A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(January 2022) |
Named after | Nulhegan River, Cowasuck people, Abenaki people |
---|---|
Type | arts, culture, and humanities nonprofit; museum; charity [2] |
EIN 84-1704125 [2] | |
Purpose | A50: Museums [2] |
Location | |
Membership | 1,400 |
Official language | English, New England French [3] |
President [2] | Don Stevens [2] |
Subsidiaries | AHA "Abenaki Helping Abenaki" [2] |
Website | abenakitribe |
The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation [1] is a state-recognized tribe and nonprofit organization, called AHA "Abenaki Helping Abenaki", whose headquarters and land are based in Vermont. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] They are often referred to as the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe or simply, Nulhegan. [9]
The Nulhegan Band has approximately 1,400 members, most of whom reside in the Northeast Kingdom region of Vermont. [10]
Vermont recognized the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation in 2011. [11] The Nulhegan are one of four state-recognized tribes in Vermont. They participate at the state level in many ways, including in the Vermont Commission of Native American Affairs. [12]
They are not federally recognized as a Native American tribe. [13] Vermont has no federally recognized tribes. [14]
The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation draws its name the Nulhegan River, a tributary to the Connecticut River and Nulhegan Basin near Brighton, Vermont. [15] Its name means "the place of log traps." [15] The band is also named for the Cowasuck people and Abenaki people, one of the tribes that inhabited a large portion of eastern Vermont and western New Hampshire. [16]
The Nulhegan Abenaki government is made up of a Chief (Sogomo), who is nominated by the councils and decided by election. The current chief of the Nulhegan is Chief Don Stevens. [17]
The legislative branch includes an elected Tribal Council of 11 members, all from within the tribe.[ citation needed ] The judicial branch is represented by an Elders Council of seven.[ citation needed ] Among the members of the Elder Council is Joseph Bruchac.[ citation needed ] The government manages the tribe's land, activities, and gatherings and interacts with the state of Vermont in official matters.
The Nulhegan Band founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called AHA "Abenaki Helping Abenaki" in 2006. [18] In 2019, the Tides Foundation provided it with a grant of $50,000. [2]
Lucy Neel, based in Barton and Derby Line, Vermont, is the organization's registered agent. [18] The current officers are:
Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Nation Inc. was incorporated as a domestic nonprofit corporation on December 9, 2022, based out of Derby Line, Vermont. Lucy Neel is the organization's registered agent as well. [20]
In 2012, the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe acquired some of the first tribal-owned and controlled land in Vermont for nearly 200 years. The 65 acres located in Barton, VT, where the tribal headquarters are, "will be an economic, educational and cultural resource for the tribe, which worked with the Vermont Land Trust and the Sierra Club to acquire the forestland." [21]
The unreliability of family stories, or misinterpreted records from this era, also resulted in non-Abenaki believing they have Abenaki heritage when they do not. [22]
The Abenaki, along with French Canadians and other victims deemed "undesirable" were subject to eugenics practices occurring in Vermont during the 1920s and 1930s. [23] Due to this, some Abenaki families hid their heritage. Chief Don Stevens of the Nulhegan said, "My grandmother was listed in the eugenics survey, which caused her to deny her heritage, and she wasn't able to be proud of that." [24]
The Abenaki who chose to remain in the United States did not fare as well as their Canadian counterparts. Tribal connections were lost as those Abenaki who were tolerated by the Anglo population were assimilated into colonial society. What familial groups remained were often eradicated, in the early 20th century, through forced sterilization and pregnancy termination policies in Vermont. [25] Official records list 253 recorded cases of sterilization, but some estimate there were over 3,400 cases of sterilization of Abenaki having been performed, many of which involved termination of an unborn fetus. No documentation of informed consent for these procedures was found. [26] [27] At the time, many of the children who were sterilized were not even aware of what the physicians had done to them. This was performed under the auspices of the Brandon School of the Feeble-Minded, and the Vermont Reform School. It was documented in the 1911 "Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder's Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population." [28] [29]
In 2021, the State of Vermont and the University of Vermont both formally apologized and recognized its role in the eugenics surveys in a formal resolution. [30]
During this time, many groups consisting of small families said they were now returning to their Abenaki heritage after having denied it for the first half of the 20th century. Other claimants to Abenaki heritage also emerged, including those who had never before claimed Abenaki ancestry. This included the Nulhegan, who began as a nonprofit organization. This caused tension between the European Americans claiming Abenaki status and the extant Abenaki First Nations in Canada, such as the Odanak First Nation who see the Vermont Abenaki as illegitimate due to their lack of Abenaki ancestry, and their lack of cultural continuity from any historic tribe. [31] [32]
On November 15, 1980, the first record of a repatriation and reburial of Abenaki remains took place in Vermont after a set of Abenaki remains were discovered at the Putney Historical Society in Putney, Vermont. Blackie Lampman and Richard Phillips asked Beverly Bolding to facilitate the repatriation. [33]
