Land Acknowledgment
The Wabanaki, the people of the dawn, have cared for and inhabited the land and waters that we now call Maine. We recognize that Saint Croix Island International Historic Site sits upon traditional homelands of the Passamaquoddy, the people who spear pollock. We acknowledge the Passamaquoddy as a distinct, sovereign, legal, and political entity with their own powers of self-governance and self-determination.
The Passamaquoddy
The Passamaquoddy people have been in the Maine and New Brunswick from time immemorial, or in other words, well before recorded western history. The Passamaquoddy name for themselves is Peskotomahkati (Bes-tum-moo-cudi) and they are a part of the Wabanaki, a group of five tribes that include Abenaki, Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, and the Penobscot. The Wabanaki name means”people of the dawnland” the first to see the sunrise in and comes from their homelands being so far east of the rest of what is today North America; Dawn arrives first on the land cared for by the Wabanaki, and therefore in part by the Passamaquoddy.
The Passamaquoddy, or pollock-spearer, cared for the land and lived collaboratively with it. The Passamaquoddy people roamed through the area in accordance with the seasons, which helped dictate food availability. Summers would be spent on and around the coasts and islands of the area. They would harvest seafood for food and sweetgrass for things such as basket making. As the cold weather arrived they moved inland and hunted bigger game for food and other materials used for living.
The Passamaquoddy were not the only people to recognize the abundance of seafood in the area. European explorers came to the area of modern-day Nova Scotia and Maine found the waters of the region rich in Cod and fished the area extensively. Eventually the fishing led to some making landfall and kidnapping native people to sell in Europe to help finance their trips. While the Portuguese were the dominant power in northern North America in in the 1500s, eventually the French would start to explore the area.
In 1604 the French sailed around Nova Scotia to the top of the Bay of Fundy and down to areas now known as New Brunswick and Maine. They would arrive at the mainland at and near where the Saint Croix Island International Historic Site is located today. including the island itself. The French opted to stay on the island in during the winter of 1604-05 although the Passamaquoddy advised them against it. The result of the stay was that 35 of the 79 French on the island died of Scurvy while others were sicked by the disease brought on by a lack of vitamin C. As spring was arriving arrived the Passamaquoddy arrived returned back to the coast and found the French were still on the island.
Quickly fresh water, food and traditional medicine were given to the French.
We know much about the experiences of the French from diaries kept by Samuel Champlain. The Passamaquoddy too were record keepers, with some of the most durable called petroglyphs. Petroglyphs are carvings on rock made from pecking at the stone on ledges using hammer and chisel stone tools. These are different from pictographs, which are essentially drawings or paintings on rocks.
The French, like the English and Spanish, laid claims to lands that were ‘not possessed by any other Christian prince.’ The important part of this was that the native people were not Christians and were not considered owners of the land. It is important to note that while the Europeans wanted to control and own lands, the Passamaquoddy and other Wabanaki in the area did not see land as something to be used owned but instead as something to be shared and cared for. The French did recognize that indigenous people had their own customs and traditions eventually as more Europeans arrived the Passamaquoddy started to see their land filled with growing numbers of non-indigenous.The various European nations would eventually engage in warfare and the conflicts would force the Passamaquoddy to take sides. By the mid-1750s the Passamaquoddy who were in Maine – at the time a Massachusetts colony – would see several tribes flee to Canada because of their alliances with the French. Based upon a letter from General George Washington the Passamaquoddy would again align themselves with England’s enemy, the American colonists during the Revolutionary War.
The French Landing and Beyond
Located in the ancestral homelands of the Wabanaki, Saint Croix Island International Historic Site commemorates the 1604 site of the first French attempt to colonize the territory they called l'Acadie.It is one of the earliest European settlements in North America. Members of a French expedition led by Pierre Dugua, intending to colonize North America, settled the island in 1604.
Seventy-nine members of the expedition, including Samuel Champlain, passed the severe winter of 1604-1605 on the island. Thirty-five settlers died, apparently of scurvy, and were buried in a small cemetery on Saint Croix Island. In the spring of 1605 the Passamaquoddy, befriended by the French, returned from their winter sojourn to the shores of Saint Croix Island. They traded game for bread and the health of the remaining settlers improved. Pierre Dugua made the decision to move the colony and founded the settlement of Port Royal, in today's Nova Scotia. The valuable insights gained from both the Saint Croix settlement formed the foundations of 'successful' settlements by the French and solidified the presence of French people in North America.
In 1858, a US Coast Guard Light Station was established on Saint Croix Island and locals made use of the mainland 'red beach' area for industrial use including shipbuilding. There are no remants of either of these uses left in the park.
Congress authorized the establishment of Saint Croix Island National Monument in 1949, which became effective on June 30, 1968, and redesignated it as an international historic site on September 25, 1984.
To learn more, view a timeline of Saint Croix Island's past 400 years and explore the articles, people, and places below.
