Swan Island Captives of 1750

Date: 1750 to 1761
Location: Swan Island, Maine
Surname/tag: Noble, Whidden

SWAN ISLAND. . .

THEN AND NOW

Contents 1 "SLAVES FAIRLY SOLD": Captivity of the Lazarus Noble Family in Canada, 1750 1.1 The Raid 1.2 Captivity 1.3 Return 1.4 Frances 1.5 Afterlife 1.6 Sources

"SLAVES FAIRLY SOLD": Captivity of the Lazarus Noble Family in Canada, 1750

By J. Miller

LAZARUS NOBLE was born in 1716, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire where his forebears (Noble, Peverly and Walford) had lived for almost a hundred years. After marriage to Abigail Whidden, he went to live with her and the family of her father James Whidden on Swan Island, Maine, owned by Whidden.

The island was raided on September 8, 1750 by a party of Indians retaliating for the murder of one of their tribe by (other) white settlers nearby. They took the Noble family, including their seven children, two of the Whiddens and two servants captive and brought them to Canada. They were taken to mission settlements between Quebec and Montreal, where Indians, converted to Catholicism, lived under Jesuit religious leadership but were legally autonomous and free (by the French encouraged) to range southward for hunting and raiding into their tribal lands now occupied by the British.

Most of the Swan Island party was ransomed and repatriated in July 1751, including Lazarus and Abigail and four of their children -- John (turned 14 in 1750), Mary (12), Martha (8 or 10) and Benjamin (5 or 6).

Three Noble children remained in Canada at that point. Joseph (7 or 8 in 1750) was adopted by the Indians and then possibly by a French family and remained in Canada, with nothing known of his later life. Frances (3) was adopted by a French family and was re-baptized, renamed and educated as a French-speaking Catholic, but was forcibly removed and returned to New England when she was 14, after Britain annexed Canada. Abigail (under a year old when taken) was adopted by Indians. It is usually said that she probably died in infancy but there is no evidence one way or the other.

Image:Swan Island Captives of 1750-6.jpg

Swan Island is in the Kennebec River in southern Maine, opposite the town of Richmond. (Not to be confused with Swan's Island which is off the coast below Bar Harbor, about 70 miles "down east".)

Captives were taken north to Indian settlements on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River, near Trois-Rivières, a trip of 300 to 400 miles by road today.

The Raid

IN 1750, Swan Island was an isolated frontier settlement, with an English army outpost, Fort Richmond, on the mainland nearby (now Richmond, ME). This was a period of constant conflict between colonists of New England and Canadian New France, and the Indians who generally allied themselves with the French. The tensions reflected both the international power struggle between Britain and France -- they fought four wars between 1689 and 1763 -- and Native American resistance to English encroachment upon their lands in New England. Strife was persistent until 1760 when British conquest of Canada eliminated the French threat and allowed the Indians to be subdued in the absence of French assistance and sanctuary.

Armed raids by both sides, with killing, destruction of property and taking of captives, were a recurring feature of these conflicts. One study has identified 1641 captives taken to Canada between 1675 and 1763. Of which 90% were civilians, for the most part taken by Indians or Indians jointly with French troops.^[1]

Best documented is the raid by French soldiers and Indians upon Deerfield, Massachusetts in 1704. One of the captives, Puritan minister John Williams, published an account of the ordeal, Redeemed Captive, in 1707, the year after his return.^[2] Historian John Demos has written a modern study, The Unredeemed Captive, focusing on the story of Williams's daughter Eunice who was adopted by the Indians, married and had children within the tribe, and was never repatriated, but did have intermittent contact throughout her life including visits to Massachusetts.^[3]

Raymond's Wigwam.

The Nobles' experience must have been similar, with a somewhat similar outcome for some of the children. We don't have as much direct documentation. But there are materials regarding the Swan Island captives, principally in the Massachusetts Archives, which have been described and partially reproduced by Alice Baker,^[4] Henry Thayer^[5] and Emma Coleman.^[6] Thayer and Coleman provide narratives of the Swan Island incident. And Samuel Drake published an account attributed to Frances Noble, in 1844,^[7] with a subsequent edition in 1853.^[8] However Frances's account was taken down in her later years and conveyed second or third hand, hence probably not reliable in detail.^[6]

