Battle of Norridgewock

Last updated
Norridgewock Massacre
Part of Dummer's War
Death of Father Sebastian Rale of the Society of Jesus.jpg
A lithograph of the battle depicting Rale's death
Date23 August 1724
Location
Norridgewock
44°46′01.2″N69°52′59.9″W / 44.767000°N 69.883306°W / 44.767000; -69.883306
Result
  • New England victory
  • Massacre of Abenaki villagers
Belligerents
Wabanaki Confederacy New England Colonies
Commanders and leaders
Sébastien Rale   †
Chief Mog   †
Chief Bomoseen   †
Chief Wissememet   †
Chief Job   †
Chief Carabesett   † 		Johnson Harmon [1]
Jeremiah Moulton
Richard Bourne
Strength
Unknown 160
Casualties and losses
Approx. 80; 14 wounded 3 dead

The Battle of Norridgewock was a raid on the Abenaki settlement of Norridgewock by a group of colonial militiamen from the New England Colonies. Occurring in contested lands on the edge of the American frontier, the raid resulted in the massacre of the Abenaki inhabitants of Norridgewock by the militiamen.

Contents

The raid was undertaken to check Abenaki power in the region, limit Catholic proselytizing among the Abenaki (and thereby perceived French influence), and to allow the expansion of New England settlements into Abenaki territory and Acadia. New France defined this area as starting at the Kennebec River in southern Maine. [2] : 27  [3] [4] Other motivations for the raid included the special £100 scalp bounty placed on Râle's head by the Massachusetts provincial assembly and the bounty on Abenaki scalps offered by the colony during the conflict.

Captains Johnson Harmon, [5] Jeremiah Moulton, [6] and Richard Bourne (Brown) led a force of two hundred colonial New Englanders, which attacked the Abenaki village of Narantsouak, or Norridgewock, on the Kennebec River; the current town of Norridgewock, Maine developed near there. The village was led by, among others, the sachems Bomazeen and Welákwansit, known to the English as Mog. The village's Catholic mission was run by a French Jesuit priest, Father Sébastien Râle. [7]

Casualties, depending on the sources consulted, vary, but most accounts record about eighty Abenaki being killed. As a result of the raid, New Englanders flooded into the lower Kennebec region, establishing settlements there in the wake of the war. [a]

Background

The memorial monument for Father Sebastien Rale at the Norridgewock battle site in Madison, Maine. Father Rasle Monument.jpg
The memorial monument for Father Sébastien Râle at the Norridgewock battle site in Madison, Maine.

The Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which ended Queen Anne's War, had facilitated the expansion of New England settlement. The treaty, however, had been signed in Europe and had not involved any member of the Wabanaki natives. Since they had not been consulted, they protested this incursion into their lands by conducting raids on British fishermen and settlements. [8] For the first and only time, Wabanaki fought New Englanders and the British on their own terms and for their own reasons and not principally to defend French imperial interests. [8] In response to Wabanaki hostilities toward the expansion, the Governor of Nova Scotia Richard Phillips built a fort in traditional Mi'kmaq territory at Canso, Nova Scotia in 1720, and Massachusetts Governor Samuel Shute built forts on traditional Abenaki territory at the mouth of the Kennebec River. The French claimed the same territory on the Kennebec River by building a church in the Abenaki villages of Norridgewock on the Kennebec River and a church in the Maliseet village of Medoctec on the Saint John River. [9] : 51, 54  These fortifications and missions escalated the conflict. By 1720, Massachusetts had placed a bounty on Râle. [10] : 47 

In the winter of 1722, New England rangers raided Norridgewock, trying to capture Râle. While he escaped, the rangers destroyed the church and mission house. [10] : 49  As revenge for the first raid on Norridgewock, the Mi'kmaq laid siege to the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia John Doucett in May 1722 at Annapolis Royal. [10] : 47  On June 13, 1722, in present-day Maine, the tribe and allied groups burned Brunswick at the mouth of the Kennebec, taking hostages to exchange for those of their people held in Boston. Consequently, on July 25, Shute declared war on the eastern Indians. But on January 1, 1723, Shute abruptly departed for London. He had grown disgusted with the intransigent Assembly (which controlled funding) as it squabbled with the Governor's Council over which body should conduct the war. Lieutenant-governor William Dummer assumed management of the government. Further Abenaki incursions persuaded the Assembly to act in what would be called Father Rale's War.

