 It is my pleasure to introduce Brenda Gagnier. She is 25 years running the Circle of Courage, which is a youth group for the Abinaki tribe. And we were so impressed with her work. She came to our attention through a recent seven days article about partnerships with the Center for Cartoon Studies. And we are thrilled to have her here to talk about the successes of her programs, some of the challenges facing her community, and some of the responses to those challenges. So please join me in welcoming Brenda to our Tuesday talks. Thank you so much. Hello. Again, my name is Brenda Gagnier. This is my beginning of my 25th year for Circle of Courage. It's been an honor. To start off, I would say Quain Adoba in our language, which means hello, friends. Today I want to talk about a lot of different things, because I'm going to be kind of like all over the place a little bit, and I'll try to keep it somewhat together. And then when I get through to when I'm finishing with Eugenics, I'm going to have Jeff Benet come up and speak a little bit. He's the director of Indian Education. And yes, we call it Indian Education. It will never be anything but that. It costs too much money. And if that money can be brought to the kids, instead of letterhead, we're going to leave it Indian Education forever. So that's how that works. Anyhow, so when I talk about being Abinacchi, I belong to the St. Francis, the Koki Band of Miss Iscoy, which is Highgate, Swanton, Sheldon, Franklin area, some of the islands, pretty much the whole state. But we'll take credit for the area that I said. But also when I talk about it, you're going to hear Miss Iscoy. You're not going to hear Abinacchi. You're not going to hear St. Francis, the Koki, because we are truly Miss Iscoy. That's who we are. We are the largest group in the state. We fought for over 30 years for our organization that we received, taken away, received, finally got back again, we'll see what goes with it. But anyhow, so the Circle of Courage is a program that we decided to start. And we started it from a book, A Youth at Risk, and it was from Larry Brunpro, and he was part of the Lakota Sioux. So we adapted it to be part for the Abinacchi, because we all kind of do things the same. We mimic, but we all have our own traditions. We have our own ceremonies, that kind of stuff. So we adapted it to be the Abinacchi way. So the spirit of belonging is that I am loved, that we are a family, and that we're accepted, the spirit of mastery, learning to do the best I can to believe in myself, that I can succeed. The mastery is what they can do at their own level. Schools do it that you have to do a certain criteria. You have to get a certain thing. In our program, if you give 100% of what you can give, you've mastered it. So it's what they can do from within. It's not always what somebody expects from you. And I think that's a lot. With children today, too much is expected and not enough given, so we try to do that a little differently. On the independence, it's teaching free will. I have the power to make decisions, which is so important for children. They have a voice. They don't know how to use it. We try to teach them that there's a line. Stand up for yourself is OK, but you never cross the line and be disrespectful. So we try to teach them what that's about. And independence isn't about being on your own. It's about actually being able to stand for yourself and be able to say what you need. So that's really important for them. Generosity, it teaches them always to have concerns for others and knowing that they have a purpose in life. And with Circle, we do everything in multiple. So if we do beads and we're doing bracelets, or we're doing beadwork and we're doing necklaces, or we're making earrings, whatever we're doing, we always make two. One for the kids to give to whoever they choose, and one for us to sell. And we sell that and we give Thanksgiving baskets out. Not that we celebrate Thanksgiving and it's not a holiday to us, but people still eat. So it's a day of mourning for our people, but we still eat. I'm not going to tell you we don't. So we do that. And then Christmas, we have a family or two. It counts on how much money we've raised that we actually do Christmas for. And that's from presents to stockings to their meal. So that's what we do with that. And we started Easter three years ago, I believe. Three years ago. We started off with six families. In the last two years, we've had eight families. So it's not reaching a lot, but it's reaching some. And some is better than none. And that's how we believe. And really, kids need to know that. That giving back is really important. Not just expect, but to also to give. So that's why generosity is like the biggest thing for us. Missisquay has the second largest burial ground east of the Mississippi. That is just knowledge that's there. My people have been here for over 14,000 years. Their traditions are still alive. We haven't lost anything. What we've lost, we've gained some. But what we try to do is keep our ceremonies private. We try to do that stuff, because so much has been taken from our people that if we share all that, then they have knowledge that they shouldn't be using unless they know what to do with. So if you're going to a sweat lodge, you should make sure you're always with somebody who knows what they're doing. Not somebody who thinks they know what they're doing. That is some heavy medicine. And it can really hurt people. Out West in Arizona, people died. And they were paying thousands of dollars to do our medicine. And unless you know what you're doing, you shouldn't be doing that. So I wouldn't be going to the Catholic Church standing up becoming a priest pretending I'm somebody I'm not. So people shouldn't use. It's the same thing with us. So we try to keep as much of that stuff traditional. That's respected. And we don't share some of that stuff. I do teach the kids at center everything that I know. If I don't know it, I go to an elder, usually a woman. A woman has the highest honor. And they are the grandmothers. And they have all the knowledge. Men have it too. But the grandmothers have the knowledge you go talk to. If you want to know about hunting, you want to know about other stuff, go see the men. They'll tell you all about that. Not that women don't hunt because a lot of our women hunt. They're very proud of that. The other thing is that Eugenics started in UVM with a professor named Henry Perkins. He was the director of the Eugenics and Survey of Vermont from 1925 to 1936. He was the professor of zoology from 1902 to 1945. He is a curator of the Robert Hull Fleming Museum from 1931 to 1945. He was the president American Eugenics Society, 1931 to 1934. In that period of time, he thought he would rid the state of us. And he called us savages. He called us undermined people. And in that time, they would go out and they had field workers. I have letters that we've received. And I've put them together for