According to James Whidden's contemporaneous account about 60 Indians from Norridgewock, ME, about 50 miles north of Swan Island, and the Canadian settlement of St. François, crossed to the island early in the morning on Sept. 8, 1750, and took everyone they found captive. Whidden and his wife escaped capture by pulling up a floorboard in their bedroom and hiding among some barrels in the cellar. They could hear the others being rounded up and heard one of the older Noble daughters ask to be allowed (and apparently she was) to go back to the house for milk for the baby. Two of Whidden's adult sons were taken, along with Lazarus, Abigail, all of their children, and two servants. The war party then attacked the fort on the mainland, apparently without much effect, before proceeding north with their captives.^[6]

Britain and France were nominally at peace when the Swan Island raid occurred, and French troops did not participate. But an Indian had been murdered by whites at the nearby town of Wiscasset in December 1749. Colonial authorities made arrests and were convinced of the suspects' guilt. However white juries would not convict. The attack on Swan Island was one of several raids taken in retaliation after several months of inaction.^[5][9]

While the French did not take part directly, their officials instigated and funded the attacks. The relatives of the murder victim seem to have been satisfied with compensation provided by the British colonial government in lieu of judicial convictions, in keeping with Indian custom which allowed for monetary compensation to victims' relatives as one way of expiating a crime. ^[9] The murdered man's widow was initially paid £19, 10s., 6d. in food, clothing and other goods^[6], the present equivalent of about $5000^[10], with apparently more later on.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography

But Quebec Governor François Bigot persuaded the Abenakis at the Canadian settlements that "disgrace . . . would rebound on their nation, should they leave this crime unpunished." He made "some small trifling presents to engage them to this act of vengeance" -- as he proudly reported to his superiors in Paris -- and "had them supplied also with provisions to enable them to reach the other Abenaquis villages" in Maine. He reported that 150 Abenakis and Algonquins had left the St. Lawrence villages on August 4, 1750, expecting to be reinforced by Abenakis in New England.^[11]

Bigot says that the Abenakis had asked for participation by the Iroquois from the settlement of Kahnawake near Montreal. Too bad, he thought, since the Iroquois were more sympathetic to the English, so they probably wouldn't participate and might send warning. He seems to have been right on both counts. Steven Williams (son of John, a captive in the Deerfield incident, now a minister in western Mass.) noted in his diary for July 31, 1750 that a "post from Allbany" brought "news of 200 Indians come out to seek revenge".^[3] Friendly Abenakis in New England also apparently gave some warning of impending attacks,^[9] but to no avail for the Swan Islanders.

How the captives were treated is not directly recorded. As a general rule, in this era, torture of Indian captives was unusual, rape unheard of.^[3][6] In contrast to the Deerfield incident, all of the Swan Islanders appear to have survived the trek into Canada. Perhaps because of the season (September vs. February). John Williams reported that the French and Indians did not deliberately abuse the Deerfield captives and carried some of the children when they couldn't walk. But the conditions were rugged and the pace unrelenting, and some adults, including his wife, were killed when they could not keep up.

Captivity

THE DESTINATIONS for the Nobles and Whiddens were Becancour and St. François, two Abenaki settlements along the St. Lawrence River, between Quebec and Montreal. These were mission settlements established by French Jesuits. And these Indians were Catholics. But they retained legal and political autonomy. Effectively, the settlements were refugee camps for Abenakis displaced by English encroachment. They tended to attract, and no doubt to produce, those who were the most militant in their resistance to white colonists, while Abenakis who remained within British-claimed areas tended to be more conciliatory.^[9] Hence those most directly affected by the Wiscasset murder were ready to make an accommodation with the English for their personal loss, while those from the Canadian settlements, urged on by the French, saw the incident as an outrage requiring revenge.

It was no consolation to the New Englanders that their captors were Christians and affiliated with other Europeans. It simply meant that these were not just Indians, but "French Popish Indians", in the words of Cotton Mather, and therefore trebly despicable.^[3]

Wikipedia.

The Abenakis conducted raids and captive-taking as retaliatory measures for English offenses and incursions, and many colonists were killed in the initial attacks (though not at Swan Island). Captives were taken north either to be retained by the tribe usually by adoption often to replace losses in warfare, or to be sold to the French.

