This commentary is by Richard Witting, of Burlington. He is a Vermont historian whose research focuses on Abenaki history and the related topics of eugenics, disability and institutionalization in 20th-century Vermont.
As a life-long Burlington “townie” I was saddened to see the Chief Greylock statue in Battery Park removed, but as a historian who does Native advocacy, I was far more disturbed to learn what was to replace it.
As a child, I can remember standing below the towering figure of Chief Greylock in Burlington’s Battery Park, gazing up in awe. Installed in 1984, the statue was carved by Hungarian-American artist Wolf Toth, who traveled to all 50 states building monuments in honor of Native people.
Though not originally intended to depict Greylock it came to represent him, with a plaque describing his life and leadership among the Abenaki.
Chief Greylock — Abenaki name Wawanolewat — was an 18th-century Abenaki war leader closely tied to the Native village of Odanak, in Quebec, that was the spiritual, political, and military center of Abenaki resistance to English expansion. His name and legacy are still honored there. The Wawanolet and Nolett families of Odanak trace their ancestry to Greylock, including Daniel Nolett, general manager of the Abenaki Council of Odanak—and a friend—who is part of that lineage.
To his credit, Toth’s sculptures were created in partnership with local Native communities. However in Vermont, he was misled—consulting with the self-styled “St. Francis/Sokoki Band,” a group who in 1975 began falsely claiming descent from the Abenaki people who once lived there.
Investigations by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Vermont Attorney General, journalists, and independent researchers have all confirmed these claims are untrue. The group’s members are overwhelmingly of French-Canadian descent—not Native. Not Abenaki.
At the statue’s dedication, members of this group performed an invented “blessing ceremony,” dancing around the statue. Over time, they renamed themselves the “Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi,” styling themselves after the real Abenaki community that once lived in the Swanton–Highgate region before relocating north to Odanak in the late 1700s. This modern group’s only connection to these historical people is their proximity to the land the Abenaki once occupied—and a desire to claim that heritage.
Hearing of the statue’s imminent removal, I was dismayed to learn that Burlington planned to replace it with a new sculpture by an “Indigenous” artist affiliated with this so-called “Missisquoi” Reviewing City Council minutes, I found the proposal and an image of the replacement.
Bluntly, the design resembles a cheap knock-off of the original: a generic caricature of an “Indian” face, neither Abenaki in style nor substance, with “Missisquoi Abenaki” scrawled below — topped with a logo apparently appropriated from the Quebec Indigenous Police Force.
This decision stems from a well-meaning but misinformed 2022 City Council resolution recognizing this modern group as Burlington’s “first people”. Like the City, many other Vermont institutions now find themselves in similar positions, having based policies on bad information.
That was 2022. But the record is now clear and I would expect the city to be aware of the extensive reporting by VTDigger, APTN, and Vermont Public and the finding of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and attorney general regarding this topic.
Burlington must recognize that it got this wrong, take responsibility and correct course. Partnership with false groups harms all of us. It erases the stories of real Abenaki descendants — whose communities have remained centered at Odanak and Wôlinak since their displacement from Vermont — and it diverts resources and relationships away from the legitimate Indigenous nations of this region.
As a resident of this city, I strongly protest any move by Burlington to further legitimize fictionalized histories and I urge the city to consult with the Odanak and Wôlinak First Nations — the documented descendants of Vermont’s original Abenaki inhabitants — before undertaking any public project that purports to represent Abenaki culture.
Burlington now has an opportunity to do what it failed to do forty years ago: engage with the living descendants of Chief Greylock and with living First Nations of our region. If Burlington truly wishes to honor Chief Greylock, it must do so in collaboration with those who carry his heritage.
The goal should not be to replace one wooden statue with another, but to do better with our representation and partnerships with Vermont’s First People — not to repeat past mistakes. Burlington’s decision now will shape how future generations understand both Chief Greylock and the Indigenous history of this city — and our relationship to it.
After more than four decades of honoring his name, we owe it to Greylock’s descendants — and to the truth — to get the story right. Good relations with the communities who still honor him are possible, but only if the city chooses honesty and accountability over convenience and myth.
