Women of the Dawn

Women of the Dawn tells the stories of four remarkable Wabanaki Indian women who lived in northeast America during the four centuries that devastated their traditional world. Their courageous responses to tragedies brought on by European contact make up the heart of this book.

The narrative begins with Molly Mathilde, a mother, peacemaker, and the daughter of a famous chief. Born in the mid-1600s, when Wabanakis first experienced the full effects of colonial warfare, disease, and displacement, she provided a vital link for her people through marriage to the French baron of St. Castin. The saga continues with the shrewd and legendary healer Molly Ockett and the reputed witchwoman Molly Molasses. The final chapter belongs to Molly Dellis Nelson (known as Spotted Elk), a celebrated performer on European stages who lived to see the dawn of Wabanaki cultural renewal.

Combined, these brief biographies tell the long saga of colonization from the rare vantage point of women. They wed fact with feeling, and each story is a step in a spiritual pilgrimage from innocence to shrewdness to bitterness to wisdom. The journey is represented metaphorically by linking each life to a particular season--the bountiful ease of summer, the foreboding of fall, the destitution of winter, the promise of spring.