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Not part of the American "farm belt," Maine nonetheless has been known over the years for a few agricultural items, especially blueberries, sweet corn, potatoes, apples, chickens and dairy products.

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Original Booklists: Set in Maine, Juvenile and YA Fiction

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Original Booklists: Juvenile and YA Fiction Set in Maine

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Teacher Resource:

http://www.workingwaterfrontarchives.org/2009/09/01/with-help-chebeague-farm-now-on-solid-ground/ (great Chebegue resources in this article)

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/year-at-maple-hill-farm-alice-provensen/1100181587?ean=9780689845000

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/explore-soil-kathleen-m-reilly/1120974437?ean=9781619302952

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/handful-of-dirt-raymond-bial/1003845040?ean=9780802786982

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cattle-kids-cat-urbigkit/1008359691?ean=9781590785089

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/potatoes-on-rooftops-hadley-dyer/1110947874?ean=9781554514243

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/life-in-a-farming-community-lizann-flatt/1103140228?ean=9780778750840

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/life-in-a-farming-community-lizann-flatt/1103140228?ean=9780778750840

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/down-to-earth-nikki-tate/1113897135?ean=9781459804234

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-do-animals-help-plants-reproduce-ruth-owen/1119127881?ean=9781477771419

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/growing-good-food-anne-flounders/1116787071?ean=9781939656315

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/soil-chris-oxlade/1102680665?ean=9781410981387

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/food-and-farming-jen-green/1104456527?ean=9781432965235

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lets-eat-kimberley-veness/1124222204?ean=9781459809390

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/building-a-green-community-ellen-rodger/1009102383?ean=9780778729303

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/living-on-islands-neil-morris/1006296909?ean=9781583404874

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hooray-for-sheep-farming-bobbie-kalman/1112292472?ean=9780865056695

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/save-the-planet-rebecca-hirsch/1018142519?ean=9781631886485

https://tilburyhouse.com/book/childrens-books/before-we-eat/

https://tilburyhouse.com/book/nonfiction/maine-and-new-england/new-england-gardeners-year/

https://tilburyhouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sheila-cover.jpg

https://tilburyhouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/everybodys-somebodys-lunch.jpg

https://tilburyhouse.com/book/nonfiction/maine-and-new-england/island-schoolhouse/

https://stephenritz.com/the-power-of-a-plant/

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One of the biggest challenges facing agriculture? Finding more young farmers. Groups like the Greenhorns, Future Farmers of America, and the National Young Farmers Coalition are all out there doing amazing work, but the average American farmer is now in his or her mid-50s and only getting older, per the USDA.

So, as the school year starts, we've picked out a few farm-focused novels to inspire young adults to learn more about the world of farming and maybe get a few of them back out into the fields.

Hattie Big Sky, by Kirby Larson

Hattie is an orphan living in the early 19th century who after years of being passed off to different family members finally finds herself in a more permanent position - at a homestead in Montana left to her by an uncle. Now she must figure out how to provide for herself with this land.

A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck

This autobiographical novel shares the story of Robert and his father, a butcher in rural Vermont in the 1920s. It's full of tough lessons, but we all need to know what happened to the bacon before it was brought home, right? Expect to answer questions from young readers about the graphic boar and sow mating scene.

The Little House book series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

In another mix of fiction and non-fiction, this series of books, including Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie, is based on Wilder's memories of growing up in the farming frontier of the Midwest in the late 1800s. The series starts with Wilder as a little girl and ends with her giving birth to her own daughter.

How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff

After Daisy, a New York City teen, is sent to live with family on a rural English farm, a war breaks out and circumstances leave her and her cousins without adults to help them on the farm. They learn to fend for themselves. If you're trying to teach a bit of grammar with your farm lessons, you might want to pick another title - this one lacks much in the way of punctuation.

, by John Williams

William Stoner grows up dirt poor on a Missouri farm in the early 19th century. When he's sent to university he's expected to study agronomy, but instead falls in love with English literature and the life of scholar. But that life is not all it's cracked up to be. A coming of age about changing your major and so much more, for the college-bound set.

Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver

On the cusp of a young adult or adult novel, Kingsolver, tackles tricky agricultural issues like herbicides in three intersecting stories. If your goal is to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle- it as a family, this isn't a bad way to start to convince your kids.

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6 Great Farm Reads for Young Adults - Modern Farmer

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One of the biggest challenges facing agriculture? Finding more young farmers. Groups like the Greenhorns, Future Farmers of America, and the National Young Farmers Coalition are all out there doing amazing work, but the average American farmer is now in his or her mid-50s and only getting older, per the USDA.

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The Birchbark House

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https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/identity-and-community/what-makes-memphis-community

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https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/analyzing-images

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https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/document-analysis-templates

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Washburn-Norlands Living History Center - Where History Comes to Life!

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Journey into History at the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center. We offer a variety of interactive programs to enable our guests to experience life as it truly was in 19th-century Maine. The...

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http://www.thescienceofsoil.com/virtualfieldtrips

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Illustrated worksheet of traditional food words from the Abenaki tribe.

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Great virtual field trip for viewing on Native American farming and living

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Great virtual field trip for viewing on Native American farming and living

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https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/virtual-field-trip

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http://www.oyate.org/index.php/resources/43-resources/thanksgiving

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An important unit of social organization was the band, a loosely organized collection of people, frequently related family members, who occupied a particular tract of land, moved and camped together, and felt a common identity, including a name for themselves.

Several bands comprised a tribe, which, like the band, was loosely organized and which in many parts of the area was not so much a political unit as a cultural one-a group of people who spoke a common language and had similar customs.

Although chieftainships often were inherited, personal ability was the basis for the influence that was exercised by a chief, sometimes termed . The man, or sometimes woman, who had the requisite abilities was chosen to succeed.

Particularly important to a chief was his ability to persuade. As one result, oratory was highly valued and developed into a fine art; even in English translations, the power of Indian oratory is evident. Typically, the councils of the Indians involved the making of speeches, although the intent of this oratory was not to impress others with mere rhetoric but to find a solution to the issue at hand. If unanimity was not achieved, no action could be taken. The dissidents would either continue to express their opposition or withdraw; in either case, the effectiveness of the group would be weakened.
American Indian Population 2000
Source: U.S. Census. Census 2000 PHC-T-18. American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes in Maine: 2000, Table 34. Includes those reporting membership in two or more tribes.

The Maliseets, with tribal offices in Houlton, provide an array of social services to their members.

In 1924, Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. However, until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting. In a WPA interview from the 1930s, Henry Mitchell describes the attitude toward Native Americans in Maine, one of the last states to comply with the Indian Citizenship Act:
One of the Indians went over to Old Town once to see some official in the city hall about voting. I don't know just what position that official had over there, but he said to the Indian, 'We don't want you people over here. You have your own elections over on the island, and if you want to vote, go over there."
'"The Life of Henry Mitchell,"
Old Town, Maine,
Robert Grady, interviewer,
circa 1938-1939.
American Life Histories, 1936-1940

in Maine have been documented since the seventeenth century through oral traditions and written observations by Europeans.

Members of the Algonquian language family in Maine have been known as "Wabanaki" and "Abenaki" people. The term means "Dawnlanders" or "People of the Dawn." The broad notion of Wabanaki includes Micmac, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy in the east, Penobscot along the river of that name, and the Abenaki and Pennacook further west. The term "Abenaki" usually excludes the three easternmost groups and refers to members of the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock.

