This commentary is by Marc Boglioli, an anthropologist and director of environmental studies and sustainability at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. He is author of the book “A Matter of Life and Death: Hunting in Contemporary Vermont” (2009, UMASS Press). He is a resident of New Haven, Vermont.
I would like to make a small contribution to the debate that has recently emerged over the potential legal recognition of the Abenaki of Odanak as the true descendants of the Abenaki people who called Vermont home until about 1800.
From 1996 to 1998, I conducted field research in Vermont for my Ph.D. in anthropology. A prominent theme that emerged in my interviews with white Vermonters was the idea that the Abenaki had never permanently resided in the state, but had only “passed through” on a seasonal basis.
This might not be news to some readers because, until recently, this was a common take on the state’s early history. Nevertheless, I was still shocked by the vehemence of this belief among Vermonters in the late 1990s, by which time people could certainly have “known better.”
I eventually realized that important aspects of “Vermont identity” depended upon the erasure of Abenaki history and Abenaki presence, particularly those aspects of Vermont identity that emphasized a unique, special and longstanding relationship between Vermonters and “the land.”
This “white native” mythology was trumpeted by important Vermonters, such as Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and reimagined Vermont as a place where lucky European colonists were able to develop a primordial relationship with an unoccupied sliver of the North American landscape. So, unlike members of every other settler society in the Western Hemisphere, Vermonters could have a clean heart with regard to the colonial process.
Canfield, however, did not create this myth. This cancerous lie was baked into the state of Vermont from the very beginning.
In an effort to undermine Abenaki claims to territory in Vermont, Ira and Ethan Allan strategically wielded the accusation that Vermont’s Abenaki were actually Canadians. Of course, recently minted international borders have nothing to do with determining the homelands of Indigenous peoples.
Over 200 years later, the Abenaki of Odanak are still trying to explain this simple reality. It’s high time for Vermonters to stop playing border games with the Abenaki and welcome them back to their homeland in Vermont.
