Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation

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The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation^[1] is a state-recognized tribe and nonprofit organization, called AHA 'Abenaki Helping Abenaki', whose headquarters and land are based in Vermont.^{[6][7][8][9][10]} They are often referred to as the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe or simply, Nulhegan.^[11]

The Nulhegan Band has approximately 1,400 members, most of whom reside in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.^[12]

Vermont recognized the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation in 2011.^[13] The Nulhegan are one of four state-recognized tribes in Vermont. They participate at the state level in many ways, including in the Vermont Commission of Native American Affairs.^[14]

They are not federally recognized as a Native American tribe.^[15] Vermont has no federally recognized tribes.^[16]

Etymology[]

Sign designating the beginning of the Nulhegan River basin

The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation draws its name the Nulhegan River, a tributary to the Connecticut River and Nulhegan Basin near Brighton, Vermont;^[17] the Cowasuck people and Abenaki people, one of the tribes that inhabited a large portion of eastern Vermont and western New Hampshire.^[18]

Leadership[]

The Nulhegan Abenaki government is made up of a Chief (Sogomo), who is nominated by the councils and decided by election. The current chief of the Nulhegan is Chief Don Stevens. The legislative branch includes an elected Tribal Council of 5 to 13 members, all from within the tribe. The judicial branch is represented by an Elders Council. The government manages the tribe's land, activities, gatherings, and interacts with the state of Vermont in official matters.^[19]

Nonprofit organization[]

The Nulhegan Band founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called AHA "Abenaki Helping Abenaki" in 2006.^[20] In 2019, the Tides Foundation provided it with a grant of $50,000.^[2]

Lucy Neel, based in Barton and Derby Line, Vermont, is the organization's registered agent.^[20] The current officers are:

• Chief Donald Stevens, president
• Nicole St. Ogle, treasurer
• Lucy Cannon-Neel, secretary.^[21]

Land[]

In 2012, the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe acquired some of the first tribal-owned and controlled land in Vermont for nearly 200 years. The 65 acres located in Barton, VT, where the tribal headquarters are, "will be an economic, educational and cultural resource for the tribe, which worked with the Vermont Land Trust and the Sierra Club to acquire the forestland."^[22]

History[]

In June 1812, white settlers recorded that a band of Abenaki lived at Owls Head Mountain on Lake Memphremagog in Potton, Quebec, in the Memphremagog Region Abenaki.^[23]

After this occurred, a good amount of Abenaki history in Vermont and New Hampshire virtually disappeared as the national eugenics movement began to take hold, forcing many Abenaki families to move into hiding or to deny their heritage, both on census records and by changing names from the original Abenaki or Canadian French.^[24]

Two Abenaki men fishing in West Swanton around 1900

On June 25, 1978, the first record of a 20th-century repatriation and reburial of Abenaki remains takes place in Center Harbor, NH. On November 15, 1980, the first record of a repatriation and reburial of Abenaki remains takes place in VT after a set of Abenaki remains is discovered at the Putney Historical Society in Putney, VT. Blackie Lampman and Richard Phillips ask Beverly Bolding to facilitate the repatriation.^[25]

During this time, many tribes that were made up of originally small families or those returning to their heritage after having denied it for a good first half of the 1900s began to emerge, as families regrouped. This included the Nulhegan, who began as a nonprofit organization whose members were of Abenaki heritage. This caused tension between both European-Americans who still held prejudices, and the Abenaki of the Canadian nations such as the Odanak who often saw the Vermont Abenaki as illegitimate due to the nature of them often reclaiming heritage from their parents or grandparents, or being of mixed origin.^[26] In spite of the tensions, the Canadian and Vermont Abenaki nations have still joined multiple times for cultural exchanges and political pursuits, including the Odanak themselves recognizing the free hunting and fishing rights of the Abenaki during a series of fish-ins held to protest state regulation of the Abenaki cultural practices during the 1970s, a relationship that shifted in the 1980s with new leadership and inter-tribal tensions.^[27]