The name Abnakis (or Abenakis) was given to them by the French, but it has been spelled Abenaques, Abenaquiois, Wapanachkis, Wabenakies, and Wobanahis. According to one source, the name derives from woban, "daybreak," and ki, "earth, land," and has been variously interpreted as those "living at the sunrise," "a person from the land where the sun rises," or "an easterner."

The Abnakis lived mostly in what is now Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Abnaki legend has it that they came from the Southwest, but the exact time is unsure. One historian estimates that about 13,000 were in Maine in the early 17th century, divided among four tribes: the Sokokis on the Saco River; the Anasagunticooks on the Androscoggin; the Wawenocks east of Merrymeeting Bay; and the Kennebecs on the river of that name.

The Maine State Museum in Augusta exhibits many artifacts left by Native Americans in the 12,000 years of their living in the state. These include arrow and spear heads, along with other implements for hunting, fishing, cooking, and everyday living.

The Abnakis were in settled villages, often surrounded by palisades, and lived by growing corn, fishing, and hunting. Their name for their conical huts covered with bark or mats, wigwam, came to be generally used in English.

The Wabanaki Confederation of Penobscots, Passamaquoddies, Micmacs and Maliseets encompassed the major tribes of the area. Formed to reduce conflict and foster cooperation, this Confederation relied on procedures and traditions which, while varied with time and circumstance, maintained a basic model of tribal integration. (This is distinct from the Caughnawaga Confederacy that included the Wabanaki members in addition to other eastern tribes.)

The Wabanaki Confederation played a role in the selection of tribal chiefs. When a new chief was to be selected, delegates from the other tribes attended the ceremonies and formally approved the locally elected candidate. This not only gave the chiefs status within their own tribes but also insured harmony among the tribes. Various European governments attempted to use the Confederation against their opponents.

Though they lived in peace with each other, Maine tribes feared their traditional enemies the Iroquois and the Mohawks, often engaging in warfare. However, they did treat the first Europeans, French and English, with friendship until the English antagonized, mistreated, and exploited them. Samoset and Squanto (or Squando) did, after all, assist the Plymouth Pilgrims during difficult times.

According to Bolton, Connecticut Town Historian, Hans DePold,

Three primary European groups began to arrive in the early 1600s to trade and establish enclaves. From a Native American perspective the first colonies looked like tribes with intermarrying family units and warriors. The "White" tribes appeared similar in many ways to the native "bronze" tribes and alliances immediately formed between them. The Mahigan and Pequot allied with the Dutch, and the Mohawk and Mohegan allied with the English. The Abenaki were caught between warring tribes, helped and then fought the English, and eventually allied with the French and American nation. Most of the intrigue centers in the northern colonies where there was competition among the white tribes. At first the white tribes fought each other for exclusive contact with the bronze tribes. The white tribes initially traded many fine weapons and tools for furs and other native artifacts. But then they began to seek ever more land.

The Mohawk, whose name means destroyers, terrorized many other tribes but had made peace with the Mohegans. The Mahican and Mohegan were different tribes whose names in their own languages mean Wolf. The Pequot name also meant destroyers, and the Abenaki name meant 'people of the dawn'. The Abenaki were noted to be individualistic and difficult even for their Sachems to command. The Mohegans were at the other end of the spectrum, well organized under the mighty sachem Uncas, a brilliant strategist and a wise leader.

The white tribes had lived with diseases from every corner of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The survivors were more resistant but still suffered and carried the diseases. Communal living in Europe ended and clothing and adequate separate shelters became the norm. But the bronze tribes lived closely in cold lodges and wore little more than a blanket in winter. Once sick, their living conditions offered them little hope of surviving. From 1616-1619 an epidemic spread through the bronze tribes called "The Great Dying" and an estimated 70-90% of the Native population died from European diseases ranging from diphtheria, influenza, smallpox (the fever), the plague (putrid fever), to tuberculosis (blood vomiting). There was no microbial theory of disease but Father Biard reported of the Indians,

"They are astonished and often complain that, since the French mingle with them and carry on trade with them, they are dying fast, and the population is thinning out."

The trade with the Europeans ultimately led to fundamental changes in the Native American culture and lifestyles. With the acquisition of the modern weapons for hunting, and the increasingly valuable commerce in furs and animal meat, traditional notions of property and hunting rights began to erode. The once plentiful animals, such as moose and beaver, that supported the needs of native people, quickly became scarce.

In June of 1675, Native Americans under the leadership of King Philip, began attacking European settlements in an attempt to drive them from native lands. "King Philip's War" lasted until 1676 when King Philip was killed in battle and both natives and Europeans were exhausted.

The Norridgewock Indian Village was attacked by the British in 1695, fearing French influence in the area. The killing of Father Sebastian Rasle, a French missionary, is memorialized at the site.

After a series of bloody conflicts with British colonists, the Abnaki and related tribes (the Malecite, the Passamaquoddy, the Pennacook, the Penobscot, and others) withdrew into Canada, where they received protection from the French.

The British hope to keep peace with the Indians, to no avail. In 1766, Andrew Worth of Nantucket was issues a "license to carry on trade with the Indians" with the admonition that "you deal on Trade, with that Justice, good Faith and Kindness that may conciliate them to his Majesty's Government and serve to fix them in their Obedience and subjection to it."

During the Revolutionary War, the Penobscots, and especially the Passamaquoddies and Malecites, had used their strategic leverage to play British and Americans against one another, but peace deprived them of their military significance. They were seen by the white population to be obstacles to expansion and economic development.

After the war, Massachusetts "tried to reopen the old issue of Penobscot Indian land claims in an effort to stimulate white settlement in (Maine). Surprised and angry, the Penobscots refused to negotiate, at first insisting that in 1775 the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had recognized their claims to lands six miles on both sides of the Penobscot River above the head of tide."

By persistence and division among the Indians, in 1796, as professor Leamon notes, "the Penobscots gave up almost 190,000 acres . . . in exchange for an initial supply of ammunition, food, clothing, and rum, to be followed by annual amounts of such provisions." In 1818 the tribes sold ten more townships. They were now poverty stricken and wards of the state.

The Office of Land Agent was created in 1824, with duties to superintend and manage the sale and settlement of the public land, including Indian lands. A 1929 law gave administration of the Indian tribes to the Department of Forestry. In 1933 another law transferred jurisdiction of the Indian Tribes to the Department of Health and Welfare. Forestry records at the Maine State Archives include information about lumbering in Indian Township and sale of lots in Indian Township (1890-1918).

However, largely unknown to the Massachusetts authorities, the new federal government had, in 1790, prohibited trade with the Indians and acquisition of their land without government approval. This was the basis, almost 200 years later, for legal action in which the Indians of Maine succeeded in obtaining compensation for the illegal loss of land under the federal Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790.

During the 1970's, Maine tribes asserted rights to vast lands based on early treaties with the federal government. The Indian Land Claim Settlement was the result. In 1980 the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Saint John Indians received an award of $27 million as a trust in addition to $54.5 million more to purchase 300,000 acres of land.