A list of captives dated Feb. 1752 includes names of the Nobles and prices paid for each by New France Colonists, except for two who remained with the Indians. The list was obtained by Phineas Stevens and Nathaniel Wheewright, emissaries appointed by the British administration to repatriate the captives.^[6][4][5] The values are in French livres (F£ 1 ≈ $11.24 today).^[10]

Lazarus: Bought by Lord Charlour for F£200, clothes provided for F£40.

Abgail: M. Decouagne, F£260, clothes F£122.

John: Lord Cadet, F£150.

Mary: By same, F£184.

Mathew [actually Martha]: Lord Amiot, amount not given.

Benjamin: M. Du May, F£200.

Joseph: With the Indians at St. François.

Frances: M. St. Ange, F£300.

Abigail: With Indians at Becancour.

The motivations and intentions of the French in buying captives from the Indians were not always clear, nor is the status of the captives in French custody either clear or consistent. Immediately after the raid, the Massachusetts colonial Governor protested to the Governor of Quebec over this hostile action in time of peace (Maine was part of Massachusetts until 1820). The French official replied that he had no control over the Indians, but would require any French subjects to return captives they had purchased, upon reimbursement for expenses.^[6] But in 1753 a subsequent French Governor reneged on that, disavowing his ability to return Frances and another young captive: "As it is Evident that they are slaves fairly sold I did not think proper to oblige their masters to give them up, which would have been done without any Difficulty, if they had been Prisoners of war." ^[4]

The legal basis for enslaving white persons in New France appears to have been ill-defined. Ownership of Africans and Indians was explicitly codified in French law, but not ownership of Europeans -- which did not occur anywhere else in French dominions.^[12] Evidently the Canadian French had assimilated themselves to some extent to the Indians' customs regarding handling of captives on, if you will, a color-blind basis. The ambiguity would account for the inconsistent statements by different French officials regarding the government's authority over the captives in French hands. No official appears to have questioned the right of French colonists to purchase captives, as "slaves". The question was whether the government could compel them to ransom the captives back. In the case of the Nobles, all who were held by the French when sought were returned.

French officials often claimed that captives were purchased away from the Indians for humanitarian reasons, to release them from the "savages" pending repatriation. And that may well have been one motivation. Return required reimbursement, but I have seen nothing to suggest that the French purchasers made substantial profits in the process (if my monetary conversions are valid).^[10]

Through the period French and Indian conflict overall, a majority of captives appear to have returned to New England (46% are known to have returned, the fate of another 22% is unknown, some presumably returned). Fourteen percent (229) of captives remained in Canada, probably for the most part either voluntarily or as children too young to make their own choice. The balance of 18% died or were killed. Most of those remaining were assimilated with the French (202), the rest with Indians.^[1] Although they were initially treated and traded as "slaves", it appears that at least most of the captives who remained in Canada did not remain in a servile status, among either the French or the Indians.

Of the Nobles, Infant Abigail was retained by the Indians, Joseph probably by the Indians, and Frances, for some years, by the French.

Return

SIX OF THE NOBLES were returned in July 1751, including Lazarus, Abigail, their children John, Mary, Martha and Benjamin, along with the two Whidden sons and the servants. They came back by way of Albany, NY, as a result of negotiations and payments by representatives sent to Canada by the colonial government in Boston.^[6] Most of the hostage transfers and transactions took place through New York State, where there were well-established trading routes and contacts with Montreal.

J. Miller, 2004.

The Nobles returned to Swan Island, and fortified their house with a stockade.^[6][5]

Efforts for release of Joseph and Frances continued after the return of the others. It appears that they pretty much gave up hope for retrieving the infant Abigail, who was last reported to be with the Indians at Becancour in July 1752.^[4]. Thayer says that "in after years the family gained intelligence of her death", but he does not elaborate (or substantiate).^[5]

In June of 1753 Lazarus was authorized to return to Canada along with Benjamin Mitchell who likewise had children in captivity in order to attempt repatriation, with apparently some financial support from the colonial government. With them they brought Anthony Van Schaack of Albany as interpreter. He had played a part in the release of Lazarus and the others two years before. Coleman and it appears Lazarus himself credited Van Schaack with the principal role in negotiating that release, but that seems dubious, for a number of reasons, above all because when they arrived in Montreal they were immediately expelled from Canada due to the presence of Van Schaack. The French Governor later explained that this was because Van Schaack was a "suspected Character" and persona non grata. He didn't say suspected of what; Baker says Van Schaack had been in prison in Canada, she doesn't say for what. ^[6][4]

