The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation is a state-recognized tribe and nonprofit organization, called AHA "Abenaki Helping Abenaki", whose headquarters and land are based in Vermont. They are often referred to as the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe or simply, Nulhegan.
The Nulhegan Band has approximately 1,400 members, most of whom reside in the Northeast Kingdom region of Vermont.
Vermont recognized the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation in 2011. The Nulhegan are one of four state-recognized tribes in Vermont. They participate at the state level in many ways, including in the Vermont Commission of Native American Affairs.
They are not federally recognized as a Native American tribe. Vermont has no federally recognized tribes.
Etymology
The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation draws its name the Nulhegan River, a tributary to the Connecticut River and Nulhegan Basin near Brighton, Vermont. Its name means "the place of log traps." The band is also named for the Cowasuck people and Abenaki people, one of the tribes that inhabited a large portion of eastern Vermont and western New Hampshire.
Leadership
The Nulhegan Abenaki government is made up of a Chief (Sogomo), who is nominated by the councils and decided by election. The current chief of the Nulhegan is Chief Don Stevens.
The legislative branch includes an elected Tribal Council of 5 to 13 members, all from within the tribe. The judicial branch is represented by an Elders Council. The government manages the tribe's land, activities, and gatherings and interacts with the state of Vermont in official matters.
Nonprofit organizations
The Nulhegan Band founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called AHA "Abenaki Helping Abenaki" in 2006. In 2019, the Tides Foundation provided it with a grant of $50,000.
Lucy Neel, based in Barton and Derby Line, Vermont, is the organization's registered agent. The current officers are: Chief Donald Stevens, president Nicole St. Ogle, treasurer Lucy Cannon-Neel, secretary.
Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Nation Inc. was incorporated as a domestic nonprofit corporation on December 9, 2022, based out of Derby Line, Vermont. Lucy Neel is the organizations registered agent as well.
Land
In 2012, the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe acquired some of the first tribal-owned and controlled land in Vermont for nearly 200 years. The 65 acres located in Barton, VT, where the tribal headquarters are, "will be an economic, educational and cultural resource for the tribe, which worked with the Vermont Land Trust and the Sierra Club to acquire the forestland."
History
In June 1812, white settlers recorded that a band of Abenaki lived at Owls Head Mountain on Lake Memphremagog in Potton, Quebec, in the Memphremagog Region Abenaki.
Documenting Abenaki history and heritage in Vermont and New Hampshire has at times been difficult. The national eugenics movement resulted in many Abenaki families being listed in census records as other races and ethnicities; some also underwent name changes from what they say were the original Abenaki or Canadian French. Additionally, the unreliability of family stories, or misinterpreted records from this era, also resulted in non-Abenaki believing they have Abenaki heritage when they do not.
On June 25, 1978, the first record of a 20th-century repatriation and reburial of Abenaki remains takes place in Center Harbor, New Hampshire. On November 15, 1980, the first record of a repatriation and reburial of Abenaki remains takes place in Vermont after a set of Abenaki remains is discovered at the Putney Historical Society in Putney, Vermont. Blackie Lampman and Richard Phillips ask Beverly Bolding to facilitate the repatriation.
During this time, many groups consisting of small families said they were now returning to their Abenaki heritage after having denied it for the first half of the 20th century. Other claimants to Abenaki heritage also emerged, including those who had never before claimed Abenaki ancestry. This included the Nulhegan, who began as a nonprofit organization. This caused tension between the European Americans claiming Abenaki status and the extant Abenaki First Nations in Canada, such as the Odanak First Nation who see the Vermont Abenaki as illegitimate due to their lack of Abenaki ancestry, and their lack of cultural continuity from any historic tribe.