Please visit our new website at www.nedoba.org
Roger's Raid
In Their Own Words
August 1998 - updated Sept. 2001
Oral History collected from various sources
This section is from Gordon Day as found in his paper "Oral Tradition as Complement" published in "In Search of New England's Native Past"
And the Indians at that time in the fall were dancing. Already the harvest was all gathered .... And they danced and sometimes celebrated late, dancing and sometimes going out because it was a nice cool night. They rested, some went to smoke and rest. And one, a young girl, a young woman, she did not immediately go in when the others went in. When they went into the council house to dance again that one, the young girl, the young woman, did not go in because it was cool and she stayed outside. She remained longer outside, and it was dark, and when she was ready to go in at the start of the dancing inside the house, when she was ready to go in, then someone stopped her. He said, "Don't be afraid." In Indian, you understand, he said, "Friend. I am your friend, and those enemies, those strange Iroquois, they are there in the little woods [planning] that when all [the Abenakis] leave for home they would kill them all, their husbands, and burn your village, and I come to warn you." And surely the young woman went into the council house, the dancing place, and she warned the other Indians what he told. She warned what she had been warned. And some did not believe her, because she was so young, because she was a child. Some of them stopped and went home to see about their children and get ready to run away. And some of them did not listen to that young girl, the young woman. ... And some Indians at once hurried home. They stopped dancing and went home, and they went to see about their people, their children, in order to run away as soon as possible, so they could hide. ... father gathered everyone - it was dark, of course - in the dark no one kindled a light. They gathered their children in the dark, you can be sure. And they left to hide somewhere where they could not find them. Of course it was night at that time and they hid - in a big ravine where they could not find them. And that man, the old man, they counted their children to see if they were all there there where it was deep. And one had been left! My aunt's grandmother was the one who was missing! And she did not know that she was alone in the house, but already she was awake, and she was sitting at the foot of the bed and she was looking out of the window leaning on the window sill. She was singing, she was calmly singing [to herself]. She did not even know that the others were gone. Suddenly then her father quickly entered in the dark, entering quickly, and he took her - he found her singing, this one. Right away he took her and left as quickly as he possibly could to the ravine - the big ravine that is where Eli Nolet's house [now] is, that's where the ravine is, At the Pines, that's what they call it at Odanak, At the Pines. And there they hid, the Indians, the Abenakis. And my grandfather, the Great Obomsawin, the Great Simon, he crossed the river, just as the sun was rising. Just as the sun is seen first. He didn't arrive soon enough, and just at that time he is almost across the river when the sun showed. And his hat - something shone on his hat, something [bright] that he wore. And there he was shot down on the other side - he was the only one [to get across]. All that were with the houses - well, that was when they burned the village - the others, surely many were killed of the others, all that were with the houses.
-- Oral tradition as told to Mr. Day by Elvine Obomsawine
... the exact words of the warner are recalled, and while they are not modern Abenaki, they are near enough to be intelligible, .... [the translation] "My friends, I am telling you. I would warn you. They are going to exterminate you."
The next day the Abenaki returned looking for their friends, dead or living. And here on Louis Paul Road, suddenly off to one side they saw something lying. They went; there was a stranger lying. They took his hatchet to finish him off; when he spoke, "Don't kill me just yet. I want to be baptized. I am not baptized yet." They said, "That is not good. Then how are you called?" He said, "Samadagwis." They said, "You have no name?" [i.e., no Christian name for baptism]. "How then do you want to be called?" He said, "Sabadis" [i.e., Jean Baptiste]. They said, "Then to what people do you belong?" He said, "Mahigan." They said, "That is good. Now your name will be Sabadis." And they dispatched him with the hatchet.
-- Oral tradition as told to Mr. Day by Théophile Panadis
This section is extracts from - HARRINGTON'S NOTES OF 1869 - a mixture of Abenaki Oral Tradition and Harrington's own thoughts.
Great Thanks to Louis Annance for providing us with a transcript of the original field notes taken by E. Harrington in 1869 of interviews with Abenaki at the village of St. Francis (Odanak).
PISSENNE was the guide of Major Rogers when, by order of General Amherst, he made an attack upon the Abenakis Indians at their village on the Saint Francis river in Canada, in the year 1759.
Pissenne did not belong to the Abenakis Tribe at Saint Francis, but the first that they knew of him he came through the great forest to their village from Penobscot. He had no relations at Saint Francis except one woman who was his cousin, and she died at Saint Francis when she was very old. ... Sometimes he lived for a while at Saint Francis; and, when very old he came here to stay, and died here at the age of about 115 years. ... He was a very funny man, and entertaining in his narratives, and everybody liked his pleasantries. But he had guided a strong and stealthy band of soldier's to the secluded village of Saint Francis, and this had resulted in a "horrible massacre" of the Indians, and the Abenakis never trusted him, but always respected him. ... When he became too old to hunt, or trap, or work any more, and he became blind, too -- he lived mostly on the charity of the Indians of Saint Francis village. The women and the girls would take care of him and carry him plenty of food -- as if he had never been their enemy in war. One night, he ate a hearty supper, and smoked his pipe, both with much enjoyment, and the next morning was dead in his bed, his prominent breast apparently collapsed, or sunk in. He sleeps profoundly in the same cemetery that contains those slain by Rogers. ---- SIMON ANNANCE, at his house in the Abenakis Village on the Saint Francis, July 31, 1869.
