Battle of Norridgewock

Battle of Norridgewock
Part of Dummer's War
Battle of Norridgewock: Death of Sebastian Rale
Date 23 August 1724 Location Norridgewock, Maine Result Colonial victory
Belligerents
Abenaki	English colonists
Commanders and leaders
Father Sebastien Rale †, Chief Mog †, Chief Bomoseen †, Chief Wissememet †, Chief Job †, Chief Carabesett †	Johnson Harmon and Jeremiah Moulton
Strength
50	80
Casualties and losses
27 dead; 14 wounded	3 dead

The Battle of Norridgewock occurred during Dummer's War. Captain Johnson Harmon and Jeremiah Moulton led the New England troops and Father Sebastian Rale and Chief Mog led the Abenaki at Norrigdgewock. The battle was part of the expansion of New England settlements along the Kennebec River (in present-day Maine).

Historical context

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. For the first and only time, Wabanaki would fight New Englanders and the British on their own terms and for their own reasons and not principally to defend French imperial interests. 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 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 churches in the Abenaki villages of Norridgewock and Medoctec further upriver. These fortifications escalated the conflict. By 1720, Massachusetts had a placed a bounty on Rale.

Grave of Sebastien Rale in 1911

In the winter of 1722, New England Rangers made their first raid of Norridgewock to try and capture Rale. While Rale escaped,the Rangers destroyed the church and mission house. 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. In present-day Maine, the tribe and its auxiliaries on June 13, 1722 burned Brunswick at the mouth of the Kennebec, taking hostages to exchange for those 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 Dummer's War.

Battle of Norridgewock

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

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 Rale and destroy the settlement. On the 23rd, there were 160 Abenaki, many of whom chose to flee rather than fight. At least 31 chose to fight, which allowed the others to escape. Most of the defenders were killed. Rale was killed in the opening moments of the battle, a leading Chief Mog was killed, and the rangers massacred nearly two dozen women and children. The English had casualties of two militiamen and one Mohawk. Harmon destroyed the Abenaki farms, and those who had escaped were forced to abandon their village and moved northward to the Abenaki village of Odanak, Quebec. Many of the Indians were routed, leaving 26 warriors dead and 14 wounded. Harmon's son-in-law, Lieutenant Richard Jaques, scalped Fr. Rale. Chief Wissememet was also killed.

Rale's body was mutilated, and his scalp 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.

Aftermath

The 150 Abenaki survivors returned to bury the fallen before abandoning Norridgewock for Canada. Rale was interred beneath the altar at which he had ministered his converts. In 1833, Bishop 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.

References

• The scalp hunters: Abenaki ambush at Lovewell Pond, 1725. By Alfred E. Kayworth, Raymond G. Potvin
• William Durkee Williamson. The history of the state of Maine: from its first discovery, A.D ..., Volume 2. 1832.
• John Grenier. The Far Reaches of Empire. University of Oklahoma Press. 2008
• John Grenier. The first way of war: American war making on the frontier, 1607-1814. 2003. 47-52.
• William Wicken. Mi'kmaq Treaties on Trial. University of Toronto Press. 2002.
• John Mack Faragher. A Great and Noble Scheme. New York; W. W. Norton & Company, 2005.
• William Wicken. "Mi'kmaq Decisions: Antoine Tecouenemac, the Conquest, and the Treaty of Utrecht". In John Reid et al. (eds). The Conquest of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial and Aboriginal Constructions. University of Toronto Press. 2004.
• John Fiske, New England and New France, 1902, Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Boston, Massachusetts
• Francis Parkman, A Half-Century of Conflict, 1907, Brown, Little & Company, Boston, Massachusetts
• Herbert Milton Sylvester, Indian Wars of New England, Volume III, 1910, W. B. Clarke, Boston, Massachusetts

Endnotes

External links

• Biography of Sebastien Rale (or Rasle), Canada Library & Archives
• Biography of Sebastian Rale (or Rasle), Catholic Encyclopedia
• Norridgewock Indian Village & Monument
• Image of Rale's strongbox at Maine Memory Network