Abenaki, also spelled Abnaki or Wabanaki, Algonquian-speaking North American Indian tribe that united with other tribes in the 17th century to furnish mutual protection against the Iroquois Confederacy. The name refers to their location “toward the dawn.” In its earliest known form, the Abenaki Confederacy consisted of tribes or bands living east and northeast of present-day New York state, including Abenaki, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot in present-day Maine, Malecite and Mi’kmaq (Micmac) in present-day Maritime Provinces, and Cowasuck, Sokoki, and others in present-day Vermont and New Hampshire. Later the confederacy included some tribes as far south as present-day Delaware.
Traditional Abenaki social organization consisted of relatively small kin-based bands led by a civil chief who advised the group and facilitated consensus-based decision making; there was usually a separate war chief. A general council of all adult men and women decided matters relating to war; a smaller council of chiefs and representatives from each family decided other questions of importance to the group. In order to cement relations between bands and with other tribes, the Abenaki engaged in a form of institutionalized comradeship that united two men for life in ritual brotherhood.
The Abenaki engaged in a diversified economy that included hunting, fishing, horticulture, and gathering wild plant foods; the proportion of each activity varied depending on a given band’s proximity to the Atlantic coast. Game was taken in snares and traps and by bow and arrow and could include marine mammals such as seals and dolphins; fishing was undertaken in fresh and salt water. Corn (maize), beans, and squash were grown throughout the tribe’s home territory, albeit more intensively in its milder southern reaches. Berries, nuts, mushrooms, maple syrup, and a variety of medicinal plants were among the wild plant foods exploited by the tribe. The typical Abenaki dwelling was the birch-bark-covered wickiup occupied by several families. The birch-bark canoe was in general use for transportation.
The Abenaki interacted with a variety of European visitors during the 16th century; at that time, French, Basque, and English fishermen routinely traversed the North Atlantic to access the great schools of fish found on the Grand Banks. Contact with Europeans exposed Native Americans to Old World diseases for which they had no immunity, eventually depleting Abenaki populations.
As the French and English colonial systems developed in the 17th century, the Abenaki became involved in the fur trade, exchanging beaver and other pelts for imported goods such as metal tools and glass beads. The Abenaki were heavily missionized by French Jesuits in the late 1600s. As a result of this influence, the Abenaki allied with the French against the English in the colonizers’ competition for indigenous trade and territory. Severe defeats in 1724 and 1725 again reduced the tribe’s numbers; most withdrew to Canada, eventually settling at Saint-François-du-Lac in Quebec.
Abenaki descendants numbered some 8,000 individuals in the early 21st century.