our people, not for everybody. And they would go out and find the poor. Just because you're poor doesn't mean you're not loved. Just because you're poor doesn't mean you always don't eat. Because things like that, they were discriminated against. My people still are at times. So that is really hard to think about. But in that time, he would take children. And they would go and take them and put them in other homes. Or they would sterilize them in the process so that they couldn't carry on any more children so they can't breed any more improper children in the state of Vermont is what they thought was the way it was. So in that period of time, Adolf Hitler and Henry Perkins were best friends. They wrote back and forth to each other. And that's where they decided what was he doing to the Jews. He was doing the same thing as what he was trying to do here except for it was a different aspect. So that's there. The Native American ceremonies were considered crimes. So our people didn't do dancing and stuff out in public and stuff because of everything eugenics for one. Our people went into hiding. Why? Why would you want to be said you're Abonacky if you had some people coming around who are going to take your children and do the things that they were going to do to them? So they stopped drumming. Not because they forgot their songs. Because they were trying to keep quiet. So people couldn't find them. Eugenics is a hard subject for all of us Native people to talk about. So I'm sorry about that. But Native American ceremonies were considered crimes that were punishable by imprisonment within the law until the Indian Religious Freedom Act passed in 1978. So think about that. My people, all people couldn't do ceremonies. They couldn't do because it was against the law. A law because they were afraid of what we were doing, not because they wanted to ever understand it. So those are kind of hard things to go against. And to tell you, my children at center, last year we had 42 or 43 in every one of them knew our dances. Not all the kids that come to Circle of Courage are Abonacky. We have it open to all people. Because if you want to learn it, I want to teach it. That way if you understand it, the next generation might be a little better in the next generation. So it's all about learning. And I will teach them those, not that they're supposed to use them in any other way, but the right way. And that's drug-free, alcohol-free, and no tobacco. We use tobacco for ceremony, but we don't use tobacco to smoke. I am a smoker, I'm not gonna tell you I'm not. It's something that was inhibited from Europeans. It's not something our people did. And I'm not proud of it. I quit for three months and I'm back to it. But whatever, anyhow. So I wanted to talk about that. So ceremonies, when I go into the schools, it's tobacco zone freeze, right? And here I come in with my drum. And we're gonna do prayers. And we don't do prayers without tobacco because that's what keeps it sacred. So teachers and principals have to know that we come in with tobacco and we use it. And when we're done, we sweep it up. And all those prayers that have been done, those go out with the tobacco, which gives the prayers from all that we've done that goes out to Mother Earth. And I teach the kids how sacred Mother Earth is and about the water. There's less than 1% sustainable water in the world. Think about that. That means my children's children will probably run out of water by the time they have children. And that's pretty scary if you think about it. So I try to teach the kids at the center. Don't let the water run when you brush your teeth. Little things. Don't take a 25 minute shower. Get in and get out. And I tell them, if I can wash all this in five minutes, you guys can. Because I got a whole lot more than I got. So I try to make things so they think things are funny. But the kids at center will tell you that Brenda's not nice. And I do that for a reason. Because nice means I can pick and choose who I'm nice to. But I'm fair, so they're all treated the same. So it doesn't matter who you are, where you are, where you come from, they're all the same to me. Our kids learn to play the native flute. They've got two songs they can do only because they're the only two songs I know to teach. So I guess I've got to go back to some elders and learn a few more songs. But they're hard to learn and get them down packed and have it correctly so you can teach the youth. And I start with kindergarten and they go right up to high school. So my kindergartners come in one day a week. We do three days a week. But I will not take something away from a child. So if they do really well with one day and they can do a second day, we give that to them. And then they can earn the third day. But to give kids something to take it away, I will never do that. So I believe in having them earn it. And usually they're there all three days before we're done. It's just the way it is. And for a while, people thought it was like a babysitting club. And it really isn't. The kids are learning traditional abanaki dancing that I was taught from Daddy of Bumswan when he came in. I was 12 or 13 years old. He came for a week or two. And we had to learn the dances. And that's the way it was. And now the honor to be able to teach the youth is really amazing to me. And so the kids start kindergarten. If they go through the whole thing, they stop at sixth grade because then they go to our high school, which is seventh through 12th. If they want to come back, they become a volunteer. Them being a volunteer means I expect a lot from them. I expect like they're almost an employee from me. So I expect them to be on time. I expect them not to have their phones out. And phones are an issue with any generation. Doesn't matter how old you are. It's from everybody today. So that's a hard thing. I have them sign a contract that there's no drugs and alcohol. As long as they're a volunteer at center, they take it home. Their parents have to sign it or their guardian or foster parent, whomever they live with. And then they bring it back and I sign it in front of them so that they know that I take the same pledge as they do. So that's really important. Drugs and alcohol is not tradition for us for any Native people. I don't think it's for anybody, but to say for Native people, so I try to incorporate that as much as I can with the kids and tell them how much freer their soul will be and how clean it'll be without that and trying to keep them so that they're positively working through the red life of the red road, not that I do the red road because there's a whole different thing on that, but just saying. Native Americans, Indians are the only race in North America that has to legally prove race within European enforced government documentation. No other race of people who came to our homeland has to do this to prove their race, not blacks, not whites, not Asians or anyone else. Think about that. That's a hard core