of Anmirkangan, of Kenibekki, in that of Matsih8an8wassis, and elsewhere, and most recently in my river of Anm8kangan, where I have been surprised to see a fort which they tell me is built by your orders.
Consider, great Chief, that I have often told you to retire from my land, and I repeat it to you now for the last time. My land is not yours, neither by right of conquest, nor by gift, nor by purchase ...
I await then your reply within three Sundays; if within this time you do not write me that you are retiring from my land, I shall not tell you again to withdraw, and I shall believe that you wish to make yourself master of it in spite of me.
As for the rest, this here is not the word of four or five Indians whom by your presents, your lies and your tricks you can easily make fall in with your sentiments; this is the word of all the Abenaki nation spread over this continent and in Canada, and of all the other Christian Indians their allies, who ... all together summon you to retire from off the land of the Abenakis that you wish to usurp unjustly ...
If some particular Indians, addicted to strong drink, tell you to settle where you settled at other times, know that all the nation disavows this permission, and that I shall come bum these houses after pillaging them. ...
... last winter ... you made [six Indian representatives] enter a house and then surrounded it with nearly 200 Englishmen armed with pistols and swords, and compelled four of them to remain for the cattle that had been killed. You have conducted these four men as prisoners to Boston. You had promised to return these four men upon receiving 200 beavers. The beavers have been given, and now you are retaining these men. By what right?
Picture- Signature of the Abenaki nation and of their Indian allies.
