An Abenaki born in St Francis, Quebec, Noel Annance (1792–1869), by virtue of two of his great-grandparents having been early white captives, attended Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Determined to apply his privileged education, he was caught between two ways of being, neither of which accepted him among their numbers. Despite outstanding service as an officer in the War of 1812, Annance was too Indigenous to be allowed to succeed in the far west fur trade, and too schooled in outsiders’ ways to be accepted by those in charge on returning home. Annance did not crumple, but all his life dared the promise of literacy on his own behalf and on that of Indigenous peoples more generally. His doing so is tracked through his writings to government officials and others, some of which are reproduced in this volume. Annance’s life makes visible how the exclusionary policies towards Indigenous peoples, generally considered to have originated with the Indian Act of 1876, were being put in place upwards to half a century earlier. On account of his literacy, Annance’s story can be told. Recounting a life marked equally by success and failure, and by perseverance, Abenaki Daring speaks to similar barriers that to this day impede many educated Indigenous persons from realizing their life goals. To dare is no less essential than it was for Noel Annance.

Jean Barman, professor emeritus, has published more than twenty books, including On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space and Race in the Colonization of British Columbia (Harbour Publishing, 2020) and the winner of the 2006 City of Vancouver Book Award, Stanley Park’s Secret (Harbour Publishing, 2005). Her lifelong pursuit to enrich the history of BC has earned her such honours as a Governor General’s Award, a George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award, a Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing and a position as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She lives in Vancouver, BC.

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“Abenaki Daring tells the story of Noel Annance whose life and career spanned the continent. The challenges he faced as an Abenaki student, as a Hudson’s Bay Company clerk, and as a political activist shed new light on the history of Aboriginal education, the social history of the fur trade, and Abenaki history in his times, as he and his people coped with intensifying political and economic pressures. This book makes a major contribution to historical research and will also attract readers keen on new biographies of understudied people, particularly Aboriginal, whose stories stand out as unique.” Jennifer S.H. Brown, University of Winnipeg

“… a fascinating glimpse into the experiences of a man whose career and whose life … dared to challenge the exclusion he faced within the context of the developing Dominion. Carefully researched and featuring many of Annance’s original writings, Abenaki Daring is an important and timely study about being Indigenous and about identity and colonialism.” Canada’s History