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remnants of the large tribes whom the first settlers found in possession of the New England frontier, and who were driven from their homes through the ill treatment of the British Colonists.

While for convenience sake the term Nation has been used when referring to the Wapanaki tribes collectively, that term should be understood as applicable only in its widest sense. These people were related through descent from a common ancestry, but the tribes were not confederated. They were avowed friends, and this term means vastly more when applied to these sons of the forest than to any other race, but they were not held together by any such compact as that, for example, which bound the Iroquois League. The Wapanaki tribes had no legislative union, nor permanent general council, nor head chief. When a convention or council was to be held, the delegates from each tribe were chosen for the occasion, and when assembled they elected their own president.

In the treaty that was signed at Portsmouth in 1713, the Indians participating are described as those living on the "Plantations lying between the rivers St. John and Merrimak." Attached to this treaty are the signatures of the several delegates—two or more from each tribe.

The last time at which representatives of the Wapanaki nation met the white man in convention was in 1775, when General Washington invited the tribes to send delegates to Watertown to discuss with the Massachusetts council the relations of the Indians to the contending parties in the war of the revolution. At that convention the spokesman for the Indians was Ambrose Var, the Maliseet Sakum.

The ter-centenary of St. John will be in 1904.