Meductic Indian Village / Fort Meductic (also known as Medoctec, Mehtawtik meaning "the end of the path") was a Maliseet settlement until the mid-eighteenth century. It was located near the confluence of the Eel River and Saint John River in

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

, four miles upriver from present-day

Meductic, New Brunswick Meductic is a small village located along the Saint John River in southern New Brunswick, approximately 33 kilometres southeast of Woodstock. Meductic's mayor is Lance Royden Graham. History During the Expulsion of the Acadians, the village wa ...

. The fortified village of Meductic was the principal settlement of the Maliseet First Nation from before the 17th century until the middle of the 18th, and it was an important

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most ...

centre. (The other two significant native villages in the region were the Abenaki village of

Norridgewock Norridgewock was the name of both an Indigenous village and a band of the Abenaki ("People of the Dawn") Native Americans/First Nations, an Eastern Algonquian tribe of the United States and Canada. The French of New France called the village Ke ...

(present-day

Madison, Maine Madison (formerly Norridgewock) is a town in Somerset County, Maine, United States. The population was 4,726 at the 2020 census. History The area was once territory of the Norridgewock Indians, a band of the Abenaki nation. Early visitors d ...

) on the Kennebec River and Penobscot (present-day

Penobscot Indian Island Reservation Penobscot Indian Island Reservation ( Abenaki: ''Álənαpe Mə́nəhan'') is an Indian reservation for the Penobscot Tribe of Maine, a federally recognized tribe of the Penobscot

) on the Penobscot River. Only during King George's War, after the French established Saint Anne (present-day Fredericton, New Brunswick), did the village Aukpaque, present-day Springhill, New Brunswick, become of equal importance to Meductic). The village contained Fort Meductic, which the Maliseet had built before the arrival of the French to defend against

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans * Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people * Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...

attacks. The Mohawk were one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, based in present-day New York, south of the St. Lawrence River and generally west of the Hudson River. This is reported to have been the first Fort in Acadia. Father Joseph Aubery re-established the mission in 1701. During the lead up to

Father Rale's War Dummer's War (1722–1725) is also known as Father Rale's War, Lovewell's War, Greylock's War, the Three Years War, the Wabanaki-New England War, or the Fourth Anglo-Abenaki War. It was a series of battles between the New England Colonies and the ...

, to secure the French influence on the village, Priest Jean-Baptiste Loyard built the chapel Saint Jean Baptiste (1717). (The bell was given by King Louis XV.) Similarly, the French claimed territory on the Kennebec River by building a church in the Abenaki village of

.John Grenier, ''The Far Reaches of Empire''. University of Oklahoma Press, 2008, p. 51, p. 54. The Meductic village and fort location is a National Historic Site. A federal plaque from the Historic Sites and Monuments Board was placed on a cairn on Fort Meductic Road, near the site. s of April 2020, the plaque was missing from the cairn.Official recognition refers to the polygon around the archaeological remains. Related to the site, the Meductic-Eel River Portage was designated a National Historic Event in 1943. It was part of the route between Acadia and New England, and used by France on expeditions against the English.Meductic-Eel River Portage National Historic Event
Directory of Federal Heritage Designations, Parks Canada

Footnotes

References

Secondary Sources:
W.O. Raymond. ''The Old Meductic Fort and the Indian Chapel of Saint Jean Baptiste:'' paper read before the New Brunswick Historical Society (1897)
* *John Grenier. (2008). ''The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia 1710-1760''. University of Oklahoma Press.
Francis Parkman, ''The Jesuits in North America''
Gutenberg Project * * Matteo Binasco. "Few, Uncooperative, and Endangered: The Troubled Activity of the Roman Catholic Missionaries in Acadia (1610-1710)", in ''Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Journal,'' vol.10 (2007), pp. 147–162. External Links * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Meductic Indian Village Fort Meductic Military forts in New Brunswick French forts in Canada National Historic Sites in New Brunswick Military forts in Acadia French and Indian War forts Conflicts in Nova Scotia Tourist attractions in York County, New Brunswick Forts or trading posts on the National Historic Sites of Canada register Maliseet

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