New curriculum sparks rebuke across the U.S.-Canada border
Vermont officials and Indigenous group leaders unveiled a new school curriculum focused on Abenaki history, but the project immediately triggered a backlash from Odanak and Wolinak First Nations in Quebec. The Quebec-based nations said they were wrongly excluded from the curriculum’s development and that the resulting materials rewrite history and normalize cultural appropriation in education.
The curriculum, announced last month, is called the “American Abenaki Curriculum.” It was overseen by the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, a state government branch tasked with advocating for groups recognized by Vermont as Abenaki. Some commissioners also belong to those Vermont-recognized communities.
Vermont-recognized leaders said the curriculum’s purpose is to spotlight what they describe as their communities’ experience and history. At a press conference announcing the curriculum, Dan Coutu, chair of the commission, said the curriculum’s point was to focus on “the experiences of Vermonters,” and he said that Odanak and Wolinak have “their own voice,” while Vermont groups “have our voice.”
Odanak and Wolinak, which are headquartered north of Montreal but say they have members in what they consider unceded territory in the northeastern United States including Vermont, issued a joint statement attacking the curriculum. In their statement, they said: “There is no such thing as ‘American Abenaki,’ as Abenaki identity and Ndakina — the ancestral homeland of the Abenaki people — predate colonial borders and cannot be redefined by modern administrative categories.” The nations added that presenting a curriculum in the name of a reconfigured identity amounts to “trivializing the rewriting of history and normalizing cultural appropriation in public and educational spheres.”
At the heart of the dispute is how identity and ancestry claims are handled in state-recognition processes on either side of the border. Vermont groups headquartered across the state are the Elnu Abenaki, Nulhegan Abenaki, Koasek Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation and the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi. Leaders from those groups have accused Quebec-based nations of challenging the legitimacy of many Vermont group members’ Indigenous ancestry, and the new curriculum has become a fresh flashpoint in that argument.
According to the curriculum’s website, the project poses the question: “How have the Abenaki people survived and adapted to their environment for thousands of years?” The educational materials include numerous digital resources and discussion topics for students in grades 3-12. The curriculum authors said at the Dec. 18 press conference that they did not involve leaders from the Quebec-based nations because they were focused on history unique to the Vermont-recognized groups, and they said the curriculum includes some of the same sources those groups submitted to Vermont when applying for tribal recognition.
The press conference itself turned contentious after questions were raised about the materials. Denise Watso, an Odanak citizen who said she was attending “as an observer” for the First Nation’s government, stood up and criticized the curriculum as misleading. As people spoke over one another, two additional speakers questioned the presentation for excluding Odanak and Wolinak, and Watso was escorted out of the room by a security guard.
The curriculum’s rollout could also lead to action in Vermont’s legislature. Rep. Troy Headrick, I-Burlington, said he plans to introduce a bill that would prevent the materials, as written, from being used in Vermont schools unless Odanak and Wolinak are consulted and endorse any Indigenous-history curriculum. Headrick said the bill aims to ensure that state-identified groups have not been given a “foothold” through recognition only for someone to “exploit” it by “taking control of the narrative” that, he said, erases narratives provided by Abenaki at Odanak and Wolinak.
Headrick said the draft bill would include two additional sponsors—one Democrat and one Republican—but it was unclear whether it would move forward in the legislative session beginning after lawmakers return this month. He also said he introduced a separate bill at the start of the 2025 legislative session—House 362—that would create a task force to reexamine Vermont’s past tribal recognition decisions; that bill received only a brief hearing and did not advance to substantial committee discussion this year.
The curriculum dispute comes amid intensified appeals from Odanak and Wolinak leaders in Vermont to reconsider past tribal recognition decisions. In October, the nations published a lengthy report based on public records that, they said, examined about 15 generations of ancestry for five prominent members of Vermont’s recognized groups, and concluded that the people studied were nearly 100% European. In response, Stevens, Gagne and Hook said the report was “junk science, compiled with bias and full of factual and interpretive errors,” according to a column published in November. Odanak’s tribal government also said it emailed a link to the report to every Vermont and New Hampshire legislator, and the First Nations began a one-year television campaign making the case that Vermont’s state-recognized tribes are not legitimate Indigenous communities.
In a statement issued with the television campaign, Jacques Watso, an Odanak tribal councilor, said: “It is essential that everyone understand the reality of our identity,” adding, “We will continue this work with consistency and determination. The truth cannot be ignored.”