After Governor Vaudreuil’s expeditionary force of 500 French and Mi’kmaq had ravaged much of southern Maine, Queen Anne’s War continued to drag on. The remaining English settlements suffered repeated attacks by French and Indian raiding parties.
Finally, the authorities in Massachusetts declared outright war on all of Maine’s Indians and called in Mohawk mercenaries. They sanctioned multiple militia raids on Wabanaki villages in the upper Saco Valley to keep the Indians from their fields and traditional foraging areas.
New England authorities offered “volunteers without pay” the huge sum of 50£ per scalp, while “regular forces under pay” received 10£. (Dekker, 2015, p 27). They were authorized to plunder freely and take women and children under the age of 12 captive. Many of the harassed Wabanaki retreated to the French Indian mission villages in the St. Lawrence Valley, where they stayed for several years.
In the winter of 1703 – 1704, Governor Dudley sent 600 men in four parties to the doorstep of the Kennebec and Penobscot people.For the first time, these men were deployed with snowshoes, the English finally having learned their value for winter travel in deep snow. These snowshoe expeditions “inaugurated a new, fully articulated English military strategy for winter in the American Northeast”. (Wickman, 2015, p. 86).Colonial soldiers could now patrol the interior in snowy conditions and harass the Wabanaki in their customary wintering sites, where they were used to having respite from the summer wars. The number of Wabanaki killed in these patrols was relatively low, but the presence of the English in the winter forests dramatically disrupted the Wabanaki’s lifestyle, dislodging family hunting bands from the areas that had previously given them sustenance and strength.
The winter patrols directly curtailed the subsistence activities of Wabanaki families who had traditionally wintered within 50 to 60 miles of colonial settlements, and after 1704, drove many of them far northward and eastward into Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Maliseet country. English forays on snowshoes into Wabanaki territories also inhibited winter raids from distant locations. Penhallow indicated that the winters became much safer, as “the enemy being so terrified by reason of snowshoes that they never attempted coming … the winter season, which before was dreaded as most hazardous, was now the time of greatest safety, and of less difficulty in traveling.” (Penhallow, 1859, p. 41). From 1704–5 until the end of Queen Anne’s War in 1713, the Wabanakis made no more winter raids on English settlements.
In June 1704, Benjamin Church was sent to the Eastern front again with 500 men, 14 transports, 36 whaleboats, and three warships to ravage the coast of Maine from Penobscot Bay, along the Bay of Fundy, and to Nova Scotia. “On the way there, every nook and corner of the coast was thoroughly explored, every possible precaution taken to waylay any of the enemy’s war parties who might be coming westward on one of their destructive raids” (Drake, 1887, p. 197). They killed and displaced a considerable number of Wabanaki and French along the way, although the exact number is not known.
Throughout the remainder of the war, Massachusetts regularly sent expeditions and scouts to engage with any Indian and French parties they could find, from Casco Bay to Pemaquid and Penobscot Bay. Most of these were seaborne expeditions, and most came up empty-handed. However, they successfully disrupted the lives of the Wabanaki, causing many to give up and flee to the Canadian missions of Saint Francis and Bécancour. At these missions, their suffering was only partially mitigated as a measles epidemic raged across the crowded communities, and the relief supplies from France were insufficient to feed the burgeoning population.
The War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1713 in Europe with the Treaty of Utrecht. This agreement ceded almost all French Acadia to the English, except for Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island. To the British, this meant that the entire Maine frontier now fell solely under their jurisdiction, including the Wabanaki territories. The fact that their territory had been ceded to the British would come as a complete surprise to the Wabanaki. They wondered why the French had not told them about this transfer and were perplexed by how the French could give away land that did not belong to them.
Regardless, the Wabanaki were again at the end of their rope and had already begun making peace offerings to the Boston authorities. A large contingent of 350 traveled to Fort Casco to sue for peace with Boston officials. Queen Anne’s War formally ended on July 11, 1713, with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth between Massachusetts and the Eastern Tribes.
The agreement was signed by eight sagamores of the Penobscot, Kennebec, and St. John’s people, who claimed to represent all the Wabanaki in the region. However, to play it safe, the Massachusetts delegates then traveled to Casco to meet and get agreement from the sagamores of additional Eastern Tribes.
Like all the others, the Treaty of Portsmouth was an extremely lopsided affair. It blamed the Wabanaki for the war, asserting they had broken previous agreements. They were required to offer allegiance to the King of England and disavow any relationship with the French. They were also forced to let the English return to their previously settled land and were required to use the English court system to resolve any future grievances.
Illustration: Portrait of Anne of Great Britain (1665-1714), daughter of James II of England
Bibliography:
Dekker, M. (2015) French & Indian Wars in Maine. The History Press. Charleston, South Carolina.
Drake, S. A. (1887). The Border Wars of New England, commonly called King Williams and Queen Anne’s Wars. Charles Scribner’s Sons: New York.
Penhallow, S. (1859) The history wars of New-England with the eastern Indians. Reprinted from the Boston edition of 1726, with a memoir, notes, and appendix, for Wm. Dodge, by J. Harpel.
Prins, H. E. L., & McBride, B. (2008). Asticou’s Island Domain: Wabanaki Peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500-2000. Acadia National Park. Ethnography Program. National Park Service.
Wickman, T. (2015) “Winters Embittered with Hardships”: Severe Cold, Wabanaki Power, and English Adjustments, 1690–1710. The William and Mary Quarterly 72: 57–98.
Turmoil in Dawnland 