Abenaki Daring

de Jean Barman

"An Abenaki born in 1792 in St. Francis, Quebec, Noel Annance was by virtue of his descent from two white captives privileged to attend Dartmouth College, the only North American institution then admitting indigenous students. Determined to be the person he had been educated to become, Noel was all his life caught between two ways of being, neither of which accepted him among their numbers. Despite exemplary service in the War of 1812, he was too indigenous to be allowed to succeed in the fur trade, too civilized to be accepted by those in charge on returning home. He did not belong. All his life Noel dared on the pattern of his Abenaki great uncle, grandfather, and father. For a third of a century to his death in 1869, he wrote the truth to persons in positions of authority who might have changed the course of Canadian history had they followed up. Some of Noel's writings are reproduced to permit him to speak for himself. Against these are juxtaposed others' perspectives in forms ranging from government documents to personal observations. Noel Annance's life and writings demonstrate how the exclusionary policies towards indigenous peoples generally considered to have originated with the Indian Act of 1876 were well in place upwards to half a century earlier. Moving ahead in time, Abenaki Daring speaks to the similar barriers still preventing many well educated indigenous persons seeking to belong from reaching their full potential."--