Chief Asticou

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Quick Facts

Significance:

17th century Wabanaki Chief

When European colonizers first landed on the shores of Mount Desert Island, the sakom (sagamore or chieftain) of the greater Mount Desert Island area was recorded as Chief Asticou. 

He is first mentioned in a 1608 English document as headman of an Indian village on what became known as the River of Mount Desert – later segmented and renamed Union River, Union Bay River and Blue Hill Bay. Five years later, his name appears in French records as the sakom who welcomed the French to his summer village on the southeastern shore of Somes Sound (near present-day Acadia National Park). Of course, Asticou and his people lived a whole and complete life outside of European documentation. As was typical of European colonizer documentation,much of what is recorded about 'Chief Asticou,' including his name, may be incorrect.

In his paper, Naming the Dawnland, George Neptune (Passamaquoddy) shares, "According to native speakers, Astuwikuk is a location near Northeast Harbor. The root of the place name, astuwi, is translated as “moving toward each other,” “coming into contact with each other,” or “face-to-face.” The ending kuk denotes a place, so astuwikuk can be defined as “meeting place....Based on the survival of the place name, I propose that Astuwikuk may not have been the Chief’s name, but the name of the location he represented."

As sakom of an Algonquin-speaking community inhabiting the Mount Desert Island area, Asticou headed a district that formed part of a political confederacy known as Mawooshen. Headed by a grandchief, Bashaba of Penobscot, this was an inter-tribal alliance of neighboring Wabanaki groups in Maine, each with their own districts and headed by their own chiefs. Complex family relationships, political negotiations, and trade networks existed between these districts. Chiefs like Asticou always headed a much larger extended family and several closely related families formed clusters sometimes identified as clans or kin-groups. Chief Asticou was the son of Chief Bashabez. Chief Asticou, like many Chiefs of his time, obtained his position through his father.  

After Bashabez's death in 1615, Chief Asticou of the Mount Desert Island area became his successor in a time of growing turmoil. Chief Asticou's domain included not only Mount Desert Island, but also its hinterland encompassing the Sullivan and Union River drainages. (Sullivan River runs into Frenchman Bay on the east side of Mount Desert Island, and Union River flows into Blue Hill Bay on the island’s west side). Asticou’s district stretched beyond the Schoodic Peninsula as far east as the Narraguagus River, and probably west of Naskeag Point to the Benjamin River, and from there inland. This eastern territory was important for thousands of years of trade and transportation, and in the 1600s, due to the contact with European colonizers.

Within a few decades of contact by Europeans, up to 90 percent of the Wabanaki perished in this American Indian holocaust. We do not know if Chief Asticou survived the onslaught. Two major waves of European diseases swept the Wabanaki homeland from 1616 to 1619 and then again from 1632 to 1634. It is unknown of Chief Asticou was killed by these diseases or died of other means. He was recorded 'sick unto death' in a French document dated 1616. Another French document recorded "When we arrived at Asticou’s cabins [at Manchester Point, on the eastern shore of Somes Sound], we found him truly sick. But not unto death, for it was only a cold that troubled him; so having assured ourselves of his good condition, we had plenty of leisure to go and visit this place..." English colonial attacks on French settlements within Asticou's demand also took place around this time. it is possible that Chief Asticou survived for his name is the first in a group of six "Sagamores to the East and North-east" recorded by English setter William Wood's 1634 documentation.

Sources:
Asticou's Island Domain. 
Naming the Dawnland, by George Neptune, Passamaquoddy. Courtesy of the Abbe Museum
Penobscot Nation Website