Louis Sockalexis (1871-1913) of Indian Island was the first Native American to play major league baseball. Andrew Sockalexis, also of Indian Island, was first Mainer to compete in an Olympic event, finishing fourth in the 1912 marathon in Sweden.

Molly Spotted Elk, her stage name, also of Indian Island, was a well-known dancer and movie actress. Molly Mathilde (c1665-1717) was named Pidianiske at birth. Her father, Madockawando, arranged her marriage to Jean Vincent, second son to the French Baron of St. Castin to secure the friendship of the French against English raids on the Penobscot River. Molly Ockett was born to the Pigwacket tribe, along the banks of the Saco River, in approximately 1740. She lived amidst French, English and Indian conflicts, narrowly escaping with her life. Molly Molasses (1775-1867) was an early 19th century Penobscot woman who strove to live an autonomous life in an era in which there were numerous hindrances and hardships associated with womanhood.

Maine Indians received the right to vote in federal elections in 1934. By 1977 they were using the legal system to demand compensation for the taking of their traditional lands asserting claims to a large portion of the state.

In 1984 Frank Siebert drafted a dictionary of the Penobscot language.

Historian Samuel Eliot Morison characterized the seasonal habits of the Abnaki who visited Mount Desert Island:

" . . . always near the tidal flats where the clam flourished, they set up their birch-bark lodges for the summer season. [The women dug clams and] gathered sweet grass and peeled birch bark to make baskets and boxes. . . . In early October [they] packed their dried clams and berries and smoked fish, and all returned to their home village to greet Grandpa and Grandma and harvest the corn crop. During the winter the women, children and old men stayed at home while the young men and big boys went hunting on snowshoes for deer and moose, and set traps for beaver from whose pelts they made most of their clothes." p.5

Several huge shell heaps, or middens, have been found along the coast. They developed after thousands of years in which the Native Americans deposited shells before returning inland at the end of summer. One such midden is located in Damariscotta.

See more on Native Americans at Leeds and Standish.
Films, Movies
Calloway, Colin G. The Abenaki. Indians of North America Series. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. 1989.

Calvert, Mary R. Dawn over the Kennebec. Lewiston, Me. Twin City Printery. c1983.

Cronin, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York. Hill and Wang. 1983.

DePold, Hans. "Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route." WRRR Newsletter No. 28. http://www.ctssar.org/revroad/news28.htm. Accessed November 6, 2003.

Eckstorm, Fanny Hardy. Old John Neptune and Other Maine Indian Shamans. Orono: University of Maine Press, 1980.

Hudson Museum. "Maine Indians: A Web Resource List for Teachers." http://www.umaine.edu/hudsonmuseum/reso.php (accesssed January 30, 2012)

Leamon, James S. Revolution Downeast: The War for American Independence in Maine. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 1993.

McBride, Bunny. Women of the Dawn. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Story of Mount Desert Island. Boston: Little Brown. 1960.

Pawling, Micah A. Wabanaki Homeland and the New State of Maine. Amherst, MA. University of Massachusetts Press. 2007.

Speck, Frank G. Penobscot Man. Orono: University of Maine Press, 1997.

Starkey, Glenn Wendell. Maine: Its History, Resources, and Government. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company. 1920.

Thoreau, Henry David. The Maine Woods. (there are several editions.)

The Wabanakis of Maine and the Maritimes. Bath: American Friends Service Committee, 1989.

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An important unit of social organization was the band, a loosely organized collection of people, frequently related family members, who occupied a particular tract of land, moved and camped together, and felt a common identity, including a name for themselves.

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Information on the Native American tribes of Maine, with maps, reservation addresses, classroom activities and recommended history books.

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A Kid's Guide to Native American History

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Hands-on activities, games, and crafts introduce children to the diversity of Native American cultures and teach them about the people, experiences, and events that have helped shape America, past and present. Nine geographical areas cover a variety of communities such as the Mohawk in the Northeast, Ojibway in the Midwest, Shoshone in the Great Basin, Apache in the Southwest, Yup'ik in Alaska, and Native Hawaiians.

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You Wouldn't Want to Be an American Colonist

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You Wouldn't Want to Be an American Colonist

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Booklists - Historical Fiction for Children and Teens About Early North American History

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Fourteen-year-old Becca takes a position as a maid in a wealthy Philadelphia Quaker home and witnesses the events that lead to General Benedict Arnold's betrayal of the American forces during the Revolutionary War.

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Land in Farms
1.35 million acres

Average Farm Size
167 acres

Tenure of farmers
Full owner farms - 6,126, 75% of total
Part owner farms - 1,581, 19.3% of total
Tenant farms - 466, 5.7% of total

Livestock
Eggs and milk are the leading livestock products in the state, followed by chicken eggs.
Other important livestock products are aquaculture (Atlantic salmon), cattle and calves, and hogs. Sheep and turkeys are also raised in the Pine Tree State.

Crops
Maine potatoes are the state's largest crop. Other crops are corn, hay, oats and other grains to feed cattle. Greenhouse and nursery products, broccoli, dry beans, peas and other vegetables are also grown. Apples are Maine's most valuable fruit crop, but Maine is also a leading producer of wild blueberries. Other fruit crops are cranberries, raspberries and strawberries.

Manufacturing
Manufacturers add value to raw products by creating manufactured items. For example, cotton cloth becomes more valuable than a boll of cotton through manufacturing processes. Leading manufactured products in Maine are paper products, including cardboard boxes, paper bags and pulp, as well as paper.
Fishing
Maine's fish and shellfish industry is ranked high among the states. Its yearly lobster catch is the biggest of any state. Other important products are soft-shell clams, mussels, crabs and sea urchins. Commercial fish include cod, flounder, haddock and sea herring.

Fish farms breed Atlantic salmon.

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Source: United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. Top Agriculture Products 1. Potatoes 2. Dairy products 3. Aquaculture 4. Blueberries 5. Chicken eggs Number of Farms 8,173 Land in Farms 1.35 million acres Average Farm Size 167 acres Farms by Size (percent of total farms) 1 to 99 acres: 61.1% 100 to...

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Farmers Almanac, Old Farmer's Almanac long range weather forecasts, full moon dates, weather history, sun rise set times, gardening, recipes, folklore

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The following books on life in colonial America can bring this 'long ago' period to life for students who may be struggling to relate to the people and lifestyle of the era. As with so much of history, it takes a personal story to make the events seem real to students and children's books are perfect for accomplishing this.

Thankfully, historical fiction for children has really expanded in recent years, with many more authors turning their attention to books set during various historical time periods. Teachers love to see this shift happening, as it makes our job so much more fun! :)

The following children's books depict life in colonial America. The interest age increases as you move down the page. Note: This is a two page list, with books for older kids on page two.

Great Kids Books on
Life in Colonial America

by Kate Waters Day in the Life Series
Samuel Eaton's Day, Sarah Morton's Day, and Tapenum's Day --
1st grade - 4th grade

Elizabeth's Jamestown Colony Diary
(My America series) -- by Patricia Hermes
2nd grade - 5th grade

To see more books on life in colonial America (especially for older kids), click here or click the arrow below.

And follow us on Pinterest:

Enjoy our Facebook Feed Here

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Life in Colonial America in Children's Books

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The following books on life in colonial America can bring this 'long ago' period to life for students who may be struggling to relate to the people and lifestyle of the era. As with so much of history, it takes a personal story to make the events seem real to students and children's books are perfect for accomplishing this.

