Goals Statement

Who are the Cowasuck - Pennacook / Abenaki People?

What do they want? Are they going to try to take our land?

Are they another Indian gambling group looking for a casino?

There is a growing effort to bring history back into focus and to correct many misconceptions about the relationship of Native People, such as us, and the founding of the United States. We were not all killed off by disease or warfare and did not disappear with the colonization of this country. Many of us became the individual fibers of the weave that made the cloth of the United States and Canada. We are among you, working beside you in all walks of life. Unless we told you who we were, you would probably never know us.

Any other ethnic or religious group in the world need only declare their existence. Only the American Indian is required to document genealogy to the beginning of time and blood quantum to show how much real "Indian" they are.

The United States has divided us between those that they acknowledge versus those that they do not. This polarizes Native People to compete and work against one another in many ways. What we seek is an unconditional acknowledgment of our continuing existence with no monetary, land, or gambling commitments by the government. We are seeking federal acknowledgment with the Interior Department Bureau of Indian Affairs. We are requesting a favorable recognition from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and other New England states as we once were a party to in the 1700's.

We have no desire for gambling. There already is too much gambling - a vice that really profits only a few. What we do want is to preserve our culture, our language, our traditions, and family social customs and way of life. Our longer term goals are to purchase land and facilities to establish an Indian community and economic base. We want to practice our spiritual heritage and religion in freedom as many other cultures do in this country. We want to be able to live, as our ancestors did, in harmony with nature and the environment of Our Mother Earth.

The current generations of the Abenaki have reasserted our position as a Native American Indian group and as a result this Band represents a majority of the United States Cowasuck Abenaki and related Pennacook.

The Cowasuck Band has incorporated a nonprofit social and cultural services organization called COWASS North America. It is nationally incorporated, (FEID# 223229024) and is registered as a 501(c)3 organization with the IRS.

All donations are tax deductable. It is through donations from our membership & the general public that our educational programs are funded.

The Cowasuck Band provides:

Educational & Cultural Programs

• Library & Information Resources
• Language & Music Programs
• Traditional Drum & Singing
• Aln8bak News ©

Social Services

• Information & Referrals (I & R)
• NEDOBAK Network Help Line
• Ik8ldimek Legal Clinic
• (AIRS & MAIRS members)

Religious Services

• Ceremonies & Marriages
• Memorial Services
• Spiritual Counseling

Environmental Programs

• Adopt - A - Highway Cleaning
  
• Land Trust

The social services work that the Cowasuck Band performs is an indication of the commitment that we as a family support not only our own Native People but that we support the community and region around us. In our society we are judged not by what wealth we hold but by what wealth we can give to others; this is our way of life.

In return - all we ask is that you acknowledge that we exist, we are not some footnote in a history book that says the Abenaki were an extinct Native American Indian group from the past - we are alive and well among you.