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Treaty of Portsmouth (1713)
Encyclopedia
Province of Massachusetts Bay
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a crown colony in North America. It was chartered on October 7, 1691 by William and Mary, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of England and Scotland...
. The agreement renewed a treaty of 1693 the Indians had made with Governor William Phips
William Phips
Sir William Phips was a shipwright, ship's captain, treasure hunter, military leader, and the first royally-appointed governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay....
, two in a series of attempts to establish peace between Indians and colonists during the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
s.
Queen Anne's War
During the War of Spanish Succession, FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
began a conflict with England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
which would extend to their colonies. Called Queen Anne's War
Queen Anne's War
Queen Anne's War , as the North American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession was known in the British colonies, was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought between France and England, later Great Britain, in North America for control of the continent. The War of the...
in the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
, New France
New France
New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...
openly fought New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
for domination of the region between them, with the French enlisting the Abenaki tribes inhabiting it as allies. Occasionally under French command, Indians attacked numerous English settlements along the Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
coast, including Casco (now Portland
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
), Scarborough, Saco
Saco, Maine
Saco is a city in York County, Maine, United States. The population was 18,482 at the 2010 census. It is home to Ferry Beach State Park, Funtown Splashtown USA, Thornton Academy, as well as General Dynamics Armament Systems , a subsidiary of the defense contractor General Dynamics...
, Wells
Wells, Maine
Wells is a town in York County, Maine, United States. Founded in 1643, it is the third-oldest town in Maine. The population was 9,400 at the 2000 census. Wells Beach is a popular summer destination.-History:...
, York
York, Maine
York is a town in York County, Maine, United States at the southwest corner of the state. The population in the 2000 census was 12,854. Situated beside the Atlantic Ocean on the Gulf of Maine, York is a well-known summer resort. It is home to three 18-hole golf clubs, three sandy beaches, and...
and Berwick, in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
at Hampton
Hampton, New Hampshire
Hampton is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 14,976 at the 2010 census. Located beside the Atlantic Ocean, Hampton is home to Hampton Beach, a summer tourist destination....
, Dover
Dover, New Hampshire
Dover is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, in the United States of America. The population was 29,987 at the 2010 census, the largest in the New Hampshire Seacoast region...
, Oyster River Plantation (now Durham
Durham, New Hampshire
As of the census of 2000, there were 12,664 people, 2,882 households, and 1,582 families residing in the town. The population density was 565.5 people per square mile . There were 2,923 housing units at an average density of 130.5 per square mile...
) and Exeter
Exeter, New Hampshire
Exeter is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The town's population was 14,306 at the 2010 census. Exeter was the county seat until 1997, when county offices were moved to neighboring Brentwood...
, and down into Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
at Haverhill
Haverhill, Massachusetts
Haverhill is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 60,879 at the 2010 census.Located on the Merrimack River, it began as a farming community that would evolve into an important industrial center, beginning with sawmills and gristmills run by water power. In the...
, Groton
Groton, Massachusetts
Groton is a town located in northwestern Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The population was 10,646 at the 2010 census. It is home to two noted prep schools: Groton School, founded in 1884, and Lawrence Academy at Groton, founded in 1793. The historic town hosts the National Shepley Hill Horse...
and Deerfield
Deerfield, Massachusetts
Deerfield is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 4,750 as of the 2000 census. Deerfield is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area in Western Massachusetts, lying only north of the city of Springfield.Deerfield includes the...
, site of the Deerfield Massacre
Deerfield massacre
The Raid on Deerfield occurred during Queen Anne's War on February 29, 1704, when French and Native American forces under the command of Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville attacked the English settlement at Deerfield, Massachusetts just before dawn, burning part of the town and killing 56...
. Houses were burned, and the inhabitants either killed or abducted to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. The Treaty of Utrecht
Treaty of Utrecht
The Treaty of Utrecht, which established the Peace of Utrecht, comprises a series of individual peace treaties, rather than a single document, signed by the belligerents in the War of Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht in March and April 1713...
in 1713, however, restored peace between France and England. As part of the agreement, Acadia
Acadia
Acadia was the name given to lands in a portion of the French colonial empire of New France, in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine. At the end of the 16th century, France claimed territory stretching as far south as...
fell under English sovereignty. When the Indians realized that they could no longer depend on the French for protection, the sachem
Sachem
A sachem[p] or sagamore is a paramount chief among the Algonquians or other northeast American tribes. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms from different Eastern Algonquian languages...
s sought a truce, and proposed a peace conference to be held at Casco. Governor Joseph Dudley
Joseph Dudley
Joseph Dudley was an English colonial administrator. A native of Roxbury, Massachusetts and son of one of its founders, he had a leading role in the administration of the unpopular Dominion of New England , and served briefly on the council of the Province of New York, where he oversaw the trial...
agreed to a conference, but chose instead to host it at Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth is a city in Rockingham County, New Hampshire in the United States. It is the largest city but only the fourth-largest community in the county, with a population of 21,233 at the 2010 census...