The preceding is an altered transcript of what Mr. Annance told me at the above lake; and I read it to him this evening, to ascertain it is correct, and he says it is all right. Then, by further inquiries, I obtained the following additional information.
PISSENNE did not guide Rogers home from Saint Francis. Having been here before, he was known here; and the last that was seen of him at the time of the massacre he was running off into the brush to secrete himself. Many years afterward he ventured cautiously to come here again; and, finding that the Indians were not cherishing malignity against him, he went back and brought his daughter and son to live with him at Saint Francis.
If our reconing is right, Pissenne was born about the year 1713; was about 46 years old at the time of Rogers' expedition, and died about 1828 -- Simon Annance's house, Aug. 4, 1869.
Rogers crossed from the lefthand to the righthand bank of the river at the Basin, nine miles above the Indian village, and camped, the night of the 4th of October, at the ravine nearly a mile and a half above the village, not where the little brooke goes into the river, but, back from the river where the brook comes out of the high bank.
The Church that Rogers burnt stood on the same spot where the church stood that was burnt in 1821. There was a great cross that stood a little down the bank from the church toward the river, and, when Rogers' massacre was going on, the Missionary Priest, Aubery, escaped from his house and went and kneeled at the foot of the cross and was killed while praying there. --- The Indians had been having a triumphal dance every night for nearly a week, and some of them had retired to the first island below the church for undisturbed rest. When the killing began, some fled to the islands, and some were shot in the river while trying to get to the island, or to the opposite shore of the river. Simon Annance's grandfather, Gabrial Annance, was a Mohawk Indian. Gabriel Annance occupied the house where Ignace Masta lives now, the SAME house, and he and his family fled into the brook in rear of the house, and in their fright they forgot their young child FRANCIS -- who was born the day that Quebec surrendered to the English -- and his father returned into the house through the back window and got out of the back window with the child just as the soldiers entered the front of the house by breaking in the door.
ANNANCE; -- When Rogers came, Simon Annance's father was a boy, about ten years old, and his name was BARTHOLOMEW ANNANCE. His mother -- Bartholomew's mother -- was tired of the dancing, and the boisterous noise, and she took her boy, Bartholomew, and went down to the great island, about a mile and a half below the village, to sleep in quiet, and the next morning she was waked by the guns of Rogers' onslaught. Rogers pillaged and burnt the Indian church.
THE INDIAN CATHOLIC CEMETERY ...
and the persons slain by Rogers, about two hundred in number, were all buried in one pit. ... There is NO monument to this sepulcher of the slain.
Rogers' men carried away the silver image of the Virgin Mary, and the sacramental silver cup; and the Indians who followed their retreat got the image and cup and brought them back., -- and they were destroyed in the fire when the church was burnt (in 1821.) The image had been sent over as a gift to the church from a man in France. -- Louis Gill, Somebody has told me that the censer was also carried away.
Dr. Masta's mother's mother was Marguerite Annance, daughter of Gabriel and sister to Bartholomew and (Capt.) Francis Annance. ... When Rogers came, and was burning the wigwams, Dr. Masta's mother's mother was in the house with her father - [Gabriel Annance] - and her brother, who was younger than she was; and her father said to her brother; "Where is your gun?" Her brother said; "I don't know." Her father said to him; "Have not I told you to have your gun always ready? - for you do not know when the enemy may come. Run, both of you, into the bush and hide." They were running along a little path, and there was in the path at one place a little depression with water in it, and they turned a little out of the path, for a few steps, to shun the water, and an Indian was close to them and he said, "Run, little girl, just as fast as you can." And she said; "I will run fast as I can." The Indian saw one of Rogers men coming from the bush in the path that the children were in, and he would meet the children. So the Indian went down on one knee and shot his gun at the man.
This interesting narrative is undoubtedly true, concerning some persons; but with reference to Dr. Masta's mother's mother it cannot be all true, for she had only two brothers, Bartholemew and Francis Annance; and Bartholemew then about ten years old, was out on the great island a mile or more below the Indian village, with his mother, and Francis was a baby and in his father's house till his father escaped with him in his arms out of the back window. This about the boy's gun, is from Ignace Masta. And I have heard Dr. JOHN B. MASTA tell the same. About the children running into the bush, is by Simon Annance or Louis Gill, and I do not remember which. There was only a small clearing amongst and around the wigwams; the rest was all woods.
Somebody has told me that a Missionary Priest was killed while kneeling at the foot of the out-door cross, in ROGER'S MASSACRE. Mr Maurault says it is not so; for the Missionary Priest belonging here was temporarily about when the killing was done.
Rogers' Menu
