The Abenaki  are the  Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was mostly spoken in Maine, while the Western Abenaki language was spoken in Quebec, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

Their homeland, which they called Ndakinna meaning “our land” extended across most of upper New England, southern Quebec, and the lower Canadian Maritimes. Historically, the Abenaki have been classified into two geographic groups: Western Abenaki and Eastern Abenaki.

Traditional Abenaki social organization consisted of relatively small kin-based bands led by a civil chief who advised the group and facilitated consensus-based decision making; there was usually a separate war chief.