Abenaki Warrior

“When Abenaki Warrior, The Life and & Times of Chief Escumbuit was published in 1998, I had no idea that my historical novel about a Fryeburg, Maine Indian would encourage efforts to name him A Personage of Historical Significance to Canadian History. The recently published details transformed Escumbuit from historical non-entity to Canadian celebrity,” observed the author, Al Kayworth. Abenaki Warrior is the only historical novel about Escumbuit. It was a bestseller and well received by a grateful New England reading audience. It was a Maine Writers and Publishers “best seller” for several months and the topic of many newspaper feature stories. The story of Chief Escumbuit is not an untypical one in the colonial days of conflicts between the English and the French. Escumbuit was a hero to the French, and a bane to the English of whom he scalped more than one hundred heads. King Luis, on hearing Escumbuit’s prowess, brought him to Paris where, to the delight of Parisians in love with attributes of the noble savages, invested him with knighthood. Sir Escumbuit, therefore, became the first and only American Indian to hold that title. On returning to New Hampshire, however, he settled down with his woman on Escumbuit Island, and was not heard until the advent of this book.