I suspect that Van Schaack had merely been a guide in conveying the captives back to Albany in the previous transaction, while the actual negotiations for the Nobles' release were conducted by Phineas Stevens and another Massachusetts emissary, Nathaniel Wheelwright. Wheewright was commissioned to try again for the releases in November, 1753. This mission too almost came to grief. Wheelwright reported to the Massachusetts Governor that upon arrival he was accused of espionage, with allegations that on his previous visit he had brought along an engineer disguised as a servant who had made drawings of French defenses. All this was taking place within an atmosphere of permanent suspicion between English and French. Cold war prevailed even when hot war was suspended. Wheelwright denied the charge and apparently was believed, and he proceeded with his mission. He concludes his report from Montreal with prudent circumspection: "Your Excellency will excuse my not giving you a particular account of the Country. They have had a plentiful summer and a very fine Harvest in this part of the Country."^[4]

Ultimately Wheelwright was unsuccessful where the Noble children were concerned. There is no indication that he was able to trace the whereabouts of Joseph or Abigail, presumably both with the Indians at this point. He did get a line on Frances.

Frances

IT WAS KNOWN, from Stevens's report of Feb. 1752, that Frances had been bought by a M. Saint-Ange of Montreal. Saint-Ange and his wife evidently were anxious to keep her, and he played a bit of cat-and-mouse with the English searchers and French authorities, successfully, for a time.

Wheelwright reported that in the summer of 1752 he had talked with Saint-Ange, who told him "with great grief" that Frances had died. But in the fall of 1753 Wheelwright found out that she was alive, and Saint-Ange admitted as much, but said she was staying at a convent in Trois-Rivières. Wheelwright obtained authority from the French Governor to repatriate Frances from the convent, but there he was told she had been reclaimed by the Indian woman at the nearby settlement of Becancour who had sold her to Saint-Ange in the first place. The Becancour woman was contacted and accepted a ransom for Frances, then refused to turn her over (and returned the money).

The Canadian Governor promised to arrange for Frances's release after Wheelwright's departure but it did not happen. He wrote his counterpart in Boston that "I cannot answer for the Inclinations of the Indians in this Case for there is nothing so difficult as to get their slaves from them, especially when they have distributed them among their Wigwams to make up for their Dead." ^[6][4]

But it is clear that the Indians returned Frances to Saint-Ange, probably soon after Wheelwright left and the heat was off. It seems likely that Saint-Ange turned her over to the Becancour woman to evade the Governor's orders for her return (and it looks like the woman then opened further bidding between Wheelwright and Saint-Ange).

According to Frances's later account, the Saint-Ange family had recently lost a baby.^[8] At F£300 (about $3400) they had paid the highest price for her of any of the Nobles. Evidently it wasn't just the Indians who sought captives "to make up for their Dead".

Frances was six years old in November 1753. She had been re-baptized as a Catholic with a new name, Eleanor, according to Wheelwright. Coleman believes that a baptismal record from March 1753 pertains to Frances, as Marie Ursule Elaine. She was happy it would appear, at a convent school under the guardianship of the Saint-Ange family. At any rate when efforts were renewed for her return she did not want to go.

But by then it was 1761, and the British had conquered Canada. They could take direct action for return of captives once located. A mission for this purpose was sent from Massachusetts in August 1761, headed by Samuel Harnden who was commissioned to seek out "Elinor Noble" as well as his own grandchildren who had been captured separately. He found Frances at the convent, with the assistance of the redoubtable Mr. Van Schaack, now freed from French interdiction of his "suspected" dealings in Canada. With a warrant from the British government and assistance of British soldiers, Harnden removed Frances from the keeping of the nuns and returned her to Boston by sea. She was now 14, eleven years after capture.

When repatriated to New England she could not speak English. She is said to have stayed in Boston after repatriation in order learn English.^[13] She may have returned to Swan Island for a time but her parents both died by 1769 and her brothers sold off the Noble property by 1770. According to Drake she ultimately went to live with a relative in Newbury, MA. She later taught school.^[14]

Frances was married twice, to Jonathan Tilton who died in 1798 and then to John Shute. As Mrs. Shute she died in Newmarket, NH in 1819, at 71 or 72. No mention of any children.^[6]

Afterlife

THE NOBLES who returned to Swan Island remained in peacible possession behind their palisade apparently for some years. Mary married Caleb Goodwin of Berwick, ME, in perhaps 1760. Martha is said to have died shortly after her return but there is no confirmation. Lazarus died in probably 1763, Abigail in perhaps 1769.

