To this simple native eloquence the commissioners felt they had no fitting reply, and for the time being the Maliseets remained undisturbed.
It in not necessary to discuss at length the origin of the Indians who lived on the banks of the St. John at the time the country became known to Europeans. Whether or not the ancestors of our Indians were the first inhabitants of that region it is difficult to determine. The Indians now living on the St. John are Maliseets, but it is thought by many that the Micmacs at one time, possessed the valley of the river and gradually gave place to the Maliseets, as the latter advanced from the westward. There is a tradition among the St. John river Indians that the Micmacs and Maliseets were originally one people and that the Maliseets after a while “went off by themselves and picked up their own language.” This the Micmacs regarded as a mongrel dialect and gave to the new tribe the name Maliseet (or Milicete), a word derived from Mal-i-see-jik—“he speaks badly.” However, in such matters, tradition is not always a safe guide. It is more probable the two tribes had an independent origin, the Micmacs being the earlier inhabitants of Acadia, while the Maliseets, who are an offshoot of the Abenaki (or Wabenaki) nation, spread eastward from the Kennebec to the Penobscot and thence to the St. John. The Indians who are now scattered over this area very readily understand one another’s speech, but the language of the Micmacs is unintelligible to them.
The Micmacs seem to have permitted their neighbors to occupy the St. John river without opposition, their own preference inclining them to live near the coast. The opinion long prevailed in Acadia that the Maliseets, were a more powerful and ferocious tribe than the Micmacs; nevertheless there is no record or tradition of any conflict between them.
That the Maliseets have for centuries inhabited the valley of the River St. John is indicated by the fact that the Indian names of rivers, lakes, islands and mountains, which have been retained by the whites, are nearly all of Maliseet origin. Nevertheless the Micmacs frequented the mouth of the St. John river after the arrival of Europeans, for we learn that the Jesuit missionary, Enemond Masse, passed the winter of 1611–2 at St. John in the family of Louis Membertou, a Micmac, in order to perfect himself in the Micmac language, which he had already studied to some extent at Port Royal. The elder Membertou, father of the Indian here named, was, perhaps, the most remarkable chieftain Acadia ever produced. His sway as grand sagamore of the Micmac nation extended from Gaspe to Cape Sable. In the year 1534 he had welcomed the great explorer Jacques Cartier to the shores of Eastern New Brunswick, as seventy years later he welcomed de Monts and Poutrincourt to Port Royal. The Jesuit missionary, Pierre Biard, describes Membertou as “the greatest, most renowned and most formidable savage within the memory of man; of splendid physique, taller and larger limbed than is usual among them; bearded like a Frenchmen, although scarcely any of the others have hair upon the chin; grave and reserved with a proper sense of the dignity of his position as commander.” “In strength of mind, in knowledge of war, in the number of his followers, in power and in the renown of a glorious name among his countrymen, and even his enemies, he easily surpassed the sagamores who had flourished during many preceding ages.”
In the year 1605 Pennoniac, one of the chiefs of Acadia, went with de Monts and Champlain as guide on the occasion of their voyage along the shores of New England and was killed by some of the savages near Saco. Bessabez, the sagamore of the Penobscot Indians, allowed the body of the dead chief to be taken home by his friends to Port Royal and its arrival was the signal of great lamentation. Membertou was at this time an old man, but although his hair was white with the frosts of a hundred winters, like Moses of old, his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated. He decided that the death of Pennoniac must be avenged. Messengers were sent to call the tribes of Acadia and in response to the summons 400 warriors assembled at Port Royal. The Maliseets joined in the expedition. The great flotilla of war canoes was arranged in divisions, each under its leader, the whole commanded by Membertou in person. As the morning sun reflected in the still waters of Port Royal the noiseless procession of canoes, crowned by the tawny faces and bodies of the savage warriors, smeared with pigments of various colors, the sight struck the French spectators with wonder and astonishment.
Uniting with their allies of the River St. John, the great war party sped 8 westward over the waters of the Bay of Fundy and along the coast till they reached the land of the Armouchiquois. Here they met and defeated their enemies after a hard-fought battle in which Bessabez and many of his captains were slain, and the allies returned in triumph to Acadia singing their songs of victory.
The situation of the Maliseets on the River St. John was not without its advantages, and they probably obtained as good a living as any tribe of savages in Canada. Remote from the war paths of the fiercer tribes they hunted in safety. Their forests were filled with game, the rivers teemed with fish and the lakes with water fowl; the sea shore was easy of access, the intervals and islands were naturally adapted to the cultivation of Indian corn, wild grapes grew luxuriantly along the river banks, there were berries in the woods and the sagaabum (or Indian potato) was abundant. Communication with all arts of the surrounding country was easily had by means of the short portages that separated the sources of interlacing rivers and with his light bark canoe the Indian could travel in any direction his necessity or his caprice might dictate.
The characteristics of the Indians of Acadia, whether Micmacs or Maliseets, were in the main identical; usually they were closely allied and not infrequently intermarried Their manners and habits have been described with much fidelity by Champlain, Lescarbot, Denys and other early explorers. Equally accurate and interesting is the graphic description of the savages contained in the narrative of the Jesuit missionary Pierre Biard, who came to America in 1611 and during his sojourn visited the St. John River and places adjacent making Port Royal his headquarters. His narrative, “A Relation of New France, of its Lands, Nature of the Country and of its Inhabitants,” was printed at Lyons in 1616. A few extracts, taken from the splendid edition of the Jesuit Relations recently published at Cleveland, will suffice to show that Pierre Biard was not only an intelligent observer but that he handled the pen of a ready writer. “I have said before,” he observes, “that the whole country is simply an interminable forest; for there are no open spaces except upon the margins of the sea, lakes and rivers. In several places we found the grapes and wild vines which ripened in their season. It was not always the best ground where found them, being full of sand and gravel like that of Bourdeaux. There are a great many of these grapes at St. John River in 46 degrees of latitude, where also are to be seen many walnut (or butternut), and hazel trees.”
This quotation will show how exact and conscientious the old French missionary was in his narration. Beamish Murdoch in Ibis History of Nova Scotia (Vol. 1, p. 21) ventures the observation, “It may perhaps be doubted if the French account about grapes is accurate, as they mention them to have been growing on the banks of the Saint John where, if wild grapes exist, they must be rare.” But Biard is right and Murdoch is wrong. Wild grapes naturally grow in great abundance on the islands and intervals of the River St. John and, in spite of the interference of the farmers, are still to be found as far north at least in Woodstock. Biard visited the St. John River in October, 1611, and stayed a day or two at a small trading post on an island near Oak Point. One of the islands in that vicinity the early English settlers afterwards called “Isle of Vines,” from the circumstance that wild grapes grew there in great profusion.