The Treaty of Portsmouth, signed on July 13, 1713, ended hostilities between Eastern Abenakis with the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The agreement renewed a treaty of 1693 the Indians had made with Governor William Phips, two in a series of attempts to establish peace between Indians and colonists during the French and Indian Wars.
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During the War of Spanish Succession, France began a conflict with England which would extend to their colonies. Called Queen Anne's War in the New World, New France openly fought New England for domination of the region between them, with the French enlisting the Abenaki tribes inhabiting it as allies. Occasionally under French command, Indians attacked numerous English settlements along the Maine coast, including Casco (now Portland), Scarborough, Saco, Wells, York and Berwick, in New Hampshire at Hampton, Dover, Oyster River Plantation (now Durham) and Exeter, and down into Massachusetts at Haverhill, Groton and Deerfield, site of the Deerfield Massacre. Houses were burned, and the inhabitants either killed or abducted to Canada. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, however, restored peace between France and England. As part of the agreement, Acadia fell under English sovereignty. When the Indians realized that they could no longer depend on the French for protection, the sachems sought a truce, and proposed a peace conference to be held at Casco. Governor Joseph Dudley agreed to a conference, but chose instead to host it at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which was protected by the guns of Fort William and Mary. For a more detailed timeline of events leading from first contact to the 1713 Treaty, see references and resources.[1]
On July 11, 1713, Governor Dudley and various dignitaries from New Hampshire and Massachusetts Bay (which then extended into Maine) met with delegates from Abenaki tribes, including the Amasacontee, Maliseet, Norridgewock, Pennacook, Penobscot and Sokoki. The agreement was read aloud by sworn interpreters to the sachems, eight of whom on July 13 signed with totemic pictographs. Others would do so the following year after similar interpretation at another convention. "Being sensible of our great offense and folly," the Indians agreed to:
Despite their promise, the English failed to establish official trading posts selling cheap goods at honest prices to the Indians. Tribes were forced to continue exchanging their furs with private traders, who were notorious for cheating them. In addition, Indians regarded as threats the British blockhouses being built on their lands. Their discontent was instigated by Sebastien Rale and other French Jesuit priests embedded with the tribes and promoting New France interests. In defiance of the Treaty of Portsmouth, the Abenakis resumed raids on the encroaching English settlements. Consequently, on July 25, 1722, Governor Samuel Shute declared war against the Eastern Indians in what would be called Dummer's War. Boundary struggles between New France and New England would continue until the Treaty of Paris in 1763.