Long before the Romans built their road network across Europe, Native Americans developed a vast natural network of canoe routes linking the Atlantic with the great rivers, lakes, and forests of what is now Maine and the Canadian Maritimes. For perhaps ten thousand years, the Wabanaki, Peoples of the Dawn Land, traveled these waterways between rich coastal fishing grounds and inland hunting territories as skilled navigators, hunters, and traders. French, British, and U.S. explorers, soldiers, surveyors, and settlers depended heavily on Native guides for knowledge of fast water routes through the region. A 1755 map by Jn. Mitchell, lacking many major lakes and much detail in Maine's interior, shows why British and other outsiders relied so much on Native American guides, many of whom were allied with the French. During the Revolutionary War, one hundred twenty canoes carrying five hundred Maliseet men, women, and children left British control after U.S. Colonel John Allen persuaded over half the Maliseet to leave their homeland along the St. John in return for promises of American support, with Passamaquoddy guides leading the difficult journey down the Chiputneticook waterways and St. Croix River to Machias. Part of the ancient Wabanaki canoe route from the Penobscot River to the St. John extends here, connected by Indian carries or portages linking rivers and streams to the ocean, lakes, and major waterways including the Penobscot, St. Croix, St. John, and St. Lawrence rivers. Today the Wabanaki Confederacy includes the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Micmac, or Mi'kmaq, Nations. Newell Bear, a Maliseet tribal huntsman, skilled woodsman, and guide, later helped American forces in the War of 1812.