The Six Anglo-Abenaki Wars

Lesson Three covers the period between 1675-1760, spanning what are known as the Six Anglo-Abenaki Wars. These conflicts (with the exception of the first, which we refer to as Pometacomet’s Resistance/King Philip’s War) were largely fought between colonial English and French forces for control of what is today northern New England and Eastern Canada. Both sides deployed divide-and-conquer strategies, recruiting Indigenous allies and fighters with promises of payments and protection. Wabanaki and other Indigenous peoples mounted campaigns of resistance against increasing settler colonial encroachment, dispossession, punitive laws, and violations of vital resources, including hunting, fishing and subsistence lands.

During this period, no fewer than 80 official bounty laws were issued for scalping, killing, or capturing Indigenous children, women and men by the colonial governments and settlers of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Nova Scotia. All the acts resulted in at least 144 recorded claims (many of which included multiple victims), 89 for cash and 42 for land, made by countless individuals and their heirs who served in military campaigns, took part in bounty expeditions or were engaged in armed conflicts with Indigenous Peoples in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Nova Scotia New York, Vermont and French Canada. The highest number of scalp bounty acts/proclamations (24) issued by Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Nova Scotia took place during the fifth Anglo-Abenaki War (1744-1749). The greatest number of bounty claims (37) were made during the sixth Anglo-Abenaki War (1754-1763). Scalpers brought no fewer than seven captives and 70 scalps to what is now referred to as the Old State House in Boston for payment. Bounty hunters collected payment for captives and scalps in a variety of ways and places throughout the region. 

There were incalculable thousands of Wabanaki captives, killings, and victims of scalping during this period when thousands of soldiers and militia rangers participated in bounty expeditions. Bounty acts issued for killing and capturing Wabanaki children, women, and men resulted in payments and land grants of over £9,000 and hundreds of thousands of acres granted to countless individuals and their families.

The content of this lesson provides copious primary sources so students can engage in additional activities to distill and analyze key patterns and issues.

In addition, this lesson includes research proving that land all over the Dawnland was granted to individual soldiers who fought Wabanaki people and to those who scalped them. It also shows that land was granted to groups of soldiers (and their heirs) who fought Wabanaki people and scalped them to establish settler towns.

In Lesson Three readers learn about different understandings of the relationship between people and the land, acts of scalping and beheading in England, monetization of scalping by Europeans in North America, scalping and mourning war practices among some Indigenous peoples, the role of land dispossession in settler colonial societies, different interpretations of early deeds, influence of the Doctrine of Discovery, influence of Boston-based land speculators, scalp acts and bounty rewards, and Wabanaki attempts at diplomacy in the 1640s.