Battle of Norridgewock

The memorial monument for Father Sébastien Râle at the Norridgewock battle site in Madison, Maine.

The Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which ended Queen Anne's War, had facilitated the expansion of New England settlement. The treaty, however, had been signed in Europe and had not involved any member of the Wabanaki natives. Since they had not been consulted, they protested this incursion into their lands by conducting raids on British fishermen and settlements.[6] For the first and only time, Wabanaki fought New Englanders and the British on their own terms and for their own reasons and not principally to defend French imperial interests.[6] In response to Wabanaki hostilities toward the expansion, the Governor of Nova Scotia Richard Phillips built a fort in traditional Mi'kmaq territory at Canso, Nova Scotia in 1720, and Massachusetts Governor Samuel Shute built forts on traditional Abenaki territory at the mouth of the Kennebec River. The French claimed the same territory on the Kennebec River by building a church in the Abenaki villages of Norridgewock on the Kennebec River and a church in the Maliseet village of Medoctec on the Saint John River.[7] These fortifications and missions escalated the conflict. By 1720, Massachusetts had placed a bounty on Râle.[8]

In the winter of 1722, New England rangers raided Norridgewock, trying to capture Râle. While he escaped, the rangers destroyed the church and mission house.[9] As revenge for the first raid on Norridgewock, the Mi'kmaq laid siege to the Lt. Governor of Nova Scotia John Doucett in May 1722 at Annapolis Royal.[8] On June 13, 1722, in present-day Maine, the tribe and allied groups burned Brunswick at the mouth of the Kennebec, taking hostages to exchange for those of their people held in Boston. Consequently, on July 25 Shute declared war on the eastern Indians. But on January 1, 1723, Shute abruptly departed for London. He had grown disgusted with the intransigent Assembly (which controlled funding) as it squabbled with the Governor's Council over which body should conduct the war. Lieutenant-governor William Dummer assumed management of the government. Further Abenaki incursions persuaded the Assembly to act in what would be called Father Rale's War.

In August 1724, a force of 208 soldiers (which split into 2 units under the commands of captains Johnson Harmon and Jeremiah Moulton) left Fort Richmond (now Richmond, Maine) in 17 whaleboats to go up the Kennebec.[lower-alpha 2] At Taconic Falls (now Winslow, Maine), 40 men were left to guard the boats as the troops continued on foot. On August 21, the Rangers killed Chief Bomoseen, fatally wounded his daughter, and took his wife captive.[11][lower-alpha 3]

On August 22, 1724, Captains Jeremiah Moulton and Johnson Harmon led 200 rangers to the main Abenaki village on the Kennebec River, Norridgewock, Maine, to kill Father Sébastien Râle and destroy the settlement. On the 23rd, there were 160 Abenaki, many of whom were killed as they tried to escape. The Rangers fired on the canoes filled with families. Harmon noted that at least 50 bodies went downstream before the rangers could retrieve them for their scalps.[9] At least 31 Abenaki chose to fight, which allowed the others to escape. Most of the defenders were killed.[12] Lieut. Richard Jacques killed Râle in the opening moments of the battle; Chief Mog was killed, and the rangers massacred nearly two dozen women and children.[13] The English had casualties of two militiamen and one Nauset.[lower-alpha 4] Harmon destroyed the Abenaki farms, and those who had escaped were forced to abandon their village and moved northward to the Abenaki village of St Francois (Odanak, Quebec).[15] Many of the Indians were routed, leaving 26 warriors dead and 14 wounded. Harmon's son-in-law Lieutenant Richard Jacques scalped Fr. Râle. Chief Wissememet was also killed.[16]

The soldiers mutilated Râle's body; his scalp was later redeemed in Boston with those of the other dead. The Boston authorities gave a reward for the scalps, and Harmon was promoted. Thereafter, the French and Indians claimed that the missionary died "a martyr" at the foot of a large cross set in the central square, drawing the soldiers' attention to himself to save his parishioners. The English militia claimed that he was "a bloody incendiary" shot in a cabin while reloading his flintlock. A Mohawk named Christian, who accompanied the troops, slipped back after they had departed and set the village and church ablaze.

The 150 Abenaki survivors returned to bury the fallen before abandoning Norridgewock for St. Francis and Becancour, Quebec.[17] Some later returned to the area. Râle was interred beneath the altar at which he had ministered to his converts. In 1833, Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick dedicated an 11-foot tall obelisk monument, erected by subscription, over his grave at what is today St. Sebastian's Cemetery at Old Point in Madison, Maine.

• Charland, Thomas (1979) [1969]. "Râle, Sébastien". In Hayne, David (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. II (1701–1740) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
• Eckstorm, Fannie Hardy (September 1934). "The Attack on Norridgewock 1724". The New England Quarterly. 7 (3): 541–578. doi:10.2307/359677.
• Faragher, John Mack (2005). A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland. W.W Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-05135-3.
• Fiske, John (1902). "Norridgewock and Louisburg". New France and New England. Houghton Mifflin. pp. 233–257.
• Grenier, John (2005). The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-44470-5.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Grenier, John (2008). The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3876-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Kayworth, Alfred E.; Potvin, Raymond G. (2002). The Scalp Hunters: Abenaki Ambush at Lovewell Pond, 1725. Branden Books. ISBN 978-0-8283-2075-7.
• Parkman, Francis (1893). A Half-Century of Conflict. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.
• Ripley, George; Dana, Charles A., eds. (1879). "Râle, Sébastien" . The American Cyclopædia.
• Schuyler, Henry Clement (1911). "Sebastian Râle" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• Sylvester, Herbert Milton (1910). Indian Wars of New England. Volume III. Boston: W.B. Clarke Company. ISBN 978-0-7884-1079-6.
• Wicken, William C. (2002). Mi'kmaq Treaties on Trial: History, Land, and Donald Marshall Junior. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-7665-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Wicken, William (2004). "Mi'kmaq Decisions: Antoine Tecouenemac, the Conquest, and the Treaty of Utrecht". The "Conquest" of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, and Aboriginal Constructions. University of Toronto Press. pp. 86–100. doi:10.3138/9781442680883. ISBN 978-0-8020-8538-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Williamson, William D. (1832). The History of the State of Maine: From Its First Discovery, 1602, to the Separation, A. D. 1820, Inclusive. Vol. II. Glazier, Masters & Company.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• Norridgewock Indian Village & Monument
• Father Râle, the Indians and the English, Maine Memory
• Battle of Norridgewock - Video