The Story of the Vermont State Recognized Tribes

Summary of the Proposed Finding
The SSA petitioner claims to have descended as a group mainly from a Western Abenaki Indian tribe, most specifically, the Missisquoi Indians. During the colonial period (approximately 1600­ 1800), the Missisquoi Indians lived in northwestern Vermont, near the present­day town of Swanton. The available evidence indicates that by 1800 the disruption caused by colonial wars and non­Indian settlement had forced almost all the Western Abenakis in northern New England (including Vermont) to relocate to the Saint Francis River area of Quebec, Canada, and become part of the St. Francis, or Odanak, village of Canadian Indians. The petitioner, however, contends that its ancestors remained behind in northwestern Vermont after 1800, or moved to Canada until it was “safe” to return. The petitioner also maintains that its ancestors lived “underground,” hiding their Indian identity to avoid drawing the attention of their non­Indian neighbors, until the 1970’s. The petitioner did not explain the details of this claimed process of living “underground.” Some of the available documentation indicates that, over the course of the 19th century, some of the group’s ancestors moved from various locations in Quebec, Canada, to the United States. However, the available evidence does not demonstrate that the petitioner or its claimed ancestors descended from the St. Francis Indians of Quebec, a Missisquoi Abenaki entity in Vermont, any other Western Abenaki group, or an Indian entity from New England or Canada. Instead, the PF concluded that the petitioner is a collection of individuals of claimed but undemonstrated Indian ancestry “with little or no social or historical connection with each other before the early 1970’s” (Abenaki PF 2005, 44).