In 2006, The Vermont Legislature recognized the Abenaki as a “Minority Population” within the State of Vermont under Statute 853. This entitled the Abenaki protections as a disadvantaged race of people. However, since there were no recognized Abenaki Indian Tribes in Vermont, there were “legally” no Abenaki people under the law.^[28] On March 16, 2008, the Vermont Indigenous Alliance is formed by Elnu Tribe, Ko'asek Tribe, Missiquoi Tribe and Nulhegan Tribe of Abenaki with the purpose of unifying the tribes and pursuing official state recognition from the state of Vermont. Finally, on April 22, 2011, the Nulhegan was officially recognized by the State of Vermont as an Abenaki Indian Tribe.^[29]

In 2013, Wabanaagig TV from the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network in Canada produces the movie “The Vermont Abenaki – A struggle for recognition” which documents the struggle for Vermont State recognition and culminates with the celebration of recognition at the first annual Nulheganaki.^[30] From August 19–22, 2015 The annual Wabanaki Confederacy Conference was held in Shelburne, VT. This was the first time the Wabanaki Confederacy was hosted by the Western Abenaki of Vermont in 200 years. The Seven Nations of Canada also attended this important gathering. The Abenaki are the only Nation who is in both Confederacies.^[31]

20th-century eugenics survey effects[]

The Abenaki, along with French Canadians and other victims deemed "undesirable" were subject to eugenics practices occurring in Vermont during the 1920s and 1930s. ^[32] Due to this, Abenaki families hid their heritage. Chief Don Stevens of the Nulhegan Abenaki said, “My grandmother was listed in the eugenics survey, which caused her to deny her heritage, and she wasn't able to be proud of that."^[33]

The Abenaki who chose to remain in the United States did not fare as well as their Canadian counterparts. Tribal connections were lost as those Abenaki who were tolerated by the Anglo population were assimilated into colonial society. What familial groups remained were often eradicated, in the early 20th century, through forced sterilization and pregnancy termination policies in Vermont.^[34] Official records list 253 recorded cases of sterilization, but some estimate there were over 3,400 cases of sterilization of Abenaki having been performed, many of which involved termination of an unborn fetus. No documentation of informed consent for these procedures was found.^[35][36]

After this period the only Abenaki that remained in the United States were those who could pass for white, or avoid capture and subsequent dissolution of their families through forced internment in "schools" after their sterilization.^[37] At the time, many of the children who were sterilized were not even aware of what the physicians had done to them. This was performed under the auspices of the Brandon School of the Feeble-Minded, and the Vermont Reform School. It was documented in the 1911 "Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder's Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population."^[38][39]

The State of Vermont and the University of Vermont both formally apologized and recognized its role in the eugenics surveys in a formal resolution.^[40]

Controversy and federal recognition attempts of neighboring tribes[]

After the 1970s, the new leadership of The Odanak Abenaki Band Council, the governing body of the Odanak band of the Abenaki First Nation, denounced any groups claiming to be Abenaki in the United States.^[41]

Because of this, the legitimacy of tribes such as the Nulhegan Band have been questioned due to claims that some root ancestors were erroneously being listed as Native American. Other root ancestors, though Native, have been claimed to not be Abenaki.^[42][43]

In the 2005 petition for federal recognition of the St. Francis-Sokoki Band of the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi, another state-recognized tribe in the same region, the BIA states: "The details of this claimed process of living 'underground,' however, are not explained by the petitioner. Some of the available documentation indicates that some of the group's ancestors moved from various locations in Quebec, Canada, to the United States over the course of the 19th century, but the available evidence does not demonstrate that the petitioner or its claimed ancestors descended from the St. Francis Indians of Quebec, another Indian group in Canada, a Missisquoi Abenaki entity in Vermont, or any other Western Abenaki group or Indian entity from New England in existence before or after 1800. The available evidence indicates that no external observers from 1800 to 1975 described the petitioner or its claimed ancestors, or any group of Indians, as an Indian entity or a distinct Indian community in northwestern Vermont. (referring to tribes such as the Nulhegan and Ko'asek)."^[44]