for us. And we're the traditionally people of Turtle Island. Our people have been here 14,000 years and we still have to prove who we are to the government. So that's to say that you're Native, where the only people have to carry a card, there's no other race in the world that has to do that. So working for Indian education, which is what I do, it's title six, used to be title seven, it was title this, title that, but it's title six now, right Jeff? And working with them, we try to track our children so that we can make sure we're not losing kids, really important for our tribe. And anybody watching that and you know you are, get old of me, I'd love that. But the other thing I wanted to talk about was recognition. Recognization was something that our people fought for 30 years for and I think over 30. And in the process of getting it and having it taken, Jeff will talk about that. He knows that stuff a lot better than I do. Not that I didn't live it, I did, but he's a doctor, does that say anything? I'm not a doctor, but he is. So his mind is a little better than mine. But if you have any questions on Circle of Courage, I will take a few right now. If you wanna know our funding, our funding is title six. We run a small budget. I have one other person that works for me. We work, I work 13 and a half, 14 hours a week at center and my other worker works maybe 10, I think. But most of the money goes to the kids for their snacks and sometimes they're healthy and sometimes they're not gonna be their kids. But I try to incorporate, when it's maple sugaring, we do everything about syrup. So whether the kids are having fried bread dough, if they're having donuts with maple frosting, I know that's probably not what people wanna hear, but I give them that because that's traditionally what we would have. And I try to do, when corn season, like this month when we start October 2nd, we will start with corn chowder and cornbread and things like that to incorporate because it's corn season and I incorporate kind of the foods that we ate. I made milkweed soup once. Don't suggest it to anybody. It was, it's supposed to be really good for cleansing and for good, I don't know what it was good for except for the garbage because that was terrible stuff. And so I do try to do things and the kids like the succotash, you guys know that word. That is an Abinac-y word. So there's over 150 words in the Webster dictionary that actually belong to the Abinac-y people that you guys talk and don't even realize that you're speaking our language. So if you say Mrs. Goy, that's Abinac-y because that's who we are, you know what I mean? So you go down through and you'll see a lot of towns, a lot of water land and stuff like that is always named after native people from the area that they're at. Even though Vermont's never wanted to admit we're here, our stuff has still been here, like the Onion River. You guys know what the Onion River is. You know why it called the Onion River because all the wild onions that grow along there, I mean, they're strong. They are very strong, but they're very good to eat if you ever think about trying some. Try it, it's worth it. And a lot of fiddleheads. Fiddleheads grow where it's wet. And that's something I feed the kids at center and they look at it, it's like, ooh. But I've made, I think I cooked 12 or 15 pounds last year and two different sittings for them so they could have them twice because they loved them so much the first time. So six hours going out to pick a bunch of them for them to have 10 minutes to eat them is very justifying to me because you can see it on their faces. So I do try to incorporate. I do add olive oil to that, I'm Italian too. So I do add that just so they extra flavor but in a little garlic, but I don't know what else. We do all kinds of things with the kids. We travel with them. We have Burlington. We have three schools we're doing coming up. We have flag raising ceremonies coming up for our own schools, which, Uliuni, thank you. Finally, time, you know, that Swanton will have a flag. Highgate will have a flag. Franklin School will have a flag. Amazing just to think that we're right there. So that's really important. And how many of you know anything about the abanacchi? There's some don't. Does everybody know what this is? You know what that is? The dreamcatcher, right? Everybody knows that. And this is Southwestern. So I always bring it when I do talking, even when I do it with the kids because it's funny because I have kids right there in the dock and now, which is our homeland. And I'll ask them, I don't know anything about the abanacchi, and they don't, but I'll bring this out and they know what this is. So it just, it amazes me still to this day that people don't know who we are, you know, or don't, we're not like we don't want to teach it. Anytime you ever reach out, somebody will always come. That's something that's really important too about Native people because we want stuff to be taught. We want things, we want understanding, that kind of stuff. Jeff's longer-winded than I am. So do you have any questions? I'll answer anything you have, if you want to. First of all, when Brendan was alluding to my getting a doctorate, many years ago, I was in school at the University of Vermont and what we were doing at the time was looking at participatory research and we decided to look at the schools up in the Swanton area, in particular, this was Missisgway Valley Union High School, where most abanacchi kids were going to school. So in looking at the school and just looking at the construct we were going to use, it was important that we use something that was going to involve as many people as possible, that it would involve as many abanacchi. So what we did was to work with abanacchi community members who were on our parent advisory committee, that PAC is a group that oversees all the education and culture of the tribe in terms of the kids. So anything that goes on in the schools goes on through the PAC. Abanacchi kids attend public schools. We're an off-reservation rural group without federal recognition. We're not entitled to things like Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. So what we did was to have four tribal members trained as co-researchers with myself and we looked at the schools and we looked at the questions and the folks who were doing the work in terms of the participatory research, they were actually interviewing community members about their experiences. I'm bringing this up because it was really important in terms of getting the doctorate that this was something that we were doing with the community. It wasn't something we were doing to the community. We were working together. So in any case, when it came time for the defense, which any of you have been through this, it can be harrowing, but we were looking at this as a celebratory type of thing. After all, we had just embarked on this thing and we were really pleased. We came down. There were probably