The Penobscot (Abenaki: Pαnawάhpskewi) are an Indigenous people in North America from the Northeastern Woodlands region. They are organized as a federally recognized tribe in Maine and as a First Nations band government in the Atlantic provinces and Quebec.
The Penobscot Nation, formerly known as the Penobscot Tribe of Maine, is the federally recognized tribe of Penobscot in the United States. They are part of the Wabanaki Confederacy, along with the Abenaki, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Miꞌkmaq nations, all of whom historically spoke Algonquian languages. Their main settlement is now the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation, located within the state of Maine along the Penobscot River.
Name
The Penobscot's name for themselves, Pαnawάhpskewi, means "the people of where the white rocks extend out." It originally referred to their territory on the portion of the Penobscot River between present-day Old Town and Verona Island, Maine. It was misheard by European colonizers as "Penobscot," which gives them their name today.
Government
The Penobscot Nation is headquartered in Penobscot Indian Island Reservation, Maine. The tribal chief is Kirk Francis. The vice-chief is Bill Thompson. The Penobscot are invited to send a nonvoting representative to the Maine House of Representatives.
In 2005, Penobscot Nation began a relationship with Venezuela's government led by Hugo Chavez. It accepted aid in the form of heating oil. Tribal chief Kirk Francis traveled to New York City to meet with Chavez.
History
Pre-contact
Little is known about the Penobscot before their contact with European colonizers. Indigenous peoples are thought to have inhabited Maine and surrounding areas for at least 11,000 years. They had a hunting-gathering society, with the men hunting beaver, otters, moose, bears, caribou, fish, seafood (clams, mussels, fish), birds, and possibly marine mammals such as seals. The women gathered and processed bird eggs, berries, nuts, and roots, all of which were found locally.
The people practiced some agriculture but not to the same extent as that of Indigenous peoples in southern New England, where the climate was more temperate. Food was potentially scarce only toward the end of the winter, in February and March. For the rest of the year, the Penobscot and other Wabanaki likely had little difficulty surviving because the land and ocean waters offered much bounty, and the number of people was sustainable. The bands moved seasonally, following the patterns of game and fish.
Contact and colonization
During the 16th century the Penobscot had contact with Europeans through the fur trade. It was lucrative and the Penobscot were willing to trade pelts for European goods such as metal axes, guns, and copper or iron cookware. Hunting for fur pelts reduced the game, however, and the European trade introduced alcohol to Penobscot communities for the first time. It has been argued that the people are genetically vulnerable to alcoholism, a racist sentiment with no evidence which Europeans frequently tried to exploit in dealings and trade. Penobscot people and other nations made pine beer, which had vitamin C; in addition to being an alcoholic beverage, it had the benefit of allaying the onset of scurvy.
When Europeans arrived, they brought alcohol in quantity. Europeans may have slowly developed enzymes, metabolic processes, and social mechanisms for dealing with a normalized high intake of alcohol, but Penobscot people, though familiar with alcohol, had never had access to the gross quantity of alcohol that Europeans offered.
The Europeans carried endemic infectious diseases of Eurasia to the Americas, and the Penobscot had no acquired immunity. Their fatality rates from the introduction of measles, smallpox and other infectious diseases was high. The population also declined due to further encroachment by settlers who cut off access to the Penobscot's main food source of running fish through the process of damming the Penobscot River, the loss of big game through the process of clear cutting of forests for the logging industry and through massacres carried out by settlers. This catastrophic population depletion may have contributed to Christian conversion (among other factors); the people could see that the European priests did not suffer from the pandemics. The latter said that the Penobscot had died because they did not believe in Jesus Christ.