The St. Francis-Sokoki Band of the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi reapplied for federal recognition in 2016 during ongoing discussions in the federal government continue addressing the issue of how federal recognition could apply to people with very little written history or who are more recently organized. The federal recognition process is known to negatively impact tribes such as the Nulhegan and St. Francis-Sokoki Bands who are ineligible from federal programs, funding, and land petitions without recognition from the BIA. The costly and lengthy recognition process is challenging for tribes in the Northeast and on the East Coast, who have less documentation than tribes further west. Eastern tribes often made verbal agreements with early settlers rather than documented treaties with the U.S. government, making their existence harder to track and prove through records. The St. Francis-Sokoki Band and the Nulhegan Band are not federally recognized as Native American tribes.^[15][45][46]

State-recognition[]

The State of Vermont designated the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation as a state-recognized tribe^[16] through Vermont Statutes Title 1, Section 854 in 2011.^[1] The other three state-recognized tribes in Vermont are the Missisquoi Abenaki Tribe, Elnu Abenaki Tribe, and the Koasek Abenaki Tribe.^[16]

Heritage[]

The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation identify as being Abenaki and Cowasuck.

St. Mary's University associate professor Darryl Leroux's genealogical and historical research found that the members of this and the other three state-recognized tribes in Vermont were "comprised primarily of French descendants who have used long-ago ancestry in New France to shift into an 'Abenaki' identity."^[47]

In 2002, the State of Vermont reported that the Abenaki people had migrated north to Quebec by the end of the 17th century.^[48]

Cultural and social efforts today[]

Gatherings[]

The Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe host multiple gatherings every year. The first is at the Winter Solstice in late December. The second is the annual Snow Snake Games held at the end of February or early March. The last and biggest gathering is the annual Nulheganaki gathering held every year at the end of August or beginning of September. There are also drumming events held in honor of both recognition as a tribe, and to host pow wows among other events held by the Nulhegan Abenaki annually.^{[49][50][51][52]}

Hunting and fishing[]

The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department granted enrolled citizens of officially recognized Vermont Indian tribes a free permanent fishing license, or if the applicant qualifies for a hunting license, a free permanent combination hunting and fishing license.^[53]

The Nulhegan Abenaki are also one of the only state-recognized tribes with the ability to obtain eagle feathers and other animals parts of endangered animal species for usage in ceremonial clothing and religious practice.^[54][55]

Indigenous People's Day[]

In Vermont, unofficially in 2016 and officially in 2020, Columbus Day was changed to Indigenous Peoples Day The indigenous community and others in Vermont claimed the former holiday unjustly celebrated Christopher Columbus, a man who pushed for the genocide of indigenous peoples of the Americas. Celebrations of indigenous heritage and culture are now held across the state, including the Nulhegan Abenaki's "Indigenous People's Day Rock."^{[56][57][58][59]}

Historical preservation[]

The Abenaki Trails Project is a project led and organized by leaders of the Nulhegan Ban that attempts to "identify sacred cultural sites, with community partners,​ to record their meaning and uses for Abenaki people historically and today. It is our responsibility, given to us at creation, to protect the land for generations to come."^[60]

Land acknowledgment[]

The Nulhegan Band spoke with Middlebury College regarding the college's land acknowledgment, which highlights the "Western Abenaki."^[61] Protests surrounding land acknowledgement have occurred around the United States as discourse surrounding the issue continues.^[62] In State v. Elliott, a 1992) the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that all aboriginal title in Vermont was extinguished "by the increasing weight of history."^[63]

Proposed legislation[]

Vermont H.556 is a state bill introduced in 2022 and "An act relating to exempting property owned by Vermont-recognized Native American tribes from property tax."^[64]

Notable people[]

• Jesse Bruchac, author and linguist^[65]
• Joseph Bruchac, author^[66]

Notes[]

References[]

• Leroux, Darryl (2019). Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. ISBN 978-0887558979.

External links[]

• Nulhegan Band website
• Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs
• "Nulhegan Abenaki Attain First Tribal Forestland in More Than 200 Years."