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Daniel Minter

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Daniel Minter

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Maine Memory Network, Maine's online history museum, a project of the Maine Historical Society

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Maine Memory Network is a statewide digital museum that provides access to historical items from over 270 museums, historical societies, libraries, and other organizations from every corner of Maine.

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Wabanaki Timeline | Research | Abbe Museum

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Wabanaki oral tradition includes origin stories that tell how the People and the world came to be; it also includes stories, tales and songs that define society and tell people how they should live. In the past, Native people used oral tradition, rather than the written word, to pass on traditional knowledge.

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Mary Cerullo

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Native American Farming Techniques part 2 v2

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http://www.native-languages.org/morewords/abenaki_food.htm

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Illustrated worksheet of traditional food words from the Abenaki tribe.

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An important unit of social organization was the band, a loosely organized collection of people, frequently related family members, who occupied a particular tract of land, moved and camped together, and felt a common identity, including a name for themselves.

Several bands comprised a tribe, which, like the band, was loosely organized and which in many parts of the area was not so much a political unit as a cultural one-a group of people who spoke a common language and had similar customs.

Although chieftainships often were inherited, personal ability was the basis for the influence that was exercised by a chief, sometimes termed . The man, or sometimes woman, who had the requisite abilities was chosen to succeed.

Particularly important to a chief was his ability to persuade. As one result, oratory was highly valued and developed into a fine art; even in English translations, the power of Indian oratory is evident. Typically, the councils of the Indians involved the making of speeches, although the intent of this oratory was not to impress others with mere rhetoric but to find a solution to the issue at hand. If unanimity was not achieved, no action could be taken. The dissidents would either continue to express their opposition or withdraw; in either case, the effectiveness of the group would be weakened.
American Indian Population 2000
Source: U.S. Census. Census 2000 PHC-T-18. American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes in Maine: 2000, Table 34. Includes those reporting membership in two or more tribes.

The Maliseets, with tribal offices in Houlton, provide an array of social services to their members.

In 1924, Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. However, until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting. In a WPA interview from the 1930s, Henry Mitchell describes the attitude toward Native Americans in Maine, one of the last states to comply with the Indian Citizenship Act:
One of the Indians went over to Old Town once to see some official in the city hall about voting. I don't know just what position that official had over there, but he said to the Indian, 'We don't want you people over here. You have your own elections over on the island, and if you want to vote, go over there."
'"The Life of Henry Mitchell,"
Old Town, Maine,
Robert Grady, interviewer,
circa 1938-1939.
American Life Histories, 1936-1940

in Maine have been documented since the seventeenth century through oral traditions and written observations by Europeans.

Members of the Algonquian language family in Maine have been known as "Wabanaki" and "Abenaki" people. The term means "Dawnlanders" or "People of the Dawn." The broad notion of Wabanaki includes Micmac, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy in the east, Penobscot along the river of that name, and the Abenaki and Pennacook further west. The term "Abenaki" usually excludes the three easternmost groups and refers to members of the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock.

The name Abnakis (or Abenakis) was given to them by the French, but it has been spelled Abenaques, Abenaquiois, Wapanachkis, Wabenakies, and Wobanahis. According to one source, the name derives from woban, "daybreak," and ki, "earth, land," and has been variously interpreted as those "living at the sunrise," "a person from the land where the sun rises," or "an easterner."

The Abnakis lived mostly in what is now Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Abnaki legend has it that they came from the Southwest, but the exact time is unsure. One historian estimates that about 13,000 were in Maine in the early 17th century, divided among four tribes: the Sokokis on the Saco River; the Anasagunticooks on the Androscoggin; the Wawenocks east of Merrymeeting Bay; and the Kennebecs on the river of that name.

The Maine State Museum in Augusta exhibits many artifacts left by Native Americans in the 12,000 years of their living in the state. These include arrow and spear heads, along with other implements for hunting, fishing, cooking, and everyday living.

The Abnakis were in settled villages, often surrounded by palisades, and lived by growing corn, fishing, and hunting. Their name for their conical huts covered with bark or mats, wigwam, came to be generally used in English.

The Wabanaki Confederation of Penobscots, Passamaquoddies, Micmacs and Maliseets encompassed the major tribes of the area. Formed to reduce conflict and foster cooperation, this Confederation relied on procedures and traditions which, while varied with time and circumstance, maintained a basic model of tribal integration. (This is distinct from the Caughnawaga Confederacy that included the Wabanaki members in addition to other eastern tribes.)

The Wabanaki Confederation played a role in the selection of tribal chiefs. When a new chief was to be selected, delegates from the other tribes attended the ceremonies and formally approved the locally elected candidate. This not only gave the chiefs status within their own tribes but also insured harmony among the tribes. Various European governments attempted to use the Confederation against their opponents.

Though they lived in peace with each other, Maine tribes feared their traditional enemies the Iroquois and the Mohawks, often engaging in warfare. However, they did treat the first Europeans, French and English, with friendship until the English antagonized, mistreated, and exploited them. Samoset and Squanto (or Squando) did, after all, assist the Plymouth Pilgrims during difficult times.

According to Bolton, Connecticut Town Historian, Hans DePold,

Three primary European groups began to arrive in the early 1600s to trade and establish enclaves. From a Native American perspective the first colonies looked like tribes with intermarrying family units and warriors. The "White" tribes appeared similar in many ways to the native "bronze" tribes and alliances immediately formed between them. The Mahigan and Pequot allied with the Dutch, and the Mohawk and Mohegan allied with the English. The Abenaki were caught between warring tribes, helped and then fought the English, and eventually allied with the French and American nation. Most of the intrigue centers in the northern colonies where there was competition among the white tribes. At first the white tribes fought each other for exclusive contact with the bronze tribes. The white tribes initially traded many fine weapons and tools for furs and other native artifacts. But then they began to seek ever more land.

The Mohawk, whose name means destroyers, terrorized many other tribes but had made peace with the Mohegans. The Mahican and Mohegan were different tribes whose names in their own languages mean Wolf. The Pequot name also meant destroyers, and the Abenaki name meant 'people of the dawn'. The Abenaki were noted to be individualistic and difficult even for their Sachems to command. The Mohegans were at the other end of the spectrum, well organized under the mighty sachem Uncas, a brilliant strategist and a wise leader.

The white tribes had lived with diseases from every corner of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The survivors were more resistant but still suffered and carried the diseases. Communal living in Europe ended and clothing and adequate separate shelters became the norm. But the bronze tribes lived closely in cold lodges and wore little more than a blanket in winter. Once sick, their living conditions offered them little hope of surviving. From 1616-1619 an epidemic spread through the bronze tribes called "The Great Dying" and an estimated 70-90% of the Native population died from European diseases ranging from diphtheria, influenza, smallpox (the fever), the plague (putrid fever), to tuberculosis (blood vomiting). There was no microbial theory of disease but Father Biard reported of the Indians,

"They are astonished and often complain that, since the French mingle with them and carry on trade with them, they are dying fast, and the population is thinning out."

