Wabanaki Confederacy

The Wabanaki Confederacy (Wabenaki, Wobanaki, translated roughly as 'People of the First Light' or 'People of the Dawnland') are a First Nations and Native American confederation of five principal nations: the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki and Penobscot.

Members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Wabanaki peoples, are in and named for the area they call Wabanahkik ('Dawnland'), generally known to European settlers as Acadia. It is made up of most of present-day Maine, United States; and Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and some of Quebec south of the St. Lawrence River in Canada. The Western Abenaki live on lands in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts of the United States.[1]

In its most recent official communications, the Confederacy has emphasized common cause with and acceptance of alliances with environmental activists toward the goal of protecting their land and waters. They gained powers under the United Nations 2010 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP) and related treaties which major powers have signed.[2]

History

Historically, the confederacy has united five North American Algonquian language-speaking First Nations peoples. It played a key role in the American Revolution via the Treaty of Watertown signed in 1776 by two of its constituent peoples, the Mi'kmaq and Passamaquoddy. Under this treaty, Wabanaki soldiers from Canada are still permitted to join the US military. They have done so in 21st-century conflicts the US has engaged in, including the Afghanistan war and the Iraq War.

Members of the Wabanaki Confederacy are:

Nations in the Confederacy are also closely allied with the Innu and Algonquin, and with the Iroquoian-speaking Wyandot. Historically, Wabanaki were also allies of the Huron. Together they jointly invited the colonization of Quebec City and LaHave and the formation of New France in 1603, in order to put French guns, ships and forts between themselves and the powerful Mohawk people to the west. Today the only remaining Huron First Nation resides mostly in the suburbs of Quebec City, a legacy of this protective alliance.

The Wabanaki ancestral homeland stretches from Newfoundland, Canada, to the Merrimack River valley in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, United States. Following the European settlement in the early 17th century, this became a hotly contested borderland between the English of colonial New England and French Acadia. Beginning with King William's War in 1688, members of the Wabanaki Confederacy of Acadia participated in six major wars before the British defeated the French in North America:

During this period, their population was not only radically decimated due to many decades of warfare, but also because of famines and devastating epidemics of infectious disease.[3]

Wabanaki people freely intermarried with French Catholics in Acadia starting in 1610 after the conversion of Chief Henri Membertou. After 1783 and the end of the American Revolutionary War, Black Loyalists, freedmen from the US, began to settle in the historical territory. Three thousand were evacuated to Nova Scotia by British ships after the war. Many intermarriages between these peoples occurred, especially in southwest Nova Scotia from Yarmouth to Halifax. Suppression of Acadian, Black, Mi'kmaq and Irish people under British rule tended to force these peoples together as allies of necessity. Some white and black parents abandoned their mixed-race children on reserves to be raised in Wabanaki culture, even as late as the 1970s.

The Wabanaki Confederacy was forcibly disbanded by the British in 1862, but the five Wabanaki nations still exist. They remain friends and allies – in part because all peoples claiming Wabanaki heritage have kinship forebears from multiple Wabanaki and colonial ancestries.

Contemporary Wabanaki Confederacy

In 1993 the Wabanaki Confederacy gathering was revived. The first reconstituted confederacy conference was hosted by the Mi'kmaq community of Listuguj under the leadership of the Chief Brenda Gideon Miller. The sacred Council fire was lit again, and embers from the fire have been kept burning continually since then.[1] The Listuguj community hosted this event: the rebirth of the Wabanaki Confederacy brought together the Passamaquoddy Nation, Penobscot Nation, Maliseet Nation, the Mi'kmaq Nation and the Abenaki Nation; they also included the Métis Nation.

Following the 2010 UN DRIP declaration,[4] the tribes began to assert their rights as defined in it. In September 2012, at St. Mary's First Nation, "Unceded Wabanaki Territory (New Brunswick)," they invited non-Indigenous peoplesto participate, especially environmental activists.[2] The Wabanaki leadership emphasized the continuing role of the Confederacy in protecting natural capital. Some key quotes from leading participants:

"When we talk about Wabanaki people, we're also talking about Wabanaki people being the land, being the trees, being the animals, because in that cultural perspective, we're all related...The Wabanaki are in a far better position to defend the land," says gkisedtanamoogk. "No land was ever ceded, and that's acknowledged by both the province and the federal government. So on the basis of the treaties, what we're suggesting is that you and I have a common responsibility to the land under those treaties." – gkisedtanamoogk, the Gathering's fire keeper.[2]
"Within the Wabanaki territory we're looking for allies that are going to stand against the total annihilation of our land and water and air. We're looking for allies who will help us to put our nation back together, and put it back in order. And we're asking our allies to help us empower that. And in the process of doing that, they will be decolonizing us and they will be decolonizing themselves." – jeaba-weay-quay (roughly translated from Obijway to 'The woman whose voice pierces').[2]
"We're going to rebuild the Wabanaki Confederacy," says LaPorte. "We also invited some non-Natives...to come and be with us and to help us build an alliance, so that when we...come into conflict with the government and some of their decisions and policies...to have them stand beside us and to let their government know that it's not only Native people who are worried about the water, the land, the air. But it's also people from their nation that are concerned." – Harry LaPorte, grand chief of the Maliseet First Nation[2]