Raid

In August 1724, a force of 208 soldiers (which split into 2 units under the commands of captains Johnson Harmon and Jeremiah Moulton) left Fort Richmond (now Richmond, Maine) in 17 whaleboats to go up the Kennebec. [b] At Taconic Falls (now Winslow, Maine), 40 men were left to guard the boats as the troops continued on foot. On August 21, the Rangers killed Chief Bomoseen, fatally wounded his daughter, and took his wife captive. [2] : 129  [c]

On August 22, 1724, Captains Jeremiah Moulton and Johnson Harmon led 200 rangers to the main Abenaki village on the Kennebec River, Norridgewock, Maine, to kill Father Sébastien Râle and destroy the settlement. On the 23rd, there were 160 Abenaki, many of whom were killed as they tried to escape. The Rangers fired on the canoes filled with families. Harmon noted that at least 50 bodies went downstream before the rangers could retrieve them for their scalps. [10] : 49  At least 31 Abenaki chose to fight, which allowed the others to escape. Most of the defenders were killed. [12] Lieutenant Richard Jacques killed Râle in the opening moments of the battle; Chief Mog was killed, and the rangers massacred nearly two dozen women and children. [9] : 84  The English had casualties of two militiamen and one Nauset. [d] Harmon destroyed the Abenaki farms, and those who had escaped were forced to abandon their village and moved northward to the Abenaki village of St Francois (Odanak, Quebec). [12] Many of the Indians were routed, leaving 26 warriors dead and 14 wounded. Harmon's son-in-law Lieutenant Richard Jacques scalped Father Râle. Chief Wissememet was also killed.[ citation needed ]

The soldiers mutilated Râle's body; his scalp was later redeemed in Boston with those of the other dead. The Boston authorities gave a reward for the scalps, and Harmon was promoted. Thereafter, the French and Indians claimed that the missionary died "a martyr" at the foot of a large cross set in the central square, drawing the soldiers' attention to himself to save his parishioners. The English militia claimed that he was "a bloody incendiary" shot in a cabin while reloading his flintlock. A Mohawk named Christian, who accompanied the troops, slipped back after they had departed and set the village and church ablaze.

Aftermath

The 150 Abenaki survivors returned to bury the fallen before abandoning Norridgewock for St. Francis and Becancour, Quebec. [14] Some later returned to the area. Râle was interred beneath the altar at which he had ministered to his converts. In 1833, Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick dedicated an 11-foot tall obelisk monument, erected by subscription, over his grave at what is today St. Sebastian's Cemetery at Old Point in Madison, Maine.

Notes

  1. ↑ While Massachusetts secured parts of Maine in order to establish settlements, not until the treaty of 1752 did Massachusetts officially lay claim to the entire Penobscot watershed, and in 1759 the Pownall Expedition, led by Governor Thomas Pownall, established Fort Pownall on Cape Jellison in what is now Stockton Springs.
  2. ↑ Johnson Harmon was known for his bloodthirsty attitude towards the Indians. In 1715, male members of the Harmon family massacred Native Americans at a pow-wow in York, Maine. The local minister, Samuel Moody, stated that God would punish the Harmons so that there would be no more males to carry on the name. Three of the four officers in command of the little troop had been captives in earlier wars. They were Captains Harmon and Moulton and Lieutenant Bean or Bane. [11]
  3. ↑ Note that Following the peace of Utrecht in April 1713, Mog, Bomoseen, Moxus, Taxous, and other chiefs concluded a peace with New England at Portsmouth, N.H., on 11–13 July.
  4. ↑ The man killed, Jeremy Queach, was misidentified as a Mohawk in a contemporary history by Samuel Penhallow. However, recent research has shown he was a Nauset Indian from what is today Yarmouth, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. [13]

Citations

  1. ↑ Burrage, Henry S. (1910). Maine at Louisburg in 1745. Burleigh & Flynt. p. 94.
  2. 1 2 Williamson, William D. (1832). The History of the State of Maine: From Its First Discovery, 1602, to the Separation, A. D. 1820, Inclusive. Vol. II. Glazier, Masters & Company.
  3. ↑ Griffiths, N.E.S. (2005). From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People, 1604-1755. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 61. ISBN   978-0-7735-2699-0.
  4. ↑ Campbell, William Edgar (2005). The Road to Canada: The Grand Communications Route from Saint John to Quebec. Goose Lane Editions. p. 21. ISBN   978-0-86492-426-1.
  5. ↑ Harmon, Artemas Canfield, ed. (1920). The Harmon Genealogy, Comprising All Branches in New England. Washington, D.C.: Gibson Bros. p. 140.
  6. ↑ Stewart, Alice R. (1974). "Moulton, Jeremiah". In Halpenny, Francess G (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography . Vol. III (1741–1770) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  7. ↑ Charland, Thomas (1979) [1969]. "Râle, Sébastien". In Hayne, David (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography . Vol. II (1701–1740) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  8. 1 2 Wicken, William (2004). "Mi'kmaq Decisions: Antoine Tecouenemac, the Conquest, and the Treaty of Utrecht". In Moody, Barry; Plank, Geoffrey; Wicken, William C (eds.). The "Conquest" of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, and Aboriginal Constructions. University of Toronto Press. p. 96. doi:10.3138/9781442680883. ISBN   978-0-8020-8538-2.
  9. 1 2 Grenier, John (2008). The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN   978-0-8061-3876-3.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Grenier, John (2005). The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-1-139-44470-5.
  11. ↑ Coleman, Emma Lewis (2008) [1926]. New England Captives Carried to Canada Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian Wars. Vol. 1. Heritage Books. p. 4. ISBN   978-0-7884-4589-7.
  12. 1 2 Wicken, William C. (2002). Mi'kmaq Treaties on Trial: History, Land, and Donald Marshall Junior. University of Toronto Press. pp. 80–81. ISBN   978-0-8020-7665-6.
  13. ↑ Carroll, Brian D. (2009). From Warrior to Soldier: New England Indians in the Colonial Military (Ph.D. dissertation). University of Connecticut. p. 260.
  14. ↑ Calloway, Colin G. (1994). The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600-1800: War, Migration, and the Survival of an Indian People. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 123. ISBN   978-0-8061-2568-8.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abenaki</span> Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the US

