Dispute over Abenaki identity in Vermont grows more entrenched

“We’re going to keep on pushing this,” said the chief of an Abenaki tribe in Canada that maintains many members of Vermont’s state-recognized tribes aren’t Indigenous.

By Shaun Robinson
May 3, 2024, 2:15 pm

BURLINGTON — For the third time in as many years, a crowd filed into a conference room at the University of Vermont last Thursday evening for a panel about Indigenous belonging. The focus, once again, was on Vermont’s four state-recognized tribes.

Among the headline speakers was Darryl Leroux, a University of Ottawa associate professor who’s conducted leading research on Indigenous heritage in the region.

“There’s such obvious and compelling evidence that these groups do not represent Abenaki people in any way,” Leroux said during the panel, detailing the findings of a paper he published last year about Abenaki identity in and around Vermont.

“How,” he continued, “did the state of Vermont recognize them as such?”

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