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Wabanaki Experiences And Perspectives On “Our Shared Ocean”: Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission Special Report Sea Run, Anthony W. Sutton, Judson Esty-Kendall, Paul Thibeault

Maine Policy Review

The Maine Indian State Tribal Commission (MITSC) recently published a special report titled, Sea Run, documenting the impact of Colonial and Maine policies and activities on the quality and quantity of tribal fisheries spanning the time from first contact between Europeans and the Wabanaki Nations to today.

Carlisle Indian Boarding School's Role In The Unconstitutional Relationship Between Organized Christianity And The U.S. Federal Government, Kayleigh Hogg

Honors College

The Carlisle Indian Boarding School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania was the first large Indian boarding school to open in the United States. Carlisle was founded by Richard Henry Pratt and opened in 1879. Carlisle was the first of hundreds of Indian boarding schools that operated throughout the United States and served as the model for many of the schools that followed it. The school was military-run and federally funded until its closure in 1918. The purpose of Carlisle and the rest of the boarding schools was to culturally assimilate American Indians and do so by forcibly removing them from their families. …

Technology & Tradition: Shaping Indigenous Collections For The Future, Gretchen Faulkner, Harold Jacobs, Alex Cole, Jonathan Roy, Reed Hayden, Anna Martin, Duane Shimmel

Technical Publications

The Hudson Museum received a UMAI seed grant to support
a collaboration with the Advanced Structures and Composites
Center and Intermedia Programs to replicate a culturally -
sensitive object in our collection. This is a technical publication to describe the process of replicating a Tlingit Frog Clan Helmet (HM5040) requested for repatriation by the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska (CCTHITA).

Where Do I Belong In The United States Public School System?, Christiana R. Becker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I seek to inquire about the world as it relates to my identity as a first generation descent of the Penobscot tribe living in the United States by utilizing four methodologies in my research: life histories/autobiographies, narrative inquiry, a/r/tography and practice-based and practice-led. Through coupling my artistic practice with those four methodologies I am able to creatively show the information I have unearthed in hopes that others will benefit from a fresh and augmented understanding of what it historically and culturally means to be a part of a community that makes up a very small percentage of the United States …

Umaine Office For Diversity And Inclusion_The Power Of A Story Email, University Of Maine Office For Diversity And Inclusion

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Email from the UMaine Office for Diversity and Inclusion with various details of the Office's work and specific events related to Native American Heritage Month.

Umaine Office For Diversity And Inclusion_Doing The Work This Native American Heritage Monthemail, University Of Maine Office For Diversity And Inclusion

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Email from the UMaine Office for Diversity and Inclusion with various details of the Office's work and events related to Native American Heritage Month.

To Know The Land With Hands And Minds: Negotiating Agricultural Knowledge In Late-Nineteenth-Century New England And Westphalia, Justus Hillebrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ever since the eighteenth century, experts have tried to tell farmers how to farm. The agricultural enlightenment in Europe marked the beginning of a long arc of new experts aiming to change agricultural knowledge and practice. This dissertation analyzes the pivotal period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Germany and the United States when scientists, improvers, and market agents began to develop comprehensive ways to communicate agricultural innovation to farmers. In a functional approach to analyzing the negotiation of agricultural knowledge through its communication in things, words, and practices, this dissertation argues that the process of change …

Legalizing Marijuana Is The Only Just Past Forward, Leah Savage

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Tuesday was April 20, or 4/20, so here’s a friendly reminder in light of the holiday; Barack Obama smoked marijuana, and he isn’t a degenerate, he was the 44thpresident of the United States. Marijuana has been legalized in 16 states as well as Washington, D.C., and there are numerous studies showing that marijuana is, at thevery least, just as safe as alcohol. So why are over 40,000 Americans still incarcerated for marijuana-related charges?

Honors College_Tribal Sovereignity, Social Justice, And Building Equity From A Maine Tribal Perspective, University Of Maine Honors College

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Poster for the University of Maine Honors College and Native American Programs co-sponsored lecture from Maulian Dana, Tribal Ambassador for the Penobscot Nation, as part of the 2021 John M. Rezendes Visiting Scholar in Ethics.

Photo Essay: State Of Mind: Becoming Maine, Maine Historical Society

Maine History

The separation from Massachusetts in 1820 had different meanings and implications for residents grounded in geography, culture, race, and economic standing. Understanding that the history of how Maine became a state is rooted in the stories of people, State of Mind: Becoming Maine focuses on four distinct communities—Wabanaki, Acadien French, Black, and English-speaking people all who have deep ties to the land now known as Maine. While multitudes of distinct cultural communities have, and continue to call Maine home, the Wabanaki have cared for this land for millennia. The French, Black, and English-speaking people have resided here since the early …

Book Reviews, Sean Cox, Eileen Hagerman, George Kotlik, Thomas Peace, Hannah Schmidt, Eric Toups

Maine History

Reviews of the following books: Historic Acadia National Park, The Stories Behind One of America's Great Treasures by Catherine Schmitt; Without Benefit of Insects: The Story of Edith M. Patch of the University of Maine by Elizabeth Gibbs; French and Indian Wars in Maine by Michael Dekker; Wabanaki Homeland and the New State of Maine: The 1820 Journal and Plans of Survey of Joseph Treat edited by Micah Pawling; The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright by Ann M. Little; Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War by Lisa Books

John Holmes And The Shifting Partisan Politics Of Slavery In Early Maine, Matthew Mason

Maine History

The longevity and shifting partisan allegiances of the political career of John Holmes illuminate many of the issues animating Maine politics in the broad statehood era. None of these issues dogged Holmes or revealed the intersection of Maine and national politics better