Native Americans

Detail of map, showing Native American and their boats.

From VISSCHER, Nicolaas Jansz, Map of New Belgium, New England and Virginia first published in 1655 with editions up to 1727, published in Amsterdam.

Like all maps of that era, titles were in Latin. NOVI BELGII / NOVÆQUE ANGLIÆ NEC NON / PARTIS / VIRGINIÆ TABULA / multis in locis emendata a / Nicolao Joannis Visscher.

From Fanny Eckstorm's book, Indian Place-Names of the Penobscot Valley and the Maine Coast, 1941.

Majabigwaduce was the Penobscot name for what is now known as the Bagaduce River at and above Castine.

Map of the general location of the Maine Indian tribes and the trading posts, along the Maine coast, as depicted in The Maine Bicentennial Atlas: An Historical Survey, 1976. Courtesy of Maine Historical Society.

Penobscot/Abenaki ocean canoe. Built for the Penobscot Marine Museum with funds from an NEH Grant by Abenaki Aaron York and his assistants Hugga Dana and Gwenhuwhet Dana of the Penobscot Nation, summer 2006. Paddled by Hugga Dana on day of launch.

Launched on 9/9/2006 in Searsport Harbor.

Photograph by and courtesy of Wayne Hamilton.

Samuel de Champlain made 12 voyages to New England and Canada between 1603 and 1635. He mapped and published his findings and made the first useful maps of the Maine coast. On his 1603 trip he explored up and mapped the St. Lawrence River. From 1605-1606 he explored the Maine Coast. In 1608 he explored what is now Lake Champlain and in 1611 ascended the St. Lawrence to what is now Montreal. 

This map shows what is now northern New England and the Maritime Provinces, as settled by Native American tribes and nations. This presentation is somewhat simplistic as it does not indicate that the naming of the peoples here is subject to some controversy. Champlain wrote that "Etchemins" lived in the land between the Kennebec and the St. John Rivers, while other writers equate Etchemin with the Passamaquoddies only. The data is limited, subject to interpretation, and cannot easily be shown on a map.