WESTBROOK LETTER 1722 - Introduction
Preface
This paper is being written in response to an assignment I received from my Anthropology teacher, Dr. Geoffroy de Laforcade, Cultural Anthropology; Anthropology 310, taken in the Fall of 1998 at Governors State University located in University Park, IL. The assignment was to do an ethnographic study that included at least one non-book, non-library source such as an interview.
I am an amateur genealogist and with the help of other family members have been able to place our family in New England (Virginia) in the 1700's. As a result of looking for my own family, I had occasion to come across many other documents. Once such document was a letter written by a colonial soldier in Maine in 1722 describing confrontation with Indians. I always wanted to have the time to research this or any other letter of this type I came across. I decided, for my project, to do just that, identify the Indians and then to do a follow-up as to the events, people and places described in the letter along with an ethnographic study of the Indians.
My hypotheses was that the Native American interpretation of the events describe would be different than the viewpoint displayed by Westbrook.
Acknowledgments
I would like to especially thank Ms. Nancy Lecompte, Research and Program Director for Ne-Do-Ba (Friends), a Maine Nonprofit Corporation, descendants of the Abenaki Nation. I used resource information from the web site she maintains and Ms. Lecompte directed me to, and sent me other resource information. Finally she answered some direct questions regarding my research and made free comments as to the contents of the letter being researched.
I would also like to thank my teacher, Dr. de Laforcade who motivated and directed me and offered implicit and explicit advice and instruction.
Finally I would like to thank my husband Frank because he did the drawing for me for my poster for the in-class presentation as I haven't any artistic ability.
Introduction
When I started this project, I decided to mix something that I really enjoy with something that I had to do. What I really enjoy is genealogy. What I had to do was this project. I remembered when looking through some genealogical film, seeing letters from the 1700's by the military describing confrontations with the Indians. I found one of those letters, written by Col. Thomas Westbrook, Falmouth, September 23, 1722. In this letter, which follows, the Colonel is describing a situation that took place when he arrived at Piscataqua at 10 o'clock on the morning of the 23rd.
Letter of Capt. Thomas Westbrook, Falmouth, September 23, 1722
I have taken the liberty of altering the text of this letter in the following ways: place names have been bolded, people name have been italicized and dates have been underlined to make it easier to find certain references in the letter.
This paper is in response to that project. I will explain the methodology I used, the question I asked of Ms. Lecompte and her answers (which are necessary elements to an ethnography), my responses to her answers along with the information I have been able to accumulate, and a concluding statement about the overall success and failure of my quest.
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