The trade with the Europeans ultimately led to fundamental changes in the Native American culture and lifestyles. With the acquisition of the modern weapons for hunting, and the increasingly valuable commerce in furs and animal meat, traditional notions of property and hunting rights began to erode. The once plentiful animals, such as moose and beaver, that supported the needs of native people, quickly became scarce.

In June of 1675, Native Americans under the leadership of King Philip, began attacking European settlements in an attempt to drive them from native lands. "King Philip's War" lasted until 1676 when King Philip was killed in battle and both natives and Europeans were exhausted.

The Norridgewock Indian Village was attacked by the British in 1695, fearing French influence in the area. The killing of Father Sebastian Rasle, a French missionary, is memorialized at the site.

After a series of bloody conflicts with British colonists, the Abnaki and related tribes (the Malecite, the Passamaquoddy, the Pennacook, the Penobscot, and others) withdrew into Canada, where they received protection from the French.

The British hope to keep peace with the Indians, to no avail. In 1766, Andrew Worth of Nantucket was issues a "license to carry on trade with the Indians" with the admonition that "you deal on Trade, with that Justice, good Faith and Kindness that may conciliate them to his Majesty's Government and serve to fix them in their Obedience and subjection to it."

During the Revolutionary War, the Penobscots, and especially the Passamaquoddies and Malecites, had used their strategic leverage to play British and Americans against one another, but peace deprived them of their military significance. They were seen by the white population to be obstacles to expansion and economic development.

After the war, Massachusetts "tried to reopen the old issue of Penobscot Indian land claims in an effort to stimulate white settlement in (Maine). Surprised and angry, the Penobscots refused to negotiate, at first insisting that in 1775 the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had recognized their claims to lands six miles on both sides of the Penobscot River above the head of tide."

By persistence and division among the Indians, in 1796, as professor Leamon notes, "the Penobscots gave up almost 190,000 acres . . . in exchange for an initial supply of ammunition, food, clothing, and rum, to be followed by annual amounts of such provisions." In 1818 the tribes sold ten more townships. They were now poverty stricken and wards of the state.

The Office of Land Agent was created in 1824, with duties to superintend and manage the sale and settlement of the public land, including Indian lands. A 1929 law gave administration of the Indian tribes to the Department of Forestry. In 1933 another law transferred jurisdiction of the Indian Tribes to the Department of Health and Welfare. Forestry records at the Maine State Archives include information about lumbering in Indian Township and sale of lots in Indian Township (1890-1918).

However, largely unknown to the Massachusetts authorities, the new federal government had, in 1790, prohibited trade with the Indians and acquisition of their land without government approval. This was the basis, almost 200 years later, for legal action in which the Indians of Maine succeeded in obtaining compensation for the illegal loss of land under the federal Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790.

During the 1970's, Maine tribes asserted rights to vast lands based on early treaties with the federal government. The Indian Land Claim Settlement was the result. In 1980 the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Saint John Indians received an award of $27 million as a trust in addition to $54.5 million more to purchase 300,000 acres of land.

Louis Sockalexis (1871-1913) of Indian Island was the first Native American to play major league baseball. Andrew Sockalexis, also of Indian Island, was first Mainer to compete in an Olympic event, finishing fourth in the 1912 marathon in Sweden.

Molly Spotted Elk, her stage name, also of Indian Island, was a well-known dancer and movie actress. Molly Mathilde (c1665-1717) was named Pidianiske at birth. Her father, Madockawando, arranged her marriage to Jean Vincent, second son to the French Baron of St. Castin to secure the friendship of the French against English raids on the Penobscot River. Molly Ockett was born to the Pigwacket tribe, along the banks of the Saco River, in approximately 1740. She lived amidst French, English and Indian conflicts, narrowly escaping with her life. Molly Molasses (1775-1867) was an early 19th century Penobscot woman who strove to live an autonomous life in an era in which there were numerous hindrances and hardships associated with womanhood.

Maine Indians received the right to vote in federal elections in 1934. By 1977 they were using the legal system to demand compensation for the taking of their traditional lands asserting claims to a large portion of the state.

In 1984 Frank Siebert drafted a dictionary of the Penobscot language.

Historian Samuel Eliot Morison characterized the seasonal habits of the Abnaki who visited Mount Desert Island:

" . . . always near the tidal flats where the clam flourished, they set up their birch-bark lodges for the summer season. [The women dug clams and] gathered sweet grass and peeled birch bark to make baskets and boxes. . . . In early October [they] packed their dried clams and berries and smoked fish, and all returned to their home village to greet Grandpa and Grandma and harvest the corn crop. During the winter the women, children and old men stayed at home while the young men and big boys went hunting on snowshoes for deer and moose, and set traps for beaver from whose pelts they made most of their clothes." p.5

Several huge shell heaps, or middens, have been found along the coast. They developed after thousands of years in which the Native Americans deposited shells before returning inland at the end of summer. One such midden is located in Damariscotta.

See more on Native Americans at Leeds and Standish.
Films, Movies
Calloway, Colin G. The Abenaki. Indians of North America Series. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. 1989.

Calvert, Mary R. Dawn over the Kennebec. Lewiston, Me. Twin City Printery. c1983.

Cronin, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York. Hill and Wang. 1983.

DePold, Hans. "Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route." WRRR Newsletter No. 28. http://www.ctssar.org/revroad/news28.htm. Accessed November 6, 2003.

Eckstorm, Fanny Hardy. Old John Neptune and Other Maine Indian Shamans. Orono: University of Maine Press, 1980.

Hudson Museum. "Maine Indians: A Web Resource List for Teachers." http://www.umaine.edu/hudsonmuseum/reso.php (accesssed January 30, 2012)

Leamon, James S. Revolution Downeast: The War for American Independence in Maine. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 1993.

McBride, Bunny. Women of the Dawn. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Story of Mount Desert Island. Boston: Little Brown. 1960.

Pawling, Micah A. Wabanaki Homeland and the New State of Maine. Amherst, MA. University of Massachusetts Press. 2007.

Speck, Frank G. Penobscot Man. Orono: University of Maine Press, 1997.

Starkey, Glenn Wendell. Maine: Its History, Resources, and Government. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company. 1920.

Thoreau, Henry David. The Maine Woods. (there are several editions.)

The Wabanakis of Maine and the Maritimes. Bath: American Friends Service Committee, 1989.

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An important unit of social organization was the band, a loosely organized collection of people, frequently related family members, who occupied a particular tract of land, moved and camped together, and felt a common identity, including a name for themselves.

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A Kid's Guide to Native American History

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Hands-on activities, games, and crafts introduce children to the diversity of Native American cultures and teach them about the people, experiences, and events that have helped shape America, past and present. Nine geographical areas cover a variety of communities such as the Mohawk in the Northeast, Ojibway in the Midwest, Shoshone in the Great Basin, Apache in the Southwest, Yup'ik in Alaska, and Native Hawaiians.

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Information on the Native American tribes of Maine, with maps, reservation addresses, classroom activities and recommended history books.

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Native American foods: History, culture, and influence on modern diets - ScienceDirect

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Approximately 12,000-15,000 years ago people from northeast Asia crossed the Bering Land Bridge to enter and inhabit North America beginning in Alaska but rapidly spreading throughout North and South American and the Caribbean islands. These people rapidly adapted to the available food sources and soon developed new foods.

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History: Native American Agriculture and Food for Kids

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Kids learn about Native American Indian agriculture and food in the United States. Corn, squash, beans, bison, and deer were favorites.