about 50 or 60 folks from the Abernake community who came down to actually see what was going on and we then defended our work and it was great. We did the defense. Everything went well. Well anyway, afterwards, about a couple of weeks later in the Burlington Free Press, there was the article that appears people getting their undergraduate degrees, their masters. Anyway, it said doctorate and it had my name. I got a doctorate in educational leadership and policy analysis. So I got a phone call a couple of days later in my office and this guy calls and he says, you don't know me, but I just want to congratulate you. The fact is I saw that you got a doctorate and that's pretty impressive. And I said, wow, well thank you very much for calling. And he said, well yeah, so anyway, can you write a script for some Percocet? And I said, well no, I'm not that kind of a doctor. And he said, well what kind of doctor are you? I told him and he said, what good are you? And he hung up. And that was the last time I actually used the doctorate. I tried using it in a restaurant. It didn't get me a better table. We don't go with that. Most people in the foreign area have no idea that I have a doctorate and my name is Jeff. So even what Brenda was alluding to, we don't look at it in terms of a doctorate. That credentialing is not really important. And that's a Eurocentric perspective, that we need to have these things like a doctorate in order to validate our experiences. Well, I'm here to say we don't. I have it and it means nothing. It means that I did something. I took on a discrete activity and I got my doctorate. There are people up in Swanton who are every bit, if not more creative than I am, but it's a different type of creativity. So when we often talk about, well, Jeff Benet does this and that, I'm director of Indian education for Franklin County Public Schools. I was the commissioner of Native American Affairs in the state of Vermont for 15 years. I served under Howard Dean for five terms, Jim Douglas for three, and then Peter Schumlin for one. And I retired. But at all times, it was really important, again, as Brenda was saying, in the Indian education. We always looked at this as the community needing the education and the Abenaki are people that really have bought into this idea of education as the great equalizer. They see education as the ticket for transcending the socioeconomic conditions that people find themselves in. So it's incumbent upon us in education to deliver, to deliver on that promise. And that's really something, and that's what we do. And that's the challenge we have. Brenda mentioned the idea of my talking about recognition. And maybe I will get to that, but what I was thinking as I heard Brenda, that we're living in an interesting time because so much of what we're experiencing today, let's go back in time and think about what Brenda was talking about, about eugenics in the 20s. So this is a quick history lesson. What were we experiencing in the late 1880s? It was the first wave of immigration, right? That's when we first were dealing with immigration big time in the United States. And then when? In the 1910, 19 to 15, 1916. And even in Vermont, as homogeneous of places, people perceive Vermont to be, it's not. And I think you know that. Places like Burlington, there was a Jewish population, Jewish peddlers in Burlington, Maghrems, Kalani's, the Italians, the grant makers in the barrier. In any case, in the state of Vermont, there was a challenge and the challenge was this. What do we do with this wave of immigration? What are we gonna do with these people who are coming here? What are we gonna do with the people that are coming here? And what are we gonna do with those that are already here? I think that sounds pretty familiar to what we deal with today. So what do we do to keep them out? And what do we do with those that are here? Well, you know what Brenda was talking about. Several years ago, I had gotten a phone call from Gregory Sanford, who is the archivist for the state of Vermont. And he said that we have boxes here in Montpelier. We're not sure what they are. And I came down, looked at them, and I had no idea. I went back to Swanton and met with tribal leadership and they simply said, we're not ready to deal with this, Jeff. Take it back. And I really didn't know what they were talking about. They said, we're not ready to deal with this. Several years later, I got a call from the University of Vermont. A professor of art was gonna do an exhibit, the Long Shadow exhibit at the museum at the, and what they were looking at, this professor in the Long Shadow was a recreation of Perkins and what his study looked like. Tribal leadership decided to come down with us and we were having a commission meeting. We thought we'd have a commission meeting in Burlington and then we'd go for a tour of the museum and of his study. So that's what we did. And we had the meeting and then we went for the tour. I had no idea what we were about to experience, but tribal members did. And we went in and it was a recreation of Henry Perkins' study. So what does that mean? There was a roll-top desk and behind the desk, there was a blackboard. And on the blackboard were categories and the categories were literally, this is what they were, imbeciles, mixed bloods, gypsies, Indians, mentally deficient and it went on and on. And then we saw the groups and this is what Perkins had been doing. I don't know if many of you know, in 1905, Alfred Benet came here with the Benet intelligence test. No relation to me. That was B-I-N-E-T, B-E-N-A-Y. Alfred Benet came here in 1905 with the intelligence test and said, if there's one thing I asked that it not be used for, it not be used for sorting and tracking. The first thing we did was to use it for what? We used it in the military for sorting and tracking. We divided those who were gonna be the grunts and those who were gonna be the leaders, right? And that's what we did. So we took it and used the intelligence test to sort, to track. That's what he was using. That's what Perkins started using in terms of separating people. So again, what is he dealing with? He's dealing with the idea of what are we gonna do with the people that are here? What are we gonna do with those that haven't come yet? So we went around and we're looking at this and it's becoming more and more sobering and it's all of a sudden dawning on many of us who is looking at this kind of stuff for the first time like that. What was going on? Because the reality is, 15, 20 years ago, very few people knew what eugenics was. Nowadays, I don't know. How many of you, when Brenda started talking about eugenics, do you know what she's referring to when we talked about eugenics in the state of Vermont? That Vermont was the 26th state in the country that passed eugenics laws, that Vermont was very much into the eugenics movement. So what we did was to see his study and then we saw what was used. It looked like a