The final press release indicated that "the grandmothers" would decide the next step in reconstructing the confederacy as a legal and sovereign entity. The structure resembles that of Indigenous Peoples in Chiapas, especially as Subcomandante Marcos and other political and military leaders better known to the public have formally recognized the authority of the 'comandantes' (older Indigenous women).[2]

There were meetings amongst allies,[5] a "Water Convergence Ceremony" in May 2013,[6] with Algonquin grandmothers in August 2013 supported by Kairos Canada,[7][8] and with other indigenous groups. Representative Alma Brooks was sent to the June 2014 UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.[9] She discussed the Wabanaki/Wolostoq position on Energy East,[10] which was a major motive for organizing:

"On May 30 [2015], residents of Saint John will join others in Atlantic Canada, including Indigenous people from the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), Passamaquoddy and Mi'kmaq, to march to the end of the proposed pipeline and draw a line in the sand."

This was widely publicized.[11]

2015 Grandmothers' Declaration

These and other preparatory meetings set an agenda for the August 19–22, 2015, meeting[12] which produced the promised Grandmothers' Declaration[13] "adopted unanimously at N'dakinna (Shelburne, VT) on August 21, 2015". The Declaration included mention of:

Position on ecological and health issues

On October 15, 2015, Alma Brooks spoke to the New Brunswick Hydrofracturing Commission, applying the Declaration to current provincial industrial practices:[14]

2016

The Passamaquoddy will host the 2016 Wabanaki Confederacy Conference.

"Wabanaki Confederacy" in various indigenous languages

The term Wabanaki Confederacy in many Algonquian languages literally means "Dawn Land People".

Language "Easterner(s)"
literally "Dawn Person(s)"
"Dawn Land"
(nominative)
"Dawn Land"
(locative)
"Dawn Land Person"
"Dawn Land People"
or the "Wabanaki Confederacy"
Naskapi Waapinuuhch
Massachusett language Wôpanâ(ak)
Quiripi language Wampano(ak) Wampanoki
Mi'kmaq Wabanahk Wabanahkik Wabanahki Wabanahkiyik
Maliseet-Passamaquoddy Waponu(wok) Waponahk Waponahkik Waponahkew Waponahkiyik/Waponahkewiyik
Abenaki-Penobscot Wôbanu(ok) Wôbanak Wôbanakik Wôbanaki Wôbanakiak
Algonquin Wàbano(wak) Wàbanaki Wàbanakìng Wàbanakì Wàbanakìk
Ojibwe Waabano(wag) Waabanaki Waabanakiing Waabanakii Waabanakiig/Waabanakiiyag
Odawa Waabno(wag) Waabnaki Waabnakiing Waabnakii Waabnakiig/Waabnakiiyag
Potawatomi Wabno(weg) Wabneki Wabnekig Wabneki Wabnekiyeg

Maps

Maps showing the approximate locations of areas occupied by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy (from north to south):

Notes

  1. 1 2 Toensing, Gale Courey. "Sacred fire lights the Wabanaki Confederacy", Indian Country Today (June 27, 2008), ICT Media Network
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Howe, Miles. "Rebuilding the Wabanaki Confederacy", Halifax Media Co-op (September 3, 2012).
  3. Prins, Harald E.L., and McBride, Bunny, "Asticou's Island Domain: Wabanaki Peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500–2000," (National Park Service, 2007)
  4. bangordailynews.com/2010/12/19/news/bangor/wabanaki-tribes-cheer-un-declaration-that-defends-their-rights/
  5. http://mainewabanakireach.org/ally/
  6. http://nationtalk.ca/story/wabanaki-water-convergence-ceremony-kairos
  7. , Kairos Times
  8. "Letter from Algonquin grandmothers attending Wabanaki Confederacy conference", Nation Talk
  9. "Indigenous women unite UN permanent forum on indigenous issues", Rabble blog
  10. "The stories of Energy East in New Brunswick", Ricochet
  11. "Wabananki Confederacy 2015", Abenaki Tribe website
  12. "Peoples lawsuit plaintiffs present to NB fracking commission"
  13. [willinolanspeaks.com/shares/?p=1124], Willinolan Speaks

Further reading

External links

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