, which was protected by the guns of Fort William and Mary
Fort William and Mary
Fort William and Mary was a colonial defensive post on the island of New Castle, New Hampshire at the mouth of the Piscataqua River estuary. First fortified by the British in 1632, the fort guarded access to the harbor at Portsmouth....
. For a more detailed timeline of events leading from first contact to the 1713 Treaty, see references and resources.
Articles of agreement
On July 11, 1713, Governor Dudley and various dignitaries from New Hampshire and Massachusetts Bay (which then extended into Maine) met with delegates from Abenaki tribes, including the Amasacontee, Maliseet, NorridgewockNorridgewock
The Norridgewock were a band of the Abenaki Native Americans/First Nations, an Eastern Algonquian tribe of the United States and Canada. The tribe occupied an area in Maine to the west and northwest of the Penawapskewi tribe, which was located on the western bank of the Penobscot River...
, Pennacook
Pennacook
The Pennacook, also known by the names Merrimack and Pawtucket, were a North American people that primarily inhabited the Merrimack River valley of present-day New Hampshire and Massachusetts, as well as portions of southern Maine...
, Penobscot and Sokoki. The agreement was read aloud by sworn interpreters to the sachems, eight of whom on July 13 signed with totem
Totem
A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe.Totems support larger groups than the individual person. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem...
ic pictographs. Others would do so the following year after similar interpretation at another convention. "Being sensible of our great offense and folly," the Indians agreed to:
- acknowledge themselves submissive, obedient subjects of Queen AnneAnne of Great BritainAnne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...
- cease all acts of hostility towards subjects of Great Britain and their estates
- allow English settlers to return to their former settlements without molestation or claims by the Indians
- trade only at English trading postTrading postA trading post was a place or establishment in historic Northern America where the trading of goods took place. The preferred travel route to a trading post or between trading posts, was known as a trade route....
s established, managed and regulated with governmental approval - not come near English plantations or settlements below the Saco RiverSaco RiverThe Saco River is a river in northeastern New Hampshire and southwestern Maine in the United States. It drains a rural area of of forests and farmlands west and southwest of Portland, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean at Saco Bay, from its source. It supplies drinking water to roughly 250,000...
, "to prevent mischiefs and inconveniences" - address all grievances in an English court, rather than in "private revenge"
- confess that they had broken peace agreements made in 1693, 1699, 1702 and 1703, and now ask for forgiveness and mercy
- not make any "perfidious treaty or correspondence" [with the French] against the English; should any exist, to reveal it "seasonally"
- cast themselves upon Her Majesty for mercy and pardon for past rebellions, hostilities and violations of their promises
Aftermath
Despite their promise, the English failed to establish official trading posts selling cheap goods at honest prices to the Indians. Tribes were forced to continue exchanging their furs with private traders, who were notorious for cheating them. In addition, Indians regarded as threats the British blockhouseBlockhouse
In military science, a blockhouse is a small, isolated fort in the form of a single building. It serves as a defensive strong point against any enemy that does not possess siege equipment or, in modern times, artillery...
s being built on their lands. Their discontent was instigated by Sebastien Rale
Sébastien Rale
Sébastien Rale, , , was a Jesuit missionary and lexicographer who worked among the eastern Abenaki people, but became caught up in political and military struggles between New France, New England and the natives, which would claim his life during Dummer's War.-Early years:Born in Pontarlier, France,...
and other French Jesuit priests embedded with the tribes and promoting New France interests. In defiance of the Treaty of Portsmouth, the Abenakis resumed raids on the encroaching English settlements. Consequently, on July 25, 1722, Governor Samuel Shute
Samuel Shute
Samuel Shute was a military officer and royal governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. After serving in the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession, he was appointed by King George I as governor of Massachusetts in 1716...
declared war against the Eastern Indians in what would be called Dummer's War
Dummer's War
Dummer's War , also known as Lovewell's War, Father Rale's War, Greylock's War, the Three Years War, the 4th Indian War or the Wabanaki-New England War of 1722–1725, was a series of battles between British settlers of the three northernmost British colonies of North America of the time and the...
. Boundary struggles between New France and New England would continue until the Treaty of Paris
Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War...
in 1763.