The Confederacy of Mawooshen
Mawooshen Confederacy. Prins, Harald E.L. and McBride, Bunny. (2007). Asticou’s
island domain: Wabanaki peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500-2000. Vols. 1 and 2. Acadia
National Park and The Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME. Reprinted with permission from
Dr. Harald Prins. Numeration added to mark the locations described by the map key.
The middens at the ends of the cross-island trails,
as well as many along the northeast shore of Mount
Desert Island, attest to the presence of First Nation
summer visitors here both before and after fur trade
related warfare and pandemics destroyed the
Abenaki Confederacy of Mawooshen. This
historical marker has been erected in memory of
the First Nation communities of this Confederacy,
also noted as Norumbega (10) on many maps,
including Champlain’s shown below.
Close-up of Champlain’s 1613 map from Norumbega Reconsidered (Brack 2010) fig. 8, pg.
A-12.
The Breakneck Hollow and Mt. Desert Island lie in
the eastern region of the Confederacy of
Mawooshen, which was described in detail by five
Native Americans kidnapped by George
Waymouth in 1605 near St. Georges Harbor (11).
Ferdinando Gorges (1565-1647) recorded their
description, which Samuel Purchas published in
Purchas’s Pilgrims (1623). James Rosier, who
accompanied Waymouth and documented his
voyage, describes the presence of 275 Abenaki
warriors who approached Waymouth’s vessel,
probably to trade, on the day prior to the
kidnapping. These natives were residents of the
Abenaki community in central coastal Maine
historically known as the Wawenoc, who lived
between the Penobscot and Kennebec Rivers and
used rapid canoe travel to trade in oysters, furs, and
corn throughout the Confederacy. Later trade with
the French involved exchange of furs and moose
hides for axes, knives, kettles, and firearms. The
oyster shell middens at Damariscotta (9) were
among the largest in the world (see photo) and
document the presence of a highly populated
Abenaki community on the central Maine coast.
Contemporary Map of the Wawenoc Homelands
also known as the Norumbega Bioregion
Oyster Shell Middens at Damariscotta
Most of the oyster shells shown in this picture were excavated and used as fertilizer by
local farmers in the 19th century
Rufus King Sewall. 1895. Ancient voyages to the western continent: Three phases of
history on the coast of Maine. Lincoln County News. pg. 24.
The downfall of the Confederacy began at the
Battle of Saco (12) in 1607, where the Souriquois
(Tarrentines), which included the Micmac,
Maliseet, and Passamaquoddy, attacked and
defeated the Abenaki of Mawooshen with the help
of firearms supplied by the French. The ongoing
fur trade wars between competing Native American
communities culminated in the Battle of Hatchet
Mountain in Hope (13) (1615), where the last
Bashebas or chieftain of Mawooshen, possibly
Asticou, was killed.
“[Bessabez] had under him many great
Subjects... some fifteen hundred Bow-Men, some
others lesse, these they call Sagamores... [He] had
many enemies, especially those to the East and
North-East, whom they call Tarrentines... [H]is
owne chief abode was not far from Pemaquid, but
the Warre growing more and more violent
between the Bashaba and the Tarrentines, who
(as it seemed) presumed upon the hopes they had
to be favored of the French who were seated in
Canada[.] [T]heir next neighbors, the Tarrentines
surprised the Bashaba and slew him and all his
People near about him.” (Gorges 1890).
In 1617-18, a vast pandemic, probably viral
hepatitis, swept the New England coast, killing
90% of the First Nation population east of the
Narragansetts in Rhode Island, including all but
one member of the Plymouth community of
Pawtuxet. Only a few hundred Wawenocs,
including Samoset, who lived on Muscongus Island
(14), survived to witness English settlers arriving at
Pemaquid (7) in 1623 at what was then New
England’s busiest port.
Use of Native Americans to help with careening and contaminated trade goods were the
two most important sources of pathogens that caused the great virgin soil epidemic that
swept the New England coast in 1617. Illustration from Jane Curtis, Will Curtis and
Frank Lieberman. (1995). Monhegan the Artists’ Island. Down East Books, Camden, ME,
pg. 14.