The Abenaki are Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was predominantly spoken in Maine, while the Western Abenaki language was spoken in Quebec, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queen Anne's War</span> North American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–13)

Queen Anne's War (1702–1713) or the Third Indian War was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought in North America involving the colonial empires of Great Britain, France, and Spain; it took place during the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain. In the United States, it is regarded as a standalone conflict under this name. Elsewhere it is usually viewed as the American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession. In France, it was known as the Second Intercolonial War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norridgewock</span> United States historic place

Norridgewock was the name of both an Indigenous village and a band of the Abenaki Native Americans/First Nations, an Eastern Algonquian tribe of the United States and Canada. The French of New France called the village Kennebec. The tribe occupied an area in the interior of Maine. During colonial times, this area was territory disputed between British and French colonists, and was set along the claimed western border of Acadia, the western bank of the Kennebec River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dummer's War</span> Conflict between the New England Colonies and the Wabanaki Confederacy (1722–25)

Dummer's War (1722–1725) was a series of battles between the New England Colonies and the Wabanaki Confederacy, who were allied with New France. The eastern theater of the war was located primarily along the border between New England and Acadia in Maine, as well as in Nova Scotia; the western theater was located in northern Massachusetts and Vermont in the frontier areas between Canada and New England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Shute</span> English military officer and royal governor

Samuel Shute was an English military officer and royal governor of the provinces of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. After serving in the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession, he was appointed by King George I as governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 1716. His tenure was marked by virulent disagreements with the Massachusetts assembly on a variety of issues, and by poorly conducted diplomacy with respect to the Native American Wabanaki Confederacy of northern New England that led to Dummer's War (1722–1725).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint-François-du-Lac</span> Municipality in Quebec, Canada

Saint-François-du-Lac is a community in the Nicolet-Yamaska Regional County Municipality of Quebec, Canada. The population as of the Canada 2011 Census was 1,957. It is located at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Saint-François rivers, at the edge of Lac Saint-Pierre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sébastien Rale</span> French Jesuit missionary

Sébastien Rale was a French Jesuit missionary and lexicographer who preached amongst the Abenaki and encouraged their resistance to British colonization during the early 18th century. This encouragement culminated in Dummer's War (1722–1725), where Rale was killed by a group of New England militiamen. Rale also worked on an Abenaki-French dictionary during his time in North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treaty of Portsmouth (1713)</span> 1713 treaty

The Treaty of Portsmouth, signed on July 13, 1713, ended hostilities between the Eastern Abenakis, a Native American tribe and First Nation and Algonquian-speaking people, with the British provinces of Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire. The agreement renewed a treaty of 1693 the natives had made with Governor Sir William Phips, two in a series of attempts to establish peace between the Wabanaki Confederacy and colonists after Queen Anne's War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colonial American military history</span> Military record of the Thirteen Colonies from their founding to the American Revolution in 1775

Colonial American military history is the military record of the Thirteen Colonies from their founding to the American Revolution in 1775.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Winnepang</span> 1722 battle

The Battle of Winnepang occurred during Dummer's War when New England forces attacked Mi'kmaq at present day Jeddore Harbour, Nova Scotia. The naval battle was part of a campaign ordered by Governor Richard Philipps to retrieve over 82 New England prisoners taken by the Mi'kmaq in fishing vessels off the coast of Nova Scotia. The New England force was led by Ensign John Bradstreet and fishing Captain John Elliot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Pequawket</span> Last major engagement between the English and the Wabanaki Confederacy in Governor Dummers War.

