A New Dawn on an Old Sea, 1500–1600

The arrival of European fishermen, explorers, ships, and supplies in the sixteenth-century northeast emerged from the long-standing paradox that was the Wabanaki ocean. Indians first made sense of these novelties and then incorporated them into their world in the same spirit of cautious opportunism that guided their historic relationship to the sea. While they encountered foreign fishermen and adventurers with increasing regularity through the century, only a fraction of their quotidian exchanges were recorded. In these oftentimes fraught interactions Indians began to regard the attraction of European vessels. None of the exogenous innovations to their maritime world appeared more conspicuous to Indians than the sailing technology that transported the newcomers and their belongings. And none would be more quickly or thoroughly integrated into Native society. By the early seventeenth century, Indians were pursuing a number of avenues to the watercraft they now held in high esteem.