This commentary is by Jeff Benay of Fairfax, who was chair of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Native American Affairs for 15 years and has been involved with Abenaki public policy for over 40 years.
It is with interest that members of the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi read Nicole Hardy’s article about the University of Vermont and its role in the eugenics survey of the 1920s.
The writer quotes Chief Don Stevens at length, which may lead the reader to believe that Stevens speaks for all of the recognized tribes of Vermont, as if he is the spokesperson for all four tribes. He is not. Don Stevens is the chief of the Nulhegan tribe. There are three other tribes that have their own government and their own history.
For instance, Missisquoi first received state recognition in 1976 when Gov. Tom Salmon issued the much-coveted judgment on Thanksgiving Day. Unfortunately, the next governor, Richard Snelling, rescinded recognition on Jan. 22, 1977. Thus, Missisquoi began its extraordinary journey in quest of state recognition.
It is odd that Chief Stevens, who has received an honorary doctorate from Middlebury College — in large part because of his self-proclaimed leadership in the Abenaki gaining recognition — never mentions the struggle that Missisquoi fought for over three decades, as it is well-known to most Vermont Abenaki and to those friends of the Abenaki who supported Missisquoi as the tribe fought against the racism that engulfed the politics of the day.
Vermonters, in general, would find the fight for recognition an interesting chapter in Vermont history, especially for those interested in issues of social justice. Furthermore, the University of Vermont did not begin its relationship with the Abenaki with the omnipresent and oft-quoted Stevens. While he has no doubt been a very important player since 2009, it is Missisquoi that began negotiating with the university as early as the 1980s.
When the seminal treatise “The Original Vermonters” was written in 1981 by two UVM professors, Marjorie Powers and William Haviland, these brilliant authors were in contact with Missisquoi for several years before their book was the first to assert that the Abenaki presence in Vermont spanned thousands of years. Most importantly to Missisquoi, these prescient writers offered the Abenaki existence to be a continuous one and, contrary to the state of Vermont’s own self-serving language, Powers and Haviland offered that the Abenaki were not dead.
Thus, when State Archivist Greg Sanford reached out to me in the early 1990s as chair of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Native American Affairs, the precursor to the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, he did so because he had uncovered boxes of materials he had no clue about other than to see the surnames of dozens of Franklin County Abenakis.
When I retrieved the documents, I showed them to the legendary Chief of Missisquoi Homer St. Francis, who literally turned ashen and simply said, “We are not ready to deal with these.” A few years later, St.Francis said the time had come and a decision was made to attend the newly opened exhibit at the Fleming Museum, titled “Long Shadows: Henry Perkins and the Eugenics Survey of Vermont.”
Michael Oatman, an art professor at UVM, and Janie Cohen, curator at the Fleming, together envisioned what Perkins’ study might look like. The ensuing presentation was stark, brutal and honest.
I will never forget seeing the Abenaki in attendance sob and utter, “It’s about time. How many of us went underground to escape it. We waited and waited for history to be put in the record book.”
As such, the University of Vermont had decided it was time to reveal its own role in the horrific sterilization movement of the 1920s, when the state of Vermont actually passed sterilization laws. Henry Perkins, a professor of zoology at UVM for many years, led the movement and whose admirers included Adolf Hitler. Indeed, the University of Vermont began its acknowledgment of the most insidious chapter in Vermont’s history, one that most Vermonters are still ignorant about despite the Vermont Legislature’s recent decision to issue an apology to all Vermonters whose families were the subject of sterilization policies.
Eugenics was, in part, a response to the second wave of immigration that had besieged the state environs, with Jews becoming downtown Burlington peddlers and Italians descending on the granite quarries of Barre, with Vermont’s poet laureate Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, supporting Perkins every step of the way, Vermont became New England’s most active practitioner of sterilization. Unfortunately for the Abenaki, they were referred to as mixed blood and gypsies and targeted for sterilization as well.
Still, it was the University of Vermont that took the lead in trying to establish relations with the Abenaki, certainly much sooner than the state of Vermont. However awkward these first meetings were, they were still efforts whereby UVM was beginning to accept its role in the sterilization movement. To read Hardy’s article is to believe the university did not acknowledge its own role until Chief Stevens happened on the scene. Nothing is further from the truth.
So it now behooves progressive publications like VTDigger to better explicate on a contextual understanding of Vermont’s Indigenous peoples, their role in eugenics, and the strained yet promising relationship that has developed with UVM, especially in the field of education.
The Abenaki of Missisquoi are proud of a relationship that began over 35 years ago, titled the University of Vermont/Abenaki Summer Happening, which brings Abenaki seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students from Missisquoi to the UVM campus. Here, young Abenaki students stay overnight in dorms and take workshops with professors who integrate hands-on learning, a preferred Abenaki domain of learning.
The UVM/Abenaki collaboration, which has spawned several important initiatives, has included remarkable professors and administrators who understood the importance of an Abenaki/UVM relationship. Mentorships — where UVM administrators established ongoing meaningful relationships with young Abenaki by traveling from Burlington to Swanton on a weekly basis — were but one of a series of projects that had supported Missisquoi youngsters in thinking about college careers.
The UVM School of Social Work, whose mission included a commitment to social justice, embraced the idea of promoting Abenaki cultural competencies by hiring the daughter of late Chief Leonard “Blackie” Lampman, who then led workshops to virtually every social service agency and many local schools in Franklin County over a 10-year period of time. Concomitantly, the UVM Center for Cultural Pluralism hired an Abenaki community member to work at Missisquoi Valley Union High School where over 25% of the students were Abenaki. Here, the idea was to have an outreach initiative that supported Abenaki dropout prevention. This, too, lasted over 10 years and had a profound impact in turning around the high rate of dropout. Both positions offered free college tuition that included enough UVM credits for a college degree.
Here, the University of Vermont was embracing the Abenaki at a time when the state of Vermont was openly and systemically trying to erase the tribe from current history. At one time, a UVM president was so moved by the Abenaki plight that she offered full scholarships to all Abenaki students. Unfortunately, the offer was short-lived and the president did not return to Burlington for a second year.
The open hostilities toward the Abenaki extended from most state agencies to every major Vermont publication of the time. Still, Missisquoi persevered and despite the odds, which were certainly stacked against them, they won their decades-long struggle to be accepted by a state that had long harbored resentment and outright bigotry every step of the way. Hopefully, Vermonters are ready to discuss Abenaki history with the understanding that only by acknowledging our past horrors, may we not repeat them (with apologies to Santayana).
The 1920s and after have been the darkest period in Vermont’s history, yet to ignore what happened by refusing to discuss the continued Abenaki presence — even to this day — in many current-day schools only perpetuates misunderstanding. In fact, when Vermont history is taught in fourth-grade classrooms, rarely is the Abenaki experience included. That is because for decades schools were encouraged not to include teaching about the Abenaki. And if the truth is to be an important arbiter for Vermont publications like VTDigger, it begins when you understand the racist attitudes that permeated the state of Vermont toward the original Vermonters — the Abenaki — existed for decades before Chief Stevens first became involved with tribal politics a mere dozen years ago. Frankly, Chief Stevens had absolutely no role in the nascent relationship that formed between UVM and the Abenaki.
The fight for social justice and equity can only be realized when Vermonters understand the extraordinary resilience of Missisquoi, which laid the ground for an appreciation of diversity that had to be fought for with blood and tears. VTDigger and others must begin to educate about the civil rights battles fought long before 2009 if Vermonters are to understand the true history of our state. We can do better than this. We must.
