Wabanaki Confederacy
The Wabanaki Confederacy (Wabenaki, Wobanaki, translated to "People of the Dawn" or "Easterner"; also: Wabanakia, "Dawnland"[1]) is a North American First Nations and Native American confederation of five principal Eastern Algonquian nations: the Abenaki of St. Francis, Mi'kmaq, Maleceet, Passamaquoddy (Peskotomahkati) and Penobscot.
Wabanaki Confederacy Wabana'ki Mawuhkacik
Traditional belief systems,
including Midewiwin and Glooscap narratives;
Christianity, mainly Jesuits
Tribal Confederation
1680s
1862
1993–present
1993
There were more tribes, along with many bands, that were once part of the Confederation. Native tribes such as the Norridgewock, Alemousiski, Pennacook, Sokoki, and Canibas, through massacres, tribal consolidation, and ethnic label shifting were absorbed into the five larger national identities.[2]: 117
Members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Wabanaki, are located in and named for the area which they call Wabanakik ("Dawnland"), roughly the area that became the French colony of Acadia.[3][4] The territory boundaries encompass present-day Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, in the United States, and New Brunswick, mainland Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, Prince Edward Island and some of Quebec south of the St. Lawrence River, Anticosti, and Newfoundland in Canada.
Members of the Wabanaki Confederacy were the:
Nations in the Confederacy also allied with the Innu of Nitassinan, the Algonquin people and with the Iroquoian-speaking Wyandot people. The homeland of the Wabanaki Confederacy stretches from Newfoundland, Canada, to Massachusetts, United States. Members of the Wabanaki Confederacy participated in these seven major wars.
During this period, their population was radically decimated due to many decades of warfare, but also because of famines and devastating epidemics of infectious disease.[19] The number of European settlers increased from about 300 in 1650 to about 6,650 in 1750. European diseases such as smallpox and measles were introduced.[36]
British rule[edit]
The French were defeated by the British in 1763. The British colonial authorities marginalised Indigenous people as a matter of policy, because the Mi'kmaq had supported the French. 13,000 Acadian settlers were evicted by the British and the land was occupied by settlers from New England, Britain and other European countries, including Ireland and Germany.[36]
After 1783 and the end of the American Revolutionary War, Black Loyalists, freedmen from the British North American colonies, were resettled by the British in this historical territory. They had promised enslaved people freedom if they left their Patriot masters and joined the British. Three thousand freedmen were evacuated to Nova Scotia by British ships from the colonies after the war.[42]
Oppressive policies instituted by successive colonial and federal administrations against the Acadians, Black Canadians and Mi'kmaq people tended to force these peoples together as allies of necessity. The colonial government declared the Wabanaki Confederacy forcibly disbanded in 1862. However the five Wabanaki nations still exist, continued to meet, and the Confederacy was formally re-established in 1993.
Culture[edit]
Basket art[edit]
Members of the Wabanaki Confederacy are recognized for their fine art basket making. Well-known Wabanaki basket makers Molly Neptune Parker, Clara Neptune Keezer, and Fred Tomah have been recognized for their art.[56] Parker's grandchild Geo Soctomah Neptune is also a nationally recognized basket artist[57] who is two-spirit and was featured in Vogue magazine in 2022 for their style and earring collection.[58] Jeremy Frey received the Best in Class award in the Basketry category at the 2021 Santa Fe Indian Market.[59]
Traditional healing[edit]
Traditional Wabanaki healing has been practiced for thousands of years. The Healing Lodge in Millinocket supplies intense outpatient treatment using traditional healing for tribal members suffering from substance use disorder, trauma, and mental health struggles. The Healing Lodge is operated by Wabanaki Public Health & Wellness.[60] In 2024, The Mi'kmaq Nation used $50,000 of its national opioid settlement funds to build a Healing Lodge located in Presque Isle for use in traditional sweat ceremonies.[61]
Cuisine[edit]
Wabanaki cuisine, like other Indigenous cuisine, is based on what can be grown and hunted locally. Corn, beans, squash, fresh-water fish, salt-water fish, moose, and white tailed deer are common foods.[62] Maple syrup, wild blueberries, ground cherries, ground nuts, and sunchokes are also incorporated into many dishes. Wabanaki people traditionally made milks, butters, and infant formula from walnuts, cornmeal, and sunflower seeds for centuries before colonizers arrived.[63][64]
Wabanaki dishes include roasted parched sweet corn, hickorynut and hull corn salad, roasted groundnuts, cranberry sauce, grilled whitefish, Abenaki rose cornmeal pudding,[65] pemmican made from ground fruits, nuts, and berries,[66] Three Sisters soup,[67] dandelion greens, fiddlehead salad, creamy sorrel and fiddlehead soup,[68] clams with sunchokes,[69] m8wikisoak stew, hazelnut cakes, salmon burgers, and maple syrup pie.[70]
Maps showing the approximate locations of areas occupied by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy (from north to south):
In popular culture[edit]
The Wabanaki Confederacy is featured in the video game Secret World: Legends (formerly The Secret World) [71] via several NPCs who inform the player of the alternate history of the Confederacy and its relations with different groups, offer quests, provide items via Apothecaries, and are usually residing in locations that depict Wabanaki Confederacy culture.