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Ideal for Native American Heritage month in November or to supplement history lessons throughout the year, the wonderful nonfiction books on this list explore Native American tribes and their history, customs, and culture.

The books can be used individually for in-depth lessons on particular tribes, such as the Sioux or the Apache, or as a unit for larger discussions around the diversity of Native American culture. Topics include daily life, relationships with settlers, tribe traditions, crops and farming, how the tribes live today, and more.

Shop the best nonficiton books to teach about Native American nations below! You can find all books and activities at The Teacher Store.

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11 Nonfiction Books to Teach About Native American Nations

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Teach your students about Native American culture, nations, and tribes, with these nonfiction books about the diverse indigenous people of North America.

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Indigenous Languages Native American tribes American Indian art
Native American Facts For Kids was written for young people in search of Abenaki information for school or home-schooling reports. We encourage students and teachers to visit our mainAbenaki language andculture pages for more in-depth information, but here are our answers to the questions we are most often asked by children, with Abenaki pictures and links we believe are suitable for all ages. Photographs are the property of the sources we have credited.

Abenaki Tribe

Two Abenaki women Abenaki dancers today

How do you pronounce "Abenaki?" What does it mean?
Abenaki is pronounced AH-buh-nah-kee. It means "people of the dawn," or "easterners." This name is also spelled "Abnaki," "Abanaki," or "Abenaqui." Abenaki Indians also call themselvesAlnombak, which means "the people."

Is there a difference between "Abenaki" and "Wabanaki"?
Yes. Both these words have the same root, which means "easterners." However, theWabanaki Confederacy was the name of an alliance that included not only the Abenakis, but also four neighboring tribes: thePenobscots, theMaliseets, thePassamaquoddies, and theMicmacs. Click here to learn more about theWabanaki Confederacy.

The Abenakis are original natives of the New England area which includesVermont,New Hampshire, andMaine. Here is amap showing the location of the Cowasuck, Sokoki, Missisquoi, and Norridgewock bands of Abenaki Indians.This map shows the Kennebec and other Eastern Abenaki homelands in Maine. After European colonists arrived, many Abenakis fled to Canada or moved in with neighboring tribes. Today, Abenaki people live on two reservations in Quebec and scattered around New England. Abenakis in the United States do not have a reservation.

How is the Abenaki tribe organized?
In Canada, the two Abenaki bands, Odanak and Wolinak, live onreserves (also known as reservations.) A reserve is land that belongs to the tribe and is under their control. Each Canadian Abenaki band has its own government, laws, police, and services, just like a small country. However, the Abenakis are also Canadian citizens and must obey Canadian law. The leader or chief of each Abenaki band is calledsagama or sag8mo in their language.

The Abenaki tribe is notfederally recognized in the United States. That means Abenakis in the US don't have reservations or their own governments. The Abenaki of New England also have bands with chiefs, but they are unofficial.

What language do Abenaki Indians speak?
The Abenaki in New England speak English. Most Abenaki people in Quebec speak French. Some Abenaki elders in Canada still speak their nativeAbnaki-Penobscot language. It has this long name because two tribes, the Abenakis and the Penobscots, speak the same language with different accents--just like Americans and Canadians both speak English. The dialect spoken by the Abenaki Indians is also calledWestern Abenaki. Western Abenaki is a musical language with com plicated verbs. If you'd like to learn a few easy Abenaki words, "kwai kwai" (rhymes with "bye bye") is a friendly greeting and "woliwoni" (pronounced woh-lee-woh-nee) means "thank you." You can listen to an Abanaki elder talk in his languagehere and see an Abenaki picture glossaryhere.

Today Abnaki-Penobscot is anendangered language because most children aren't learning it anymore, but some Abenaki and Penobscot people are working to keep the language alive.

What was Abenaki culture like in the past? What is it like now?

Here's a story about an Abanaki child learning his family's traditions. Here are links to two Abenaki communities, the Cowasuck Abenaki Band in Massachusetts and the Missisquoi Abenaki Band in Vermont, where you can learn about Abenaki Indians today.

How do Abenaki Indian children live and what did they do in the past?

They do the same things all children do--play with each other, go to school, and help around the house. Many Abenaki children go hunting and fishing with their fathers, and some like to paddle canoes. In the past, Indian kids had more chores and less time to play, like early colonial children. But Abenakis did have cornhusk dolls, games, and toys to play with, and they practiced shooting child-sized bows and arrows. Teenage boys liked to play a stickball game similar to lacrosse. Abenaki babies, like many Native Americans, rode in baby carriers called cradleboards on their mothers' backs--a custom many American families have adopted now.

What were men and women's roles in the Abenaki tribe?
Abenaki men were hunters and sometimes went to war to protect their families. Abenaki women were farm ers and also did most of the child care and cooking. Both male and female Abenakis took part in storytelling, artwork and music, and traditional medicine. In the past, the chief was always a man, but today an Abenaki woman can be chief too.

The Abenakis didn't live in tepees. They lived in small birchbark buildings called wigwams or lodges, about the size of a modern camp tent. Some Abenaki families preferred to build larger Iroquois-style longhouses instead. Here are some pictures of wigwams, longhouses, and other Indian homes. An Abenaki village contained many wigwams or longhouses, a meeting hall, and a sweat lodge. Many villages also hadpalisades (high log walls) around them to guard against attack.

Today, Native Americans only build a wigwam for fun or to connect with their heritage, not as shelter. Most Abenakis live in modern houses and apartment buildings, just like you.

Abenaki clothes

Beaded moccasins

Abenaki men wore breechcloths with leather leggings. Abenaki women wore wraparound deerskin skirts. Shirts were not necessary in Abenaki culture, but in cool weather both genders wore poncho-like blouses. The Abenakis also used moccasins, cloaks, beaded jewelry, and pointed hoods. Later the Abenakis adapted European costume such as cloth blouses and jackets, decorating them with fancy beadwork. Here are more pictures of Abenaki clothing styles, and some photographs and links about American Indian clothing in general.

The Abenakis didn't wear long warbonnets like the Sioux. Usually they wore a headband with a feather or two in it. Sometimes an Abenaki chief would wear a tall feathered headdress. They did not paint their faces. Abenaki women wore their hair loose or braided on top of their heads, and Abenaki men sometimes put their long hair in topknots. Here are some pictures of these Indian hairstyles.

Some Abenakis today have a traditional cloak or moccasins, but they wear modern clothes like jeans instead of breechcloths... and they only wear feathers in their hair on special occasions like a dance.

Yes--the Abenaki tribe was well-known for their birchbark canoes. Canoeing is still popular among Abenakis, though few people handcraft a canoe from birch bark anymore. Over land, the Abenakis used dogs as pack animals. (There were no horses in North America until colonists brought them over from Europe.) The Abenakis used sleds and snowshoes to help them travel in the winter. They learned to make those tools from northern neighbors like the Cree Indians.

Today, of course, Abenakis also use cars... and non-native people also use canoes.

Abenaki fishing spear

What was Abenaki food like in the days before supermarkets?
They hunted deer and moose and fished in the rivers. Abenakis still cherish these activities today (though most hunters use guns now instead of arrows and spears.) Abenaki Indians also planted corn and beans in small farms, picked berries, and made maple syrup from tree sap. Here is an Abenaki soup recipe, and an article with more information about American Indian food.

