The traces of Abenaki Native Americans are continuously being discovered in the state, while their descendants continue the fight for recognition.

Presenters Sherry Gould and Daryl Peasley, members of the Nulhegan-Abenaki tribe, spoke at Jaffrey Civic Center Thursday about Native American presence in the state and ongoing work to catalog sites and seek recognition as a tribe from the state of New Hampshire.

The talk was part of a history lecture series being hosted by the Jaffrey Historical Society, in honor of the town’s 250th anniversary celebrations.

Gould, the first Abenaki tribal member to be elected to the state House of Representatives, spoke of the ongoing effort to be recognized by the state as a tribe. The tribe she and Peasley are part of is based in Vermont, despite the both of them being New Hampshire residents. While Vermont has officially recognized four individual Abenaki bands, New Hampshire has not recognized any. New Hampshire is the only New England state with no recognized tribes.

Peasley said since the start of the conversation on officially recognizing Abenaki tribes, he has heard representatives say that no Abenaki lived in the state – that it was a “pass through” area.

While many – as many as 90 percent – of Abenaki may have been wiped out by diseases brought by European settlers, and some history accounts report that Abenaki bands were entirely wiped out by 1725, Gould said town histories contradict that. Archeological evidence has shown Native American presence living a traditional lifestyle as late as 1800, and anecdotal accounts often also bypass the 1725 date.

Currently, there are about 2,400 people in the New Hampshire census who identify as Native American, Gould said, and the Nulhegan Abenaki Band has about 400 registered members. Gould was a sponsor of a bill in 2022 to recognize the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, but the bill was determined to be inexpedient to legislate.

“I knew I would face some pushback, but it was brutal,” Gould said.

Peasley and Gould spoke of the importance of recognition to them personally. Gould, who makes traditional Abenaki baskets, could not, under federal law, market her work as Native-made, since the right to do so is limited to members of state or federally recognized tribe members, among other protections.

Gould and Peasley have been working with a group called the Abenaki Trails Project to collect data on and catalog sites across the state. The project works with town’s historical societies to identify sites and does research to record their meaning and uses for Abenaki people historically and currently. 

Professor Bob Goodby, a professor of anthropology at Franklin Pierce University, spoke of some of the sites that he has helped to excavate, which show evidence of Abenaki presence as far back as 13,000 years ago. Goodby was part of an excavation around a historical Native American fish dam built of stones in Swanzey. Goodby said there is evidence that this was a shared technology, and similar dams have been found across the United States, but the Swanzey dam was the first well-studied site in New Hampshire.

“We haven’t been looking for them, but now that we know they’re here, we’re finding them everywhere,” Goodby said.

 For more information of the Abenaki Trails Project, visit abenakitrails.com, or the Abenaki Trails Project Facebook or Instagram pages.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.