gynecological table. It had come from the Weeks training school, from the Brandon training school and this is where women, basically, what he used for the women to be sterilized. People had a choice. Perkins and others made sure that people had a choice. This was their choice in a democracy that we called Vermont. They had a choice of either going to jail or they could be sterilized. So that was the choice. Most people chose to be sterilized rather than go to jail. They didn't even know what sterilization was really all about. We get to the end of this exhibit. We see this table and we're starting to realize the horrors of this. And then on your glass were the correspondence between Perkins and admirers. So the first letters that we see are written by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Well, you all know who Dorothy Canfield Fisher is. The poet laureate of the state of Vermont. Dorothy Canfield Fisher was in a vanguard of eugenics movement in terms of what do we do with our beautiful state. What do we do with Vermont and how do we keep it the way it is? This is Dorothy Canfield Fisher. The next letter we look at is a letter from whom? From Margaret Sanger. Do people know who Margaret Sanger is? Anyone know Margaret Sanger? Right, Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood. She was also a strong proponent of sterilization. The last letter as Brenda alluded to was written in German. And it turns out that yes, this was a letter from Adolf Hitler, that Hitler and Henry Perkins had developed a very close relationship. And Adolf Hitler encouraged Perkins to keep up the great work, which he would have done into, as Brenda said, into the 1930s. And if it wasn't for our entrance into the war, who knows where this would have gone? Who knows where eugenics would have gone? But let me suggest to you that when we look at what was done back then, and we look at Vermont today, we can say they did a really nice job, didn't they? Because Vermont is so homogeneous, at least to a lot of people it is, the homogeneity that defines Vermont. So we did a nice job of keeping others from Vermont. When you look at things like the Vermont Life Magazine, when's the last time you saw a Vermont Life Magazine? I remember when Tom Slayton was the editor, we would come down and do battle because all we would see in Vermont Life were pictures of people skiing and these were beautiful, blonde hair, blue-eyed, Nordic-looking people. And we would say, but Tom, that's not Vermont. You know, Vermont looks a little different, he said, but Jeff, I get funded through whom? Well, Vermont Life is through travel and tourism. So that's where those bucks are coming from. And looking at people coming to Stowe and spending money, they're not looking for people of color to be skiing, they're looking for people who look beautiful and who look a certain way. And this is what is done. Look at a copy of Vermont Life today and see if you're not seeing something very, very similar to what we were first doing battle with around Vermont Life 20 years ago, 25 years ago. Some things haven't changed. But the point of it is, if we look at Vermont today and we look at the issues we have in places like UVM, the Burlington School System, we're trying to retain people of color. What's the issue? People don't like to come to Vermont. We can say that it's the coldness, but in reality, there are all kinds of factors. So in a way, we did exactly what folks were looking at in the 1920s, which was like, how do we keep folks away? Well, somehow, whether we did intentionally or not, people don't come to Vermont or a lot of folks don't. And in terms of what do we do with the people who are here, well, we know what people like Birkins would have done and we look at today and we look at what goes on with Donald Trump and we start to think, my God, could this be all over again? We'd like to think, no, because we'd like to think that in the United States, none of this could be happening, but you know what? In Germany, kids are taught from the time they're very young what never again means. The late Elie Weisel, who wrote the book, Twilight and Night, the Israeli Jew, who said never again, never again so that we could never commit the atrocities that were visited upon six million Jews. So we can never do that again. So in Germany, kids learn about never again. They learn about their country's participation, their country's participation in the hearts. They learn about the atrocities so that in fact, never again, is more than mere lip service. Let me ask you, what do we learn about here in the United States? Do we learn about anything that went on back then? We don't learn about eugenics in Vermont, but how much do we learn about the genocide visited upon the native experience? Is that something that kids typically learn in schools? I would suggest to you, no, it's not. Vermont history is taught and it's an antiseptic course and it has very little to do with the Indians. In fact, in the state of Vermont, it took us practically an act of Congress to get to where we could even talk about the Indians and the Indian experience, much less the Abenaki experience. You know, in the state of Vermont, up until about 15 years ago, we talked about the Cheyenne experience. We talked about experiences the Southwest Indians, but because the state of Vermont, in effect, was at war with the Abenaki, until very recently, really, in the scheme of things in history, 15 years ago, the state of Vermont did not want to deal with the Abenaki, did not want to recognize the Abenaki. So when it came time to looking at Vermont history, are we gonna learn about the Abenaki? No, we didn't learn about the Abenaki. We learned about others, but not about the Abenaki. So if in Vermont, we weren't learning about the Abenaki, we certainly weren't learning about eugenics. In fact, when we left this exhibit, that was being done, a lot was written the next day in the free press, in the local papers, the messenger. It was on CAX, it was all over the place and I started getting phone calls from people who was calling and crying and saying, I remember one colleague said, Jeff, I was born in Bridge St. Albans, Vermont. I did my undergraduate work at UVM. I did my graduate work at UVM. I had no idea about any of this. I had no idea about eugenics in the state of Vermont. And I said, Linda, you know, don't feel badly. I mean, I don't think any of us knew much about this and the reality is we didn't know much about it. The Abenaki did. The reason that they had asked me to go back and take the boxes back to Montpelier was because they weren't ready to deal with what? Well, why wouldn't they be ready to deal with it? And then I learned. I learned they weren't ready to deal with it because there was one community member, still living, who had been castrated, who had been sterilized. And Homer St. Francis, who was chief of the time, did not want that person to somehow be bothered if people ever got wind that this