Wolastoqiyik

The Wolastoqiyik, people of the shining river, are the Algonquian people of the Saint John River and its tributaries in New Brunswick, Maine and Quebec; Europeans called them Maliseet, a Mi'kmaq exonym. Their kin the Passamaquoddy held Passamaquoddy Bay and the St. Croix River; the two nations shared a language and belonged to the Wabanaki Confederacy.

They lived in palisaded villages, moving between summer fishing grounds and winter hunting camps; their chief village was later at Meductic. French traders built a fur-trade alliance and Jesuit missions drew converts, while wars with the Haudenosaunee and Innu ran through the seventeenth century.

In colonial wars the Wolastoqiyik and Passamaquoddy fought beside the French against New England, then signed the same Peace and Friendship Treaties as the Mi'kmaq between 1725 and 1779. In 1776 a Passamaquoddy delegation also made a treaty with the new United States.