The lingering presence of the Wawenoc
community was noted in hundreds of documents,
letters, and town/state histories. Frank Speck
interviewed Francis Neptune, the last speaker of
the Wawenoc dialect, at Bécancour, Quebec in
1912. Academic revisionists deleted mention of
this First Nation community after 1990, as well as
other Abenaki riverine communities, such as the
Kennebecs; they are now referred to as “western
Etchemins” (Prins and McBride 2007). Bourque’s
Twelve Thousand Years: Native Americans in
Maine (2001) makes no mention of either the
Wawenoc nation (15) or the Confederacy of
Mawooshen.
Wawenock Homelands. Drawn by Kerry Hardy, Merryspring Nature Center, Camden
The Wawenoc Homelands are still clearly still
represented on the map of Penobscot territories
(1928). A detailed explanation of the ecology of the
rich natural resources of the Wawenoc and other
First Nation community homelands can be found in
Hardy’s Notes on a Lost Flute (2009).
Penobscot Tribe Map. From Speck (1928) and Norumbega Reconsidered, pg. A-26, fig. 24.
Bibliography: Suggested Reading
Baker, Emerson W., Churchill, Edwin A., D’Abate, Richard S., Jones,
Kristine L., Konrad, Victor A. and Prins, Harald E. L., Eds. (1994).
American beginnings: Exploration, culture, and cartography in the land of
Norumbega. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE.
Bourque, Bruce J. (2001). Twelve thousand years: American Indians in
Maine. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE.
Brack, H. G. (2010). Norumbega reconsidered: Mawooshen and the
Wawenoc diaspora. Pennywheel Press, Hulls Cove, ME.
Gorges, Ferdinando. (1890). Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of
Maine. In: Publications of the Prince Society. Baxter, James P. Ed., Vol.
2. No. 19. Burt Franklin, NY.
Greene, Francis B. (1906). History of Boothbay, Southport, and Boothbay
Harbor, Maine 1623 - 1905 with family genealogies. Loring, Short and
Harmon, Portland, ME.
Hadlock, Wendell S. (1941). Three shell heaps on Frenchman’s Bay.
Bulletin VI, The Robert Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME.
Hale, Richard W. (1949). The story of Bar Harbor, an informal history
recording one hundred and fifty years in the life of a community. Ives
Washburn, NY.
Hardy, Kerry. (2009). Notes on a lost flute: A field guide to the Wabanaki.
Down East Books, Camden, ME.
Mitchell, Harbour, III and Spiess, Arthur E. (Spring 2002). Early archaic
bifurcate base point occupation in the St. George River valley. Maine
Archaeological Society Bulletin. 42(1). pg. 15-24.
Morey, David C. (2005). The voyage of Archangell: James Rosier’s
account of the Waymouth voyage of 1605 - A true relation. Tilbury House,
Gardiner, ME.
Mosher, John and Spiess, Arthur. (2004). An archaic site at
Mattamiscontis on the Penobscot River. The Maine Archaeological
Society Bulletin. 44(2). pg. 1-35.
Prins, Harald E. L. and McBride, Bunny. (2007). Asticou’s island domain:
Wabanaki peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500-2000. Vols. 1 and 2.
Acadia National Park and The Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME.
Purchas, S. (1625). The Description of the country of Mawooshen,
discovered by the English in the Yeere 1602.3.5.6.7.8. and 9. In:
Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrims. Vol. 4. Henry Fetherston,
London.
Rosier, James. (1605). A true relation of the voyage of Captaine George
Weymouth. Reprinted in Burrage, Henry, S. Ed. (1930). Early English and
French voyages chiefly from Hakluyt 1534-1608. Charles Scribner’s Sons,
NY.
Russell, Howard S. (1980). Indian New England before the Mayflower.
University Press of New England, Hanover, NH.
Sewall, Rufus King. (1859). Ancient dominions of Maine. Bath, ME.
Sewall, Rufus King. (1895). Ancient voyages to the western continent:
Three phases of history on the coast of Maine. Lincoln County News. pg.
24.
Snow, Dean. (1980). The archaeology of New England. Academic Press,
NY.
Speck, Frank G. (1928). Wawenock myth texts from Maine. 43rd Annual
Report of the Bureau of American ethnology. Bureau of American
Ethnology, Washington, DC.
Spiess, Arthur E. and Cranmer, Leon. (Fall 2001). Native American
occupations at Pemaquid: Review and results. Maine Archaeological
Society Bulletin. 41(2). pg. 1-25.