What kinds of weapons and tools did the Abenakis use?
Abenaki fishermen used pronged spears like this one to catch fish, as well as nets. Abenaki hunters and warriors used bows and arrows, spears, and heavy wooden clubs. Here is a picture of an Abenaki club, and a website with pictures and more information about Native American weapons.

What is Abenaki music like?
The two most important Abenaki

Abenaki artists are best known for their quillwork, beadwork and black ash baskets. Here is a website of Abenaki basket photographs. Like other eastern American Indians, Abenakis also craftedwampum out of white and purple shell beads. Wampum beads were traded as a kind of currency, but they were more culturally important as an art material. The pictures and symbols on wampum belts often told a story or represented a person's family.

instrument are drums andflutes. Abenaki drums were usually large and several men would play them together at dances and other community events. Flutes were carved from wood are were most often used to play love songs. Here is anaudio recording of an Abenaki elder chanting a traditional honor song, and avideo of dancers and drummers at the Odanak pow wow.

What other Native Americans did the Abenaki tribe interact with?
The Abenaki traded regularly with all the other New England Indians, and they often fought with the powerfulIroquois. But their most important neighbors were thePenobscots,Passamaquoddies,Maliseets, andMicmacs. These five tribes formed an alliance called the Wabanaki Confederacy. Before this alliance, the Abenaki were not always friends with these tribes--in fact, they sometimes fought wars against each other. But once they joined the Confederacy, the W abanaki tribes never fought each other again. They are still allies today.

What kinds of stories do the Abenaki Indians tell?
There are many traditional Abenaki legends and fairy tales. Storytelling is very important to the Abenaki Indian culture. Here's one legend aboutGluskonba (Glooscap), the culture hero of the Abenaki tribe.

What problems do the Abenaki Indians face today?
In the United States, the government does not officially recognize the Abenaki tribe. This upsets the Abenakis because they do not have hunting or fishing rights, they cannot sell arts and crafts under Indian craft laws, and other American Indians don't always recognize or cooperate with them. The Abenaki want to be recognized as a true Indian tribe, but because their ancestors often hid from the Americans or fled into Canada, they cannot prove that they lived in New England continuously since the 1600's. Here's anewspaper article about that.

What about Abenaki religion?
Spirituality and religion were important parts of Abenaki life, and some people continue to practice traditional beliefs today. It is respectful to avoid imitating religious rituals for school projects since some Abenaki people care about them deeply. You can read and learn about them, however. You can visit this site to learn more aboutAbenaki mythology or this site aboutNative American religion in general.

You may enjoyDog People by Abenaki writer Joseph Bruchac. In Abenaki culture, dogs were considered an important part of the family. You can learn a lot about the Abenaki world while reading these stories about Indian children and their dogs. Another good Bruchac book about Abenaki history, suitable for a young teen, isThe Winter People. It's an adventure story about an Abenaki teenager who survives the Rogers' Rangers massacre and tries to rescue his captured mother. If you like graphic novels,Dawn Land is an interesting one based on ancient Abenaki legends. If you're more interested in contemporary Abenaki life,Muskrat Will Be Swimming is a wonderful novel about an Abenaki girl learning to be proud of her heritage. Younger children may likeRaccoon's Last Race, a lively picture book telling a traditional Abenaki story. For non-fiction books about Abenaki culture and history, two good sources are the history bookVoice of the Dawn and the biographyAunt Sarah: Woman of the Dawnland. You can also browse through our reading list ofNative American book recommendations in general. Disclaimer: we are an Amazon affiliate and our website earns a commission if you buy a book through one of these links. Most of them can also be found in a public library, though!

How do I cite your website in my bibliography?
You will need to ask your teacher for the format he or she wants you to use. The authors' names are Laura Redish and Orrin Lewis and the title of our site is Native Languages of the Americas. We are a nonprofit educational organization working to preserve and protect Native American languages and culture. You can learn more about our organization here. Our website was first created in 1998 and last updated in 2020.

Thank you for your interest in the Abenaki Indians and their language!

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An overview of the Abnaki Indians, their language and history.
Abenaki Language Resources
Abnaki language samples, articles, and indexed links.
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Related links about the Abnaki Indians past and present.
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Definition s of Abenaki Indian vocabulary.

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Facts for Kids: Abenaki Indians (Abanaki, Abnaki, Abenaqui, Abenakis, Alnombak)

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Information about the Abenakis for students and teachers. Covers Abenaki Indian clothing, houses, language, weapons, history and culture.

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Planting season - old style

As farmers north of the equator get ready to plant their seeds, we've started wondering about agriculture before Columbus. Conventional wisdom says Native Americans were mostly hunters and gatherers. When they did farm, their slash-and-burn techniques exhausted the soil, forcing them to clear new fields.

Although Native Americans domesticated corn, tomatoes and potatoes, their farms were generally unproductive, and most of their plant food came from gathering tubers, greens, berries and shoots.

But as we learned at a series of talks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this picture needs editing:

* Three centuries ago, corn-farming Indians in today's New York State were out-producing European wheat farmers

* The lack of plows in the Americas was not a hindrance but rather helped sustain soil fertility

* Stable, sophisticated food-gathering systems in parts of the Great Plains succumbed not to careless farmers but were drowned by dams on the big rivers

* Natives in British Columbia used a sophisticated permaculture to harvest the same plants year after year

The provision of permaculture

Until the 1960s, the government of Canada enforced assimilation of First Nation children at boarding schools that banned ancestral languages and practices. The goal was to homogenize Canada's population, but suppressing culture also squelched knowledge of the traditional methods for raising and gathering food.

When the police boats arrived in British Columbia in the 1930s, to take children to boarding schools, Adam Dick (tribal name Kwaxsistalla) escaped, and went to live in secluded locations with his grandparents for about a decade.

Dick, a member of the Kwakwaka'wakw (formerly Kwakiutl) tribe, has become a link to a vanishing past. "His people have learned from him, they all benefit from his teaching," says Nancy Turner, in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria (Canada).

Turner, who has spent a career studying indigenous agriculture, says knowing what to look for is key to understanding native agriculture on the coast of British Columbia. "They used perennial cultivation. 'Keep it living' was part of their philosophy, and it shows the way they value other life. A lot of perennial plants were being cultivated, but outsiders saw this as random plucking."

People in the First Nations of British Columbia ate 35 species of roots, 25 greens, berries, even the inner bark of some trees, Turner says.

Overall, coastal people used 250 species of plants for food, tea, fuel, construction, fiber, canoes, dye and glue, Turner says.

When the natives harvested bark and wood from a living tree, they took what they needed without killing the tree. "They believed trees have sentient life, and called these 'begged from' trees," Turner says. "'We have come to beg a piece of you today.'"

"Gardens" in the water

The same attitude of "stewardship and caring" also applied to aquatic food, Turner says, especially the all-important salmon. "The salmon streams were carefully tended, and even cleaned. If the stream changed course, Adam and the others were taught by the elders to transplant [salmon] eggs to the new stream channel."

Similarly, she says, people moved rocks to "create the most productive clam beds on the coast."