In the final determination of the 2005 petition for federal recognition by a related state-recognized tribe, the St. Francis/Sokoki Band Abenakis of Vermont, the BIA states: "The details of this claimed process of living 'underground,' however, are not explained by the petitioner. Some of the available documentation indicates that some of the group's ancestors moved from various locations in Quebec, Canada, to the United States over the course of the 19th century, but the available evidence does not demonstrate that the petitioner or its claimed ancestors descended from the St. Francis Indians of Quebec, another Indian group in Canada, a Missisquoi Abenaki entity in Vermont, or any other Western Abenaki group or Indian entity from New England in existence before or after 1800. The available evidence indicates that no external observers from 1800 to 1975 described the petitioner or its claimed ancestors, or any group of Indians, as an Indian entity or a distinct Indian community in northwestern Vermont," referring to groups such as the Nulhegan and Ko'asek. [34]
In 2019, the leadership of the Odanak Abenaki Band Council, the governing body of the Odanak band of the Abenaki First Nation, denounced any groups claiming to be Abenaki in the United States. [35] The legitimacy of groups such as the Nulhegan Band have been questioned due to claims that the root ancestors they claim were Abenaki were actually Europeans. Other root ancestors, though Native, have been claimed to not be Abenaki. [36] [37]
The State of Vermont designated the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation as a state-recognized tribe [14] through Vermont Statutes Title 1, Section 854 in 2011. [1] The other three state-recognized tribes in Vermont are the Missisquoi Abenaki Tribe, Elnu Abenaki Tribe, and the Koasek Abenaki Tribe. [14] In 2006, The Vermont Legislature recognized the Abenaki as a "Minority Population" within the State of Vermont under Statute 853. This entitled the Abenaki protections as a disadvantaged race of people. However, since there were no recognized Abenaki Indian Tribes in Vermont, there were "legally" no Abenaki people under the law. [38] On March 16, 2008, the Vermont Indigenous Alliance is formed by Elnu Abenaki Tribe, Koasek Abenaki Tribe, Missisquoi Abenaki Tribe with the purpose of unifying the tribes and pursuing official state-recognition from Vermont. Finally, on April 22, 2011, the Nulhegan was officially recognized by the State of Vermont as an Abenaki Indian Tribe. [39]
In 2013, Wabanaagig TV from the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network in Canada produces the movie, The Vermont Abenaki: A struggle for recognition, which documents the struggle for Vermont State recognition and culminates with the celebration of state recognition. [40]
From August 19 to 22, 2015, the annual Wabanaki Confederacy Conference was held in Shelburne, Vermont. This was the first and only time the Wabanaki Confederacy was hosted in Vermont. [41]
In 2019, the leadership of the Odanak Abenaki Band Council, the governing body of the Odanak band of the Abenaki First Nation, denounced any groups claiming to be Abenaki in the United States. [35] The legitimacy of groups such as the Nulhegan Band have been questioned due to claims that the root ancestors they claim were Abenaki were actually Europeans. Other root ancestors, though Native, have been claimed to not be Abenaki. [36] [37]
The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation identify as being Abenaki and Cowasuck.
Current professor at the University of Ottawa and former St. Mary's University associate professor Darryl Leroux's genealogical and historical research found that the members of this and the other three state-recognized tribes in Vermont were primarily French descendants who have used long-ago ancestry in New France to shift into an 'Abenaki' identity. [42]
In 2002, the State of Vermont reported that the Abenaki people had migrated north to Quebec by the end of the 18th century. [43]
The Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe host multiple gatherings every year, including drumming events and an annual pow wow. The first is at the Winter Solstice in late December. The second is the annual Snow Snake Games held at the end of February or early March. The last and biggest gathering is the annual Nulheganaki gathering held every year at the end of August or beginning of September. [44] [45] [46]
Vermont, unofficially in 2016 and officially in 2020, celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day instead of Columbus Day. The state did not want to celebrate Christopher Columbus, due to his role in the genocide of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Celebrations of Indigenous heritage and culture are now held across the state. The Nulhegan Abenaki host "Indigenous People's Day Rock". [47] [48]
In 2020, Nulhegan Band launched the Abenaki Trails Project, which provides educational material about Abenaki historic sites beginning in West Hopkinton, New Hampshire. [49]
The Nulhegan Band has spoken with Middlebury College regarding the college's land acknowledgment, which highlights the Western Abenaki. [50] In State v. Elliott , a 1992) the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that all aboriginal title in Vermont was extinguished "by the increasing weight of history." [51]
The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department granted members of state-recognized Vermont tribes a free permanent fishing license, or if the applicant qualifies for a hunting license, a free permanent combination hunting and fishing license. [52]
Vermont H.556, "An act relating to exempting property owned by Vermont-recognized Native American tribes from property tax," passed on April 20, 2022. [53]
As a state-recognized tribe, the Nulhegan Abenaki may legal obtain eagle feathers and other animals parts of endangered animal species for usage but not sale. [54]
The Nulhegan, who number around 1,400; a slightly lesser number of the [St. Francis] Missisquoi, based in Franklin County; the Elnu, centered in the Jamaica/Putney area; and the Koasek, located in Haverhill, N.H./Newbury, Vt., area. Stevens said the Elnu and Koasek tribes count around 150 members each.