John and Benjamin sold the Swan Island property after their mother's death and forged new lives and new families in the back-country up-river on the Kennebec. Benjamin for a time operated a ferry across the river at Clinton, at a the locaton still referred to as Noble's Ferry. They ultimately settled in Fairfield opposite Clinton where a number of descendants remained (and perhaps remain) in later years.

Swan Island eventually became a town of about 100 people but is now a wildlife preserve.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Alden T. Vaughan and Daniel K. Richter, "Crossing the Cultural Divide: Indians and New Englanders, 1605-1763", Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, v. 90 (1989), pt. 1, pp. 23ff; Online.
2. ↑ John Williams, The redeemed captive returning to Zion; or, The captivity and deliverance of Rev. John Williams of Deerfield (Springfield, MA: The H. R. Huntting company, 1707; Amherst, MA: UMass Press, 1976), Archive.org.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3} John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America (New York: Knopf: 1994), pp. 222, 80, 95.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6} C. Alice Baker True Stories of New England Captives, Carried to Canada During the Old French and Indian Wars (Cambridge, MA: Author, 1897; Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1990), pp. 341-53; Archive.org.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4} Henry O. Thayer, "The Indian's Administration of Justice: The Sequel to the Wiscasset Tragedy", Collections and Proceedings of the Maine Historical Society, 2nd Ser., vol. X (1899), pp. 185-211; Archive.org.
6. ↑ ^{6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11} Emma Lewis Coleman, New England captives carried to Canada between 1677 and 1760, during the French and Indian wars (2 vols., Portland, Me: Southworth Press, 1925), 2:241-258, I:43.
7. ↑ Samuel Gardner Drake, Tragedies of the Wilderness (Boston: Antiquarian Bookstore and Institute, 1844), p. 165 Archive.org.
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Samuel Gardner Drake, Indian captivities, or, Life in the wigwam : being true narratives of captives who have been carried away be the Indians, from the frontier settlements of the United States. . . (Buffalo, NY: Derby, Orton & Mulligan, 1853) p. 165 Archive.org.
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3} David L. Ghere and Alvin H. Morrison, "Searching for Justice on the Maine Frontier: Legal Concepts, Treaties, and the 1749 Wiscasset Incident", American Indian Quarterly, XXV, No. 3 (Summer 2001), pp. 378-399.
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1 10.2} Historical monetary conversions are problematic but useful if understood as rough approximations -- and necessary if the numbers are to mean anything. Conversions of 1750 British pounds and French livres to today's dollars are based on:

    • Current (Apr. 2023) conversion of British £ to U.S. $ at 0.8 : 1
    • Historic conversion of 1750 £ to 2023 $ at 1 : 257. This is an average of conversions derived from three online sourses: Futureboy.us; MeasuringWorth.com; and Historical UK inflation.
    • Statement by Thayer (196n) that the French livre was worth 10.5 "pence sterling", which would be 0.04375 pounds and calculates to one 1752 F£ = $11.24 in today's dollars.

    I am following Thayer in interpreting the numbers on Stevens's list as French livres rather than British pounds. If Abigail's clothes cost £122 pounds and that's British, it translates to over $30,000 vs. about $1400 based on livres.
11. ↑ Bigot's official report dated 6 Aug. 1750; E.B. O'Callaghan, Documents relative to the colonial history of the state of New York (Albany: 1858 ) X:218-19. Archive.org.
12. ↑ Christopher L. Miller, "'Slaves' in My Family: French Modes of Servitude in the New World", Eva Sansavoir, et al., eds., Caribbean Globalizations, 1492 to the Present Day (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015).
13. ↑ Frank Albert Davis, Christopher Noble of Portsmouth, N.H. and Some of His Descendants (Pamphlet, 1941?; published as installments in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, v. 94 (Oct. 1940) and v. 95 (1941)), p. 10, FamilySearch.org.
14. ↑ Samuel Gardner Drake, Indian captivities, or, Life in the wigwam: being true narratives of captives who have been carried away be the Indians, from the frontier settlements of the United States... (Buffalo, NY: Derby, Orton & Mulligan, 1853), pp. 165ff, Archive.org.