This was more like farming and harvesting than hunting-and-gathering, Turner insists. But the colonists, more interested in survival and profit than the people they were displacing, "were blind to these practices. They had in mind Mr. McGregor's garden, with a fence and rows you can harvest. They looked at these things, but they did not see them."

Restoring the foods

Most cultures give a central role to the production, preparation and consumption of food. What happens when the land that grew traditional foods is drowned by dams?

That's the conundrum facing Linda Different Cloud Jones, an activist and student from the Lakota Sioux Nation. "The loss of biodiversity is the greatest challenge on traditional lands," she told an audience in March at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, "and the loss of one culturally important species has significant impact."

The Lakota people "are stereotyped as the people of the plains," says Jones, "but we are also people of the river, or were a people of the river, until, in the 1950s and '60s, when dams built in the Pick-Sloan project changed the way of life for the Lakota forever."

Standing Rock, the Lakota reservation, is sandwiched between the Dakotas, and borders the Missouri River. "Overnight, hundreds of thousands of acres of native land was underwater," said Jones. "All the plant and animal species in the riparian cottonwood forest were gone."

The underground seedpods of the hog peanut (AKA mouse bean), were collected by prairie voles. These small mammals, which the Lakota called "mice," cached the big seeds underground.

Lakota women found the caches with a stick and removed the seeds, Jones said, but "They always left a gift, dry berries, animal fat or corn. They would sing, 'You have helped sustain my children during this coming winter, and we will not let your children go hungry.' Their song echoed from the trees, and it seriously breaks my heart that my young children will never see that."

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

A sustainable yield?

The song revealed that "an entire world view and behavior went along with this one plant species," Jones said, and both suffered when dams flooded the forest. "We haven't eaten these for 50 or 60 years. With the death of this one plant was the death of a little piece of our culture."

The hog peanut was part of a larger cycle, Jones says. In spring, "We would tap box elder maples for syrup, then collect biscuit root, wild strawberries, currants, juneberries, cattail shoots, and acorns in December. Nothing was ripe at exactly the same time. When the plants are no longer there, the cycle is broken."

Jones, a Ph.D. student at Montana State University, is attempting to grow the hog peanut as a form of "ecocultural restoration." "Research for the sake of research was not what I wanted to do," she says. "I wanted to change the world for my people, to make their lives better."

Millions of people made a living for thousands of years in the New World, she says. "Everyone always thought that when European people colonized the Americas, they were coming into a pristine place, but we were managing the landscape for thousands of years."

Iroquois corn

Corn is an indisputable triumph of Native American agriculture. The plant, domesticated thousands of years ago in Mexico and Central America, was a staple of the American diet and is now the largest crop in the world (global production in 2009 was 819 million metric tons).

Although natives also invented the highly productive "three sisters" companion-cropping technique, their agricultural prowess has been underestimated, says Jane Mt. Pleasant, an associate professor of horticulture at Cornell University.

Although the Native Americans had transformed a weed into the phenomenally productive crop maize, "There are claims by scholars, archeologists, geographers and historians that native agriculture was predominantly shifting cultivation... largely marginal, not too productive," Mt. Pleasant says.

In "shifting cultivation" (a politically correct locution for "slash and burn"), farmers move to new plots as they exhaust their soil. According to this logic, native farmers in North America "sowed the seeds of their own destruction through environmental degradation," says Mt. Pleasant, who directs the American Indian Program at Cornell.

But Mt. Pleasant says this is bunk. Rather, she contends that:

* Much indigenous agriculture was permanent cropping

* Maize farmers in east-central North America produced three to five times as much grain per acre as European wheat farmers

* Indigenous cropping was often sustainable and since it did not deplete the soil, farmers did not need to create new fields by burning forest

The soil should be the starting point for understanding agriculture, says Mt. Pleasant. While many soils on the Eastern Seaboard are not great, large parts of upstate New York had good soil that still supports productive farms.

About 300 years ago, the Iroquois Confederacy, a union of five (later six) tribes, lived in the area, and evidence for their farm productivity comes, ironically, from armies that sought to destroy them. "The quantity of corn which we found in store in this place, and destroyed by fire is incredible," wrote the governor of New France in 1687.

The French attacked the Iroquois, who were allied with France's great enemy, Great Britain.

Slash 'n burn, or sustainable agriculture?

Then in 1779, a soldier sent by General George Washington reported that his unit had destroyed at least 200 acres of Iroquois corn and beans that was "the best I ever saw."

"This was not backyard gardening, not primitive farming," Mt. Pleasant says. "They were dynamic, producing farmers on really good soils."

In modern tests of corn varieties believed to resemble those grown by the Senecas, one of the Iroquois tribes, Mt. Pleasant got yields of 2,500 to 3,000 pounds per acre (45 to 54 bushels per acre or 2,800 to 3,400 kilograms per hectare).

This was far above the 500 kilograms per hectare of wheat grown in Europe.

Turner calculated that the Iroquois could support roughly three times as many people on an acre as contemporaneous Europeans could with their wheat crops.

Part of the advantage, she says, comes from maize's inherent productivity. But observers have long wondered how this production could have occurred with neither plow nor draft animals, usually deemed the hallmarks of agricultural progress.

Plows, however, are now viewed as mixed blessing by many soil scientists. Although they prepare a good seedbed and bury weeds, they expose soil to the air, which encourages oxidation of humus, the organic content that supports essential microorganisms.

Although, after plowing, the humus briefly releases a burst of nitrogen, the depletion of organic matter and increased erosion continue for decades.

And thus on balance, Mt. Pleasant says the lack of the plow was an advantage, because planting with hand tools saves soil organic matter.

"If you are not tilling, and start with good soil, you are not going to lose fertility," Mt. Pleasant says. "The system is stable as long as the crop yields are moderate and there is no plowing."

But without plowing, there was no need for slash and burn.

Overall, Mt. Pleasant says, the new data provide a "quite different" perspective on agriculture. "Who were the primitive farmers? This is sustainable agriculture at its highest level."

Rethinking agriculture

This type of revelation changes our view of the origin of agriculture, says Eve Emshwiller, an assistant professor of botany at UW-Madison who organized the seminar on native agriculture and who studies oca, a root crop grown in the Andes. "We have always talked about hunter-gatherers as if one day they were gathering food and noticed a plant growing from seed and thought, 'We could gather seeds and start farming,' as if this brilliant idea happened all of a sudden."

Aside from historical curiosity, why worry about how native Americans grew their crops? One reason is the growing interest in sustainable agriculture, says Emshwiller. As agriculture faces the challenge of feeding more people without further damaging soil and water, older traditions could contribute.

Looking at other ways to grow and gather food will broaden our perspective, Emshwiller says. "There were a lot of people who were not considered agriculturalists, who were [supposedly] just gathering from the wild. But if you really understand what they were doing, there is not a sharp line between gathering and farming. There is a huge continuum of ways that people manage resources and get more from them."

Terry Devitt, editor; S.V. Medaris, designer/illustrator; Molly Simis, project assistant; David J. Tenenbaum, feature writer; Amy Toburen, content development executive

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As farmers north of the equator get ready to plant their seeds, we've started wondering about agriculture before Columbus. Conventional wisdom says Native Americans were mostly hunters and gatherers. When they did farm, their slash-and-burn techniques exhausted the soil, forcing them to clear new fields.