The legal standard does not require that extinguishment spring full blown from a single telling event. Extinguishment may be established by the increasing weight of history.
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.
Swanton is a town in Franklin County, Vermont, United States. The population was 6,701 at the 2020 census. The town includes the village of Swanton.
State-recognized tribes in the United States are organizations that identify as Native American tribes or heritage groups that do not meet the criteria for federally recognized Indian tribes but have been recognized by a process established under assorted state government laws for varying purposes or by governor's executive orders. State recognition does not dictate whether or not they are recognized as Native American tribes by continually existing tribal nations.
The Pennacook, also known by the names Penacook and Pennacock, were an Algonquian-speaking Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands who lived in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and southern Maine. They were not a united tribe but a network of politically and culturally allied communities. Penacook was also the name of a specific Native village in what is now Concord, New Hampshire.
In the United States, an American Indian tribe, Native American tribe, Alaska Native village, Indigenous tribe or Tribal nation may be any current or historical tribe, band, nation, or community of Native Americans in the United States. Modern forms of these entities are often associated with land or territory of an Indian reservation. "Federally recognized Indian tribe" is a legal term in United States law with a specific meaning.
Vincent Illuzzi, Jr. is an American lawyer and politician from Derby, Vermont who formerly served as a Republican member of the Vermont State Senate representing the Essex-Orleans senate district.
Odanak is an Abenaki First Nations reserve in the Central Quebec region, Quebec, Canada. The mostly First Nations population as of the Canada 2021 Census was 481. The territory is located near the mouth of the Saint-François River at its confluence with the St. Lawrence River. It is partly within the limits of Pierreville and across the river from Saint-François-du-Lac. Odanak is an Abenaki word meaning "in the village".
Abenaki, also known as Wôbanakiak, is an endangered Eastern Algonquian language of Quebec and the northern states of New England. The language has Eastern and Western forms which differ in vocabulary and phonology and are sometimes considered distinct languages.
Joseph Bruchac is an American writer and storyteller based in New York.
The Missiquoi were a historic band of Abenaki Indigenous peoples from present-day southern Quebec and formerly northern Vermont. This Algonquian-speaking group lived along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain at the time of the European incursion. Today, they are part of the Conseil des Abénakis d'Odanak, a First Nation in Quebec.
The Androscoggin (Ammoscocongon) were an Abenaki people from what are now the U.S. states of Maine and New Hampshire. By the 18th century, they were absorbed by neighboring tribes.
Native American tribes in Massachusetts are the Native American tribes and their reservations that existed historically and those that still exist today in what is now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A Narragansett term for this region is Ninnimissinuok.
State v. Elliott, 616 A.2d 210, is a decision of the Vermont Supreme Court holding that all aboriginal title in Vermont was extinguished "by the increasing weight of history." The Vermont Supreme Court has clarified that its holding in Elliott applies to the entire state.
Henry Lorne Masta was an Abenaki writer, teacher, and scholar of the Abenaki language. He was also a respected leader in the Abenaki community. Masta published Abenaki Legends, Grammar, and Place Names in 1932. He began writing the book in 1929 at 79 years of age. Abenaki is a member of the Algonquian languages family and is spoken in Quebec and neighboring US states. There are few native speakers—the language is spoken by only 3% of the current Abenaki population. Masta was fluent in French, English and the Abenaki language.
Jesse Bowman Bruchac is an author and language teacher from the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, a state-recognized tribe in Vermont. He has dedicated much of his life to studying the Abenaki language and preserving the Abenaki culture. He created the first Abenaki language website.
The Cowasuck, also known as Cowass, was an Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe in northeastern North America and the name of their primary settlement.
The Elnu Abenaki Tribe is a state-recognized tribe in Vermont, who claim descent from Abenaki people. They are not federally recognized as a Native American tribe. Vermont has no federally recognized tribes. They are the smallest of Vermont's four state-recognized tribes with 60 members in 2016.
The Koasek Abenaki Tribe is a state-recognized tribe in Vermont, who claim descent from Abenaki people.
The Missisquoi Abenaki Tribe is one of four state-recognized tribes in Vermont, who claim descent from Abenaki people. The Missisquoi Abenaki Tribe specifically claims descent from the Missiquoi people.
Jeanne Brink is an Abenaki artist who specializes in traditional basket making, and the cultural and linguistic preservation of the Abenaki people.