ALIEN ABDUCTIONS


How the Abenaki Discovered England BY JAMES R ING A DAMS W 32 AMERICAN INDIAN FALL 2015 hen Captain George Way-


mouth explored the coast of Maine in 1605, he made a point of kidnapping five of his friendly Abenaki hosts and taking them back to England, along with their bows and arrows and bark canoes. Waymouth was following European pro-


cedure, standard from the time of the Vikings. The captives were prized, not only for display and proof of a successful voyage, but as po- tential interpreters, sources of intelligence and possibly even Christian converts. Yet Way- mouth’s group was exceptionally important, although now famous for the wrong reason. In remarkably widespread misinforma-


tion, some historians, and apparently all of the Internet, believe that one of the captives was the famous Squanto, or Tisquantum, the go-between for the Plymouth Bay Puritans 15 years later. Wikipedia compounds the crime by saying the other abductees were members of his tribe.


Both statements are demonstrably false.


Tisquantum was from the village of Patuxet, now the site of Plymouth, Mass., some 200 miles south of Waymouth’s landings and part of the Pokanet or Wampanoag federation in what is now southeastern Massachusetts. Its great chief was the Massasoit. The real abduct- ees were eastern Abenaki, part of a federation led by Bashebas, a major figure mentioned in English and French sources, whose seat was near what is now Bangor, Maine. There is no contemporary record placing Squanto any- where near Maine in 1605. Yet we know the names, and a fair amount of the history, of the Abenaki who were kidnapped. It is their story, full of swashbuckling international intrigue, that concerns us.


E


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68