The Third Anglo-Abenaki War

During this conflict, the governments of Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and New Hampshire issued 18 known bounty proclamations between 1703 and 1713. At least 29 separate bounty claims were submitted by bounty hunters at this time. Of these, 28 were awarded cash claims and one was awarded land to establish a new town.[119] For a detailed list see e-timeline.

As England and France continued to battle over who would dominate whom in northern New England, in 1702 colonial authorities stipulated that children under ten who were taken captive were to be sold into slavery and all profits would go to the scalp hunter. The English also increased payment for bounties, amounting to premiums for killing Wabanaki who occupied lands sought by the colonial government and settlers. For many, scalp-hunting expeditions became a significant source of income, starkly manifest in the numerous bounties claimed in a few short years. In addition to physical violence, ongoing violations of territorial treaties and the common pot further endangered Wabanaki homelands, subsistence, and survival.

‍

At the outset of the Third Anglo-Abenaki War, otherwise known as Queen Anne’s War between England and France, the Penobscot ratified a series of neutrality agreements to regulate their relationship with colonial Massachusetts after France proved less willing to supply them with arms. The English decreed treaties, often with little or no buy-in from the Wabanaki who did not consent to give up their homelands. These mostly unilateral arrangements failed to resolve growing tensions. Had the English wanted to create a just and lasting peace they could have agreed to no new settlements, an action which they were unwilling to consider.

In July 1703, a diplomatic delegation of leaders, including Sagamore Wattanummon’s sister, warned the English of impending attacks by French and Native allies and attempted to negotiate a peace treaty with Massachusetts Governor Dudley at Casco Bay. But then, in August 1703, an expedition of about 500 French and Mi'kmaq from the St. Lawrence devastated coastal towns and English forts from Wells to Falmouth, and the Province of the Massachusetts Bay declared war on all the Original peoples in the north. [120]

English militia raids in the upper Saco kept Wabanaki villagers from their agricultural fields and critical foraging areas. It was within this context that Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley asked Connecticut Governor, Fitz John Winthrop, to provide 100 Mohegan warriors to counter the raids by the French and their Native allies. To convince Winthrop, Dudley offered to pay them “£20 for every enemy killed, with the profits from any sale of captives, or £40 to those furnishing their own provisions.” His proposal made explicit the function of hunting and capturing Wabanaki people as wages. [121]

The declaration of war, An Act to Encourage the Prosecution of the Indian Enemy and Rebels, sparked another decade of bloodshed that resulted in the highest number yet of Wabanaki people hunted for their scalps and bounty claims submitted for payment.

The bounty hunters exchanged Wabanaki people’s scalps for payment “out of the Public Treasury,” which was replenished annually by estate taxes. Put another way, English colonial settlers invaded Wabanaki, Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Massachusett homelands, and through a variety of means, secured deeds to that land, then paid property taxes on their deeded land, and colonial authorities aggregated those payments and drew down that revenue to encourage the hunting and killing of more Indigenous peoples to banish them from their land, thereby creating new opportunities for colonial settlers to occupy Native land and consequently expand the public treasury’s tax base.

After the cessation of hostilities in Europe, the Wabanaki signed the 1713 Treaty of Portsmouth, [122] which repealed the 1694 deed disputed by most Wabanaki and brought a semblance of peace to the Maine frontier. By this time, it was apparent that English population expansion would engulf southern Maine, and many Wabanaki people in the area withdrew to the St. Lawrence settlements under the command of French-Canadian Governor Vaudreuil. Wabanaki military successes were significant, however, and the upper Kennebec remained a contested territory.

The violence of 1688-1713 consumed entire communities, destroying old relationships. This destruction paved the way for new ones to grow from the wreckage. The English population of Maine plummeted from a prewar peak of 6,000 to fewer than 2,000 by 1713, most of them clustered around the three southernmost towns of Wells, York, and Kittery. The war also increased the influence of large absentee landowners, who were able to buy numerous family claims from poor settlers, now refugees, who had given up on returning. A group of wealthy speculators living in Boston snapped up many of the refugee titles, then waited for the time when the frontier could again be safe for British colonization. [123]

‍

Wabanaki communities also experienced profound changes during the war years, and by 1713 they had coalesced into political groupings still recognizable today in the Wabanaki Confederacy: the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, Houlton Band of Maliseets, Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkokmikuk, Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik, and Penobscot Nation. [124] In the ebbs and flows of land dispossession and other forms of violence, Penobscots and Kennebecs permitted English settlers to return to their former lands, according to the Treaty of 1713, as long as there were no new land grants issued. Land speculation increased, however, as wealthy Boston-based investors formed companies, such as the Pejepscot Proprietors, to claim war torn Wabanaki lands on the Maine frontier. Governor Phips's adopted son, and future lieutenant Governor, Spencer Phips, sold land from the fraudulent “Muscongus Patent” to Boston proprietors, breaking the treaty and renewing conflicts. [125]

Falmouth (present-day Portland), once the center of a vigorous trade in fish, masts, spars, timber, and sawed lumber, slowly revived. Sawmills, gristmills, and boatworks again dotted the rivers and inlets between the Piscataqua and Kennebec, and farms sent hay, dairy products, cattle, sheep, swine, cordwood, and fish to Massachusetts ports for the local and coastal trade. With English settlers pushing upriver, the Massachusetts militia rebuilt the fort at Brunswick, giving the English power to prevent Wabanaki from reaching the coast to harvest natural resources and fish. Wabanaki security in central Maine had become more tenuous as well. [126]

Returning settlers took up a quasi-military lifestyle. Garrisons, which were fortified block houses, usually under a militia command, provided nuclei for small settlements either just outside or within a stockade. During daylight, men and women worked in their fields under the protection of scouts and guards. For most of this period, the English in Maine lived in a state of virtual siege. Only the larger seaports – Boston, Salem, Portsmouth, Kittery – enjoyed sufficient security to benefit from the military expenditures from Great Britain. [127]

‍