The Battle of Pequawket occurred on May 9, 1725 (O.S.), during Father Rale's War in northern New England. Captain John Lovewell led a privately organized company of scalp hunters, organized into a makeshift ranger company, and Chief Paugus led the Abenaki at Pequawket, the site of present-day Fryeburg, Maine. The battle was related to the expansion of New England settlements along the Kennebec River.

The Northeast Coast campaign was the first major campaign by the French of Queen Anne's War in New England. Alexandre Leneuf de La Vallière de Beaubassin led 500 troops made up of French colonial forces and the Wabanaki Confederacy of Acadia. They attacked English settlements on the coast of present-day Maine between Wells and Casco Bay, burning more than 15 leagues of New England country and killing or capturing more than 150 people. The English colonists protected some of their settlements, but a number of others were destroyed and abandoned. Historian Samuel Drake reported that, "Maine had nearly received her death-blow" as a result of the campaign.

The Northeast Coast campaign (1723) occurred during Father Rale's War from April 19, 1723 – January 28, 1724. In response to the previous year, in which New England attacked the Wabanaki Confederacy at Norridgewock and Penobscot, the Wabanaki Confederacy retaliated by attacking the coast of present-day Maine that was below the Kennebec River, the border of Acadia. They attacked English settlements on the coast of present-day Maine between Berwick and Mount Desert Island. Casco was the principal settlement. The 1723 campaign was so successful along the Maine frontier that Dummer ordered its evacuation to the blockhouses in the spring of 1724.

Mog was an Abenaki leader who resisted the expansion of the British New England Colonies onto his homeland during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Born in about 1663, he was the son of an Abenaki leader also named Mog, who was killed in 1677. Mog fought in King William's War and Queen Anne's War as an ally of New France, returning scalps of New England colonists to Quebec in exchange for payment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military history of the Mi'kmaq</span> Militias of Mikmaq

The military history of the Mi'kmaq consisted primarily of Mi'kmaq warriors (smáknisk) who participated in wars against the English independently as well as in coordination with the Acadian militia and French royal forces. The Mi'kmaq militias remained an effective force for over 75 years before the Halifax Treaties were signed (1760–1761). In the nineteenth century, the Mi'kmaq "boasted" that, in their contest with the British, the Mi'kmaq "killed more men than they lost". In 1753, Charles Morris stated that the Mi'kmaq have the advantage of "no settlement or place of abode, but wandering from place to place in unknown and, therefore, inaccessible woods, is so great that it has hitherto rendered all attempts to surprise them ineffectual". Leadership on both sides of the conflict employed standard colonial warfare, which included scalping non-combatants. After some engagements against the British during the American Revolutionary War, the militias were dormant throughout the nineteenth century, while the Mi'kmaq people used diplomatic efforts to have the local authorities honour the treaties. After confederation, Mi'kmaq warriors eventually joined Canada's war efforts in World War I and World War II. The most well-known colonial leaders of these militias were Chief (Sakamaw) Jean-Baptiste Cope and Chief Étienne Bâtard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military history of the Maliseet</span>

The Maliseet militia was made up of warriors from the Maliseet of northeastern North America. Along with the Wabanaki Confederacy, the French and Acadian militia, the Maliseet fought the British through six wars over a period of 75 years. They also mobilized against the British in the American Revolution. After confederation, Maliseet warriors eventually joined Canada's war efforts in World War I and World War II.

The Battle of Falmouth was fought at Falmouth, Maine when the Canadiens and Wabanaki Confederacy attacked the English New Casco Fort. The battle was part of the Northeast Coast Campaign (1703) during Queen Anne's War.

The Northeast Coast campaign of 1750 occurred during Father Le Loutre's War from 11 September to December 1750. The Norridgewock as well as the Abenaki from St. Francois and Trois-Rivières, Quebec raided British settlements along the Acadia/ New England border in present-day Maine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skowhegan, Maine</span> Town in Maine, United States

Skowhegan is the county seat of Somerset County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 8,620. Every August, Skowhegan hosts the annual Skowhegan State Fair, the oldest continuously held state fair in the United States. Skowhegan was originally inhabited by the indigenous Abenaki people who named the area Skowhegan, meaning "watching place [for fish]," and were mostly dispersed by the end of the 4th Anglo-Abenaki War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johnson Harmon</span> British army officer (1675-1751)

Colonel Johnson Harmon was an army officer in colonial America. He led the expedition during Father Rale's War that killed Father Sébastien Rale in the Battle of Norridgewock. Harmon was heralded as a hero upon his return to Boston. New England Officer and historian Samuel Penahallow proclaimed the attack was "the greatest victory we have obtained in the three or four last wars."

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.