The Treaty of Portsmouth 

From the time that the French established a fort at Port Royal in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada in 1607 and the English settled Plimouth in what is now Massachusetts in 1620, their national rivalries played out against the indigenous tribes that had inhabited the northeast North American coast for 10,000 years: the tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy, or "people of the dawnland."

Alliances, compromises and treaties marked the centuries between Sebastian Cabot's explorations (1497) and the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) that ended Queen Anne's War between France and England. The War, lasting from 1702 to 1713, was in New England the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought by France and England for control of the northern New England and Canadian maritime provinces.

While most of the war (also known as the War of the Spanish Succession) was fought in Europe, there were three theatres in North America:  Spanish Florida and the English Province of Carolina; the English colonies of New England, and the French in Acadia and Canada; and the settlement at St. John's Newfoundland.  By signing the Treaty of Utrecht, the French relinquished  their claims to territories in Hudson Bay, Acadia and Newfoundland to the British, who then attempted to establish their hegemony over the New England tribes who had fought with the French (and who in some cases remained unallied with either the French or British).

The 1713/1714 Treaty of Portsmouth between the English and some members of the Wabanaki tribes along the Atlantic coast was an attempt to end what was to be years of resurgent French and Indian wars that terrorized the New England frontier. At Portsmouth in 1713, Individual sachems, translators and Jesuit missionaries tried to work with the  British colonial governments and military to find accommodation, so that the tribes could preserve their culture on the seasonal hunting, fishing and village grounds. But the peace of the Treaty of Portsmouth was temporary and the wars continued until the last French and Indian War of 1755-63.

A simple explanation of the context that preceded the 1713 Treaty of Portsmouth compares the French experience in North America with the British. The French had limited territorial desires beyond establishing forts manned by small military garrisons to protect France's fishing and fur trading interests. As a Catholic nation, the French outposts soon acquired Jesuit missionaries, who lived with and connected with the native tribes as well. In contrast, the English were committed to settlement and territorial expansion in North America and were vigorously and politically opposed to the "Papist Catholics" and often considered the native tribes as "savages." They built large forts, cleared the land that the tribes had considered to be their traditional hunting and fishing grounds and had a habit of ignoring agreements they made with the tribal representatives who sought compromise. 

July 1713

When the Treaty of Utrecht set the French and English boundaries in the New World, leaving the English in charge of the coastal regions that are now Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, the English gathered members of the Wabanaki on the frontier in what is now Portsmouth NH to negotiate a peace with the tribes.

A conference of these delegates met in Portsmouth from July 11-16, 1713 and subsequently presented a signed document and an account of the discussions to a gathering of the Casco Bay tribes, July 17-18, 1713.  

This website is intended to present a history of the 1713 Treaty of Portsmouth (and its subsequent addendum signed in July 1714) and to explore the diplomatic issues that arose in the region surrounding what is now Portsmouth NH from first contact with the native tribes and European settlement 1480-1607, through colonial expansion and the wars between France and England that affected these territories, up through the 1713 Treaty. 

To place the 1713-14 Treaty in context, this site will also examine the stories of the Treaty signers and follow them through King George's War of 1740-45, the Siege of Louisburg (1745) and the final French & Indian War leading to the fall of Quebec in September 1759 and subsequent Royal land grants in New Hampshire in 1760.

In 1997 Lee Sultzman prepared this compact History of the Abenaki that, based on extensive reading of the available information, provides a solid overview of the affected native peoples and their conflicts.