was the one person remaining in terms of eugenics. He waited until this person passed. When he passed, he spoke with the family and asked whether this would be OK. They said yes. And with that, the Abenaki dealt with confronted eugenics. And that's how, in the state of Vermont, we started talking about eugenics. It would not have happened. I don't know that it wasn't for the Abenaki experience and what we were dealing with. Would we have dealt with eugenics in the state of Vermont? The Abenaki dealt with it, and then there was someone, one person, who really started looking at, is this really what happened? Her name was Jane Gallagher. And Jane Gallagher wrote a book called Breeding Better Vermonters. And with the publication of that book, all of a sudden, we started realizing this is what really happened in the state of Vermont. And then we started looking at throughout New England. Unfortunately, Vermont was the ringleader. There were other states, New Hampshire. There was a guy named Dudley Sargent, who was doing some stuff in other states, but nowhere was it as pronounced as in the state of Vermont. Because Perkins was the leader, not just in Vermont. He was the ringleader in all of New England. So the professor of zoology was the ringleader. We learn when we hear the names Perkins, and we hear Margaret Sanger. And we hear, some aren't dark, they can't feel Fisher. We realize what we call meaning in context, phenomenology, that it's so important to understand at the time, at the time in the 20s, we understand where they were coming from. Or at least some people would say, we understand at that time, we can understand how Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, could have been a staunch supporter of eugenics. We say we understand at that time, and yet do. I mean, I would leave that to all of us to say, do we understand that? That these leading denizens of Vermont, the poet laureate of Vermont, was sanctioning eugenics, was sanctioning the idea of people like the abanacchi to be euthanized, to be, not euthanized, but to be sterilized. And this was OK. The problem, as I said earlier, is that we haven't even taken upon ourselves to learn about this in schools. So to say that Vermont was one of the first states in New England to pass sterilization laws, people don't know that. People aren't learning that, kids aren't learning in school. We're not teaching this in places like the University of Vermont. Undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees. A professor at UVM, Jim Lohan, was the first one that I knew. He taught a course. He's a sociology professor. And he used to teach a course, Lies that my teacher was told me. It was a brilliant course. And Jim taught about what went on. And he was the first one in Vermont to talk about eugenics from an academic perspective. But again, I suggest to you that here we are, and there are no public schools that talk about eugenics. I don't know what colleges talk about. It becomes the kind of thing, oh, here they go again, talking about this stuff. Is this really what was going on? And I swear you hear this kind of stuff, and you start thinking again the parallels with whom, with Trump, and what goes on today. And just substitute Native American for any of the immigrants coming over. And it's like, wow, can this be happening? And yet because of L.A. Weisel's experience and that sense of never again, and because we haven't been willing to say that, unlike Germany, where they've learned from their experiences, we set ourselves up for what? We set ourselves up for what we're living today. And what we're living today is very, very scary. As the guy gets his 40% of the population, it's scary stuff. But we live in a place that could somehow be right for Donald Trump to come in. And we would say, how can this happen in the United States of America? Well, how did eugenics happen in the United States of America? But it did. You know, it did. The Abenaki are certainly the ones in large proportion who were the ones who were targeted. So what we saw in the Abenaki community, we brought those stacks of boxes back. We started taking out the papers in there. And what we saw were Abenaki surnames, St. Francis, Le Pen, all kinds of names, but they were coming up over and over and over again. These were the people that were being singled out. So if your last name was St. Francis, and you were living in Franklin County, Vermont, you had some real problems. And you didn't talk about much of anything because you didn't want to do with your experience. What so many native peoples did in the state of Vermont, what Abenaki did was to go what we called a day, went underground, because what do you do with that experience? Some people chose to fake it because they'd say that, you know, Abenaki could, not all Abenaki looked the part. They didn't have high cheekbones and dark skin necessarily. That's west of the Mississippi, east of the Mississippi, native peoples don't necessarily look like that. The stereotype that we all grew up with is what we saw on Morning Cartoon, on Morning TV, or Northwest Passage, Rogers Raiders, and you see what the Indians looked like. No, that's not what the Abenaki looked like. It's not what most native peoples looked like. Again, east of the Mississippi. But in the state of Vermont, in Franklin County, what people did was to basically either bury it again, go underground, practice who they were as Abenaki, but without others knowing because they just never knew what could happen again. One of the things we dealt with, and it's always been an issue for the Abenaki, is being undercounted in the census. Well, why would the Abenaki be undercounted in the census? Why would that be? Because to have a census taker come to your home and to say, so who are you? And then to actually say, well, Indian, I'm Native American, is very, very scary if you live in Franklin County. It still is because of what went on years ago. And yet what we knew was that very few people were gonna self-identify as Abenaki because they were so fearful. They were so fearful of what was brought on years and years before. The implications were profound when it came time for the Abenaki to actually go for recognition. We were having people in the office right here, upstairs, fifth floor, when I'd be sitting with Governor Dean and people in his administration. Bill Sorrell was the Attorney General. Under Bill Sorrell was a guy named Bill Griffith. Bill Griffith was called the Indian killer by people at that time because he did not wanna see the Abenaki get recognition. He said, if it's over my dead body, I don't wanna see these people. Why would that be? I mean, what did the Abenaki ever do to him, right? But at the time, I would hope most of you remember this, it's not that long ago, the state of Vermont didn't wanna see the Abenaki get recognition because it might lead to gaming. Howard Dean was very opposed to gaming and he always was. As a legislator, he was. And as he would