Archeological surveys have revealed that by 1300, they built fortified villages similar to those seen and described by French explorer Jacques Cartier in the mid-16th century, when he visited Hochelaga and Stadacona.

Since the 1950s, historians and anthropologists have used archeological and linguistic evidence to develop a consensus that the people formed a distinct ethnic group, whom they have called St. Lawrence Iroquoians.

They spoke Laurentian and were separate from the powerful Iroquois Confederacy of nations that developed in present-day New York and Pennsylvania along the southern edges of the Great Lakes.

By the time of Samuel de Champlain's arrival, the St. Lawrence River Valley was essentially uninhabited; the Mohawk reserved it for use as hunting grounds and as a path for war parties.

[7] The new mission was to be established in close proximity to a small village of both Abenaki and Sokokis that Bigot had previously observed during his travels throughout the region in the winter of 1684–1685.

In the summer of 1711, Odanak was temporarily abandoned due to the threats posed by Admiral Hovenden Walker's and Colonel Francis Nicholson's planned assault on Quebec City.

The male Abenaki warriors of the village were called up to Quebec to take part in the defence of the city while the woman and children were temporarily relocated to Trois-Rivières and Montreal.

This time moving further downstream to the site of its current location situated high upon the bank of the St. François River to protect against seasonal flooding.

[13] Following the conclusion of Dummer's War in 1725, Odanak would be further reinforced by the arrival of a contingent of 300 Abenaki warriors and their families from the Narransouac and Pentagouet missions in Maine.

Rogers was ordered by Jeffery Amherst to seek retaliation for numerous raids and attacks perpetrated by Abenaki warriors on British settlements.