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Vermont officials rolled out a new school curriculum focused on Abenaki history in the state, but two Abenaki nations headquartered in Quebec said they were improperly excluded and accused the materials of reframing history in a way they believe harms their claims of ancestry in the northeastern United States.
The curriculum, called the “American Abenaki Curriculum,” was announced last month and overseen by the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, a state agency tasked with advocating for the Vermont-recognized groups. The curriculum’s development, Vermont officials said, proceeded without involving leaders from Odanak First Nation and Wolinak First Nation, which are based north of Montreal and assert that many members of groups in Vermont cannot claim legitimate Indigenous ancestry.
Odanak and Wolinak issued a joint statement assailing the curriculum and saying it excluded them from the process. In their criticism, the nations 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,” and they 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.”
The Vermont-recognized groups the curriculum is built around are headquartered across the state and include the Elnu Abenaki, Nulhegan Abenaki, Koasek Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation, and the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi. As the Quebec-based nations have pressed their objections more forcefully in recent years, they have faced rebukes from Vermont group leaders, who say they are defending their culture from attacks levied by former allies.
At a press conference on Dec. 18, Dan Coutu, chair of the Vermont Native American Affairs commission, said the point of the curriculum was to focus on “the experiences of Vermonters.” Coutu also said that Odanak and Wolinak leaders “have their own voice,” while the Vermont groups “have our voice,” adding, “They have their voice free to speak up, as they have. And now, it’s our turn.”
Vera Sheehan, a member of the Elnu group and one of the curriculum’s authors, said the website was largely complete but that more “bells and whistles” would be added in the coming months. Sheehan and the commission said the authors planned to create a printed version of the materials and launch a statewide outreach campaign to teachers, according to a press release from the Native American Affairs commission.
The curriculum includes digital resources and discussion topics for students in grades 3-12. On the curriculum website, the material describes its central question as: “How have the Abenaki people survived and adapted to their environment for thousands of years?”
During the announcement, the discussion became contentious toward the end. After two reporters asked questions about the material, Denise Watso, an Odanak citizen living in Albany, New York, said she was attending “as an observer” on behalf of the First Nation’s government and lambasted the curriculum as misleading. Several people then spoke at the same time, including others who criticized the presentation for not consulting Odanak and Wolinak; Watso was escorted out of the room by a security guard.
The rollout is also expected to trigger debate in the Vermont Statehouse when legislators return for a new session. Rep. Troy Headrick, I-Burlington, said he plans to introduce a bill that, if passed, could block the material as written from being used in schools. Headrick’s draft would require consultation with and endorsement from Odanak and Wolinak on any curriculum about Indigenous history before it is used in any Vermont school. In an interview, Headrick said, “We’ve given these state-identified groups a foothold through the state recognition process,” and “they’re exploiting that foothold in a pretty significant way — taking control of the narrative in ways that completely erase any narrative provided by the Abenaki at Odanak and Wolinak.”
Headrick said his bill has two additional sponsors, one Democratic and one Republican, though it was not clear whether the proposal would advance this session. Conor Kennedy, chief of staff to Democratic House Speaker Jill Krowinski, said Tuesday he was not sure whether Headrick’s legislation would see more committee attention in the upcoming legislative session.
The dispute follows intensified appeals by Odanak and Wolinak leaders in Vermont this fall, including efforts aimed at state legislators to reconsider prior tribal recognition decisions. In October, the nations published a report based on public records that they said examined about 15 generations of ancestry for five prominent members of Vermont’s recognized groups and found that the studied individuals were nearly 100% European. Genealogical research for the report was conducted by Darryl Leroux, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa. In a column published in November, leaders including Stevens, Brenda Gagne, and Shirly Hook criticized the report’s findings as “junk science, compiled with bias and full of factual and interpretive errors,” and Odanak’s tribal government said it emailed a link to the report to every state legislator in Vermont and New Hampshire.
Separately, the First Nations launched a campaign on some Vermont television stations—ABC22, FOX44, WCAX and Vermont Public—that they said would run for a year. In a press release, Jacques Watso, one of Odanak’s tribal councilors, 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.”