say to me, Jeff, I've never been supportive of gaming. Look at my time when I was a legislator. I always voted against powerball and all that kind of stuff because I started as a regressive form of taxation. So I would then say, but governor, because I was an appointee of Governor Dean. The way it worked was the commissioner was appointed by the governor, but with input from the Abenaki. So it was the first time where the Abenaki were being given something. They were being given this commission on Native American affairs. No budget, not much of anything, but they didn't wanna turn it down. And they said, okay. So the Abenaki had input, the governor appointed the person and that's what I became. So five terms under Howard Dean and I said, then Jim Douglas appointed me and then Peter Shumlin and then I called it a day. But in any case, so what we saw in the state of Vermont was Howard Dean as the governor being opposed to Abenaki recognition. Abenaki recognition because of gaming. He was gonna deny the Abenaki their birthright. I mean, this is profound stuff. Their birthright as Indians would be denied them because of who they were. And he was talking about gaming. Others talked about what? They talked about land claims. Land claims had nothing to do with state recognition. It had to do with federal recognition. If you were fairly recognized, the states are in a position, well, not the states, the federal government are in position to give you land. All right, not take your homes away, but in an area of Flotten, where we're from, what would happen is that if there were federal lines and if you were federally recognized, you could get those federal lines in swan. It was what's called the refuge, the wildlife refuge. 10,000 acres would maybe go to the Abenaki. That's what federal recognition, federal recognition would bring. State recognition, nothing. It was nothing other than saying that for once these people who had been denied who they were for so long were finally saying, we're Abenaki, we're proud of it. And where kids were conflict on the playground up until 15 years ago, if you were really Indian, why doesn't the state of Vermont recognize you? These were kids on the playground. These were the calls that I'd be getting every day. These were called Brenda was getting. This is one of the reasons why we started Circle of Curds. So these kids could grow up with a sense of who they were, a sense of pride in who they were as Abenaki. Because it certainly wasn't coming from outside of the community. What we see today is so different. It's this antiseptic perception of the Abenaki. It's very cool to be Indian. I remember we saw our dances with wolves when Kevin Costner came out with a movie and we knew it was gonna be a feel good time in America in terms of how we looked at the Indian experience because that was a feel good movie. There was nothing feel good about the Abenaki experience and being in the state of Vermont. So what I was gonna talk about originally was this idea of recognition and what it took the Abenaki, what it took Mrs. Boyd to go through, to get recognition and what you start to realize is the extraordinary resiliency of these people and how they put up with all kinds of indignities. I mean, unbelievable stuff, right? We're talking about what went on in Eugenics but they were not being recognized for who they were because of issues that had nothing to do with them. They were issues to do with what white politicians saw and they saw for whatever reasons they thought of, well, we don't like gaming. We don't want lying clams. It has nothing to do with the Abenaki experience but we're not gonna give them recognition. The Abenaki got recognition in 1976. Thomas Sam was the governor. Thanksgiving Day, 1976, the Abenaki were given recognition. Richard Snelling's first act upon becoming governor. His first act, January 22nd, 1977 was to take away recognition. Richard Snelling said, I cannot recognize them. The sportsmen's of Vermont. The sportsmen's clubs in Vermont had gotten together and said we don't want the Abenaki to get recognition. Why? Because they were concerned about the ecosystem. The ecosystem of Vermont would be screwed with. We're talking about at the time a couple hundred Abenaki. A couple hundred people are gonna somehow mess with the ecosystem but he said no recognition. It was taken away. So what did the Abenaki do at that point? It's been taken away. There are three ways you can get recognition. One is through the governor, a gubernatorial proclamation that gives you recognition. The Abenaki learned quick enough. It's a piece of paper. It doesn't really count too much. The next way is through the court system, a judicial recognition. So the Abenaki took it upon themselves to do what? To land in court so that they could do battle with the state of Vermont. What does that mean? The Abenaki committed themselves to access civil disobedience. What we did was to have people fish without licenses. They got cited by the fishing game people and went into court. 77 people were cited for fishing without licenses. The same time we were having people drive without Vermont plates. They drove with Abenaki plates and they were getting hauled into court as well and they were getting ticketed. So we went to court and it was called the state of Vermont versus Elliott. And it was the 77 court cases. In any case, the Abenaki won. In every lower court what happened was the Abenaki would have to present their case for Aboriginal hunting and fishing. And they did it. What the state of Vermont did in a very calculated move was to basically hear the evidence brought by the Abenaki for two weeks to three weeks in time. And then Howard Van Benthysen, the state's attorney who's now a judge, Howard Van Benthysen would get up representing the state of Vermont and say, Your Honor, they did not prove what they needed to. Your Honor, we rest. He didn't call one witness. It was a real calculated risk. He took it and the state lost. The state of Vermont that appealed and they appealed and they appealed. Every court decision, go back in time and see what was going on. Some of the leading judges, the leading jurists in the state of Vermont, one person was Joseph Wolcher. One of brilliant minds in the history of Vermont. The next was someone who was supposedly gonna be the next Supreme Court Justice, Frank Mehidi. Unfortunately, Frank Mehidi had someone working for him, a housekeeper and they didn't take taxes from her. She worked on the table and he had to withdraw his name for being considered. It's important because what then happened was that Frank Mehidi again ruled in favor of the Abenaki. He was giving Aboriginal hunting efficient because he felt the Abenaki made this claim and they were absolutely right in saying they had been here some 10 to 12,000 years. Beyond reproach, 185 pages in the Wolcher decision, 250 pages in Frank Mehidi's decision and they ruled in favor of the Abenaki. Unfortunately for the