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The Mi’ kmaq are one member of the Wabanaki Confederacy, a group of Eastern Algonquin nations along the North American coast from the Merrimack River Valley in present-day Massachusetts and New Hampshire to the Maritime Provinces and coastal Québec. While many of these nations were culturally and linguistically connected long before colonial contact, they formalized a political union in the 17th century in response to both English expansionism and increased hostilities with historical Iroquois enemies. As Professor Matthew Bahar, a leading scholar of Wabanaki history, points out throughout his work, maritime conflicts played an essential role in this resistance. The Wabanaki were similarly concerned about ceding territory ashore and losing control of the seas. They saw theft of British equipment and assaults on British ships as effective attacks on the larger colonial project. Because the sea was the necessary route by which more settlers could arrive in North America from Europe, and since the sea played such a prominent role in the lives of many Wabanaki, it follows that any resistance to colonial expansion would take place both at land and at sea. SEA HISTORY 178, SPRING 2022
Deep Knowledge The deep connections between various Wabanaki tribes and their local waters were simultaneously cultural, practical, and political, and most tribes have rich histories of maritime skills that accompany cultural traditions, stories, and beliefs. The legendary creator figure Gluskap, who appears throughout Wabanaki oral traditions, often emerges from the water to teach native communities valuable survival skills. Records from the sixteenth century show that various Wabanaki tribes had already developed highly specialized birchbark canoes designed for navigating rough ocean waters, while many tribal groups depended
on marine wildlife for hunting. Maritime skills and virtues were applauded, as able seamanship provided authority and social stability within their communities, and were key criteria in a strong, successful sagamore, or chief. Despite prevailing stereotypes of Indigenous lifeways, however, this knowledge was not “timeless” or unchanging, but highly adaptive. When European settlers arrived, native groups reshaped their maritime activities accordingly. As colonists continued to move further north, the Wabanaki carefully orchestrated seaborne attacks in response to their being dispossessed of territorial space. This continued in 37