Abenaki, the state appealed at the final time. What are you gonna do? You're gonna appeal to the state Supreme Court. That's what happened. The state of Vermont had lost every lower case decision that was going to the Supreme Court in what can only be seen as something that was just bad timing on part of the Abenaki. Madeleine Cunin was the governor. She had someone working for her. Her press secretary was a guy named Dooley. It was an opening. My Supreme Court, she was able to put her press secretary who had a law license. He went in as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the state of Vermont. Wouldn't you know it? The Abenaki argued their case a week later. The Supreme Court comes back with the case and with their decision. They ruled against the Abenaki. And what was called the increasing weight of history from Montelot School still teaches this because it's one of those things where we can never understand what does the increasing weight of history mean? We never did understand what it meant to the Abenaki was that there was no recognition. And very quickly, I'll just tell you, at that point, the only thing left to the Abenaki was legislatively. And what the Abenaki then did was to say, okay, the only thing left to us is to appeal to the legislature. You have to know how difficult that was. There were very, very, very few legislators who were supporters of the Abenaki. But in what was an unusual amalgam of people, very conservative legislators, very liberal, they came together and we were able to see recognition come. It's interesting because what we did, you know, in the state of Vermont, it's a part-time legislature and people don't have staff members. So what were we gonna do? Were we gonna give them 175 pages to read for the legislators? 150 House members, 30 senators. So what we did was to make a DVD against the darkness. We made a DVD and put it on the chairs of every legislator over right here in the state house. So every one of them, 150 House members, 30 senators, they all got copies. What we did in that was to show seven generations of the Abenaki existence, of the Abenaki presence, seven generations in a DVD form. And then there was a CD attached to it and people could learn about the rich Abenaki culture. Legislators did it. They took it, they learned. And two years later, we saw recognition. And we saw recognition and the vote was unanimous, which was pretty amazing. The House and the Senate and the state of Vermont passed the legislation and we basically saw Abenaki get state recognition. 2009, we're talking about starting in 1976 to 2009. And then if you start back when, you realize that, wow, these are people that have kicked butt. I mean, that have said, and they have said, no, we're not gonna sit here and just take it. Never again. No, they said it's not gonna happen again. Our kids are gonna stand up and stand up tall and be proud of who they were. So that when kids would punted eight years ago, seven, six years ago in the playground, well, if you were really Indian, the state of Vermont recognizes you. Well, the state of Vermont does recognize me. And we never saw that happen in the playgrounds. Is it to say that the racist tendencies of some isn't alive and well, of course it is. But in that venue at that time, the victory was won and the Abenaki were able to get recognition. But to understand the context of what we've just talked about and to know this is not simply some politically correct telling of this from Jeff Vane, because Jeff Vane is some Indian lover, but because this is what happened in the state of Vermont. And this is what happened 20 years ago, 30 years ago, but this is what was going on again back in the early 1900s, unless we confront what we were. Then I'm fearful. I'm fearful for my children. I'm fearful for my children's children. So with that, I want to say thank you. And if there are any questions at all, and I would recommend Breeding Better Romanos by Jane Gallagher. You can get it. Go on to Amazon and it's still available. And to learn about the Abenaki experience in terms of the legislative, go on to the Abenaki website AbenakiNation.com and you'll find some of the stuff that went on in terms of the experience and the testimony that had to be offered to combat what was going on. We didn't even talk about what was going on in the media. The Burlington Free Press having a field day being imposed year after year after year to Abenaki recognition. So please understand that what we see today, 2019 is not what we saw 20 years ago or 15 years ago. It was not a feel good start. Today, there are lots of people running around. I'm an Abenaki, I'm proud of it. That's great. And people are asked to come into schools and talk about the Abenaki experience. We come down here and talk about it to you folks. And that is good and that's wonderful. And we appreciate the opportunity because at least you're looking to do something. But I'll tell you, it still isn't where we would want it to be because what are we dealing with in terms of the schools? Are we dealing with the state of Vermont in Vermont history talking about the Abenaki experience? No, nothing, not a word. And you would say, but how can that be? The Vermont experience and the Abenaki, but it's not talked about, not at all. So what we would say is we still have our work cut out for us. Well, anyway. I know this isn't a feel good type of thing and we feel like, but you know, unless we talk about it, it is beautiful, especially when we look at what this guy is doing in Washington and it's scary. It's really scary. And for Abenaki to look at it and then to see the parallels of what was going on back when. And it's like, wow, here we go. Let's keep Vermont white. Well, Trump certainly would be declaring a call to white supremacy. And it's the same all over again. It's a scary place to be. Just end with this. I'm not Abenaki. And when Howard Dean was running for president, reporters would be really running to see like who can they talk to about diversity? So the one thing we had in the state of Vermont was this Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs. So I started getting phone calls. And reporters would ask about Howard Dean's position on diversity and not talk about it. And then they'd say, so Jeff, you're Abenaki. And I said, well, no, I'm not Abenaki. And they said, well, what's your affiliation? You travel affiliation. And I'd say, well, I'm from the tribe of Eli. And they'd be like, Eli, no, we don't. I'm actually a tribe of David. No. And I'd say, well, and then they'd say, are you Jew? And I'd say, yeah, I'm Jewish. So a New York Jew, we always used to say if the Klan ever got active in Vermont again, I'd be the first one who'd be looking at the cross. Think about this, a New York Jew working with Vermont Indians, I'd be in a lot of trouble. But here we are, and the plan isn't active at least now. The death threats come regularly, but all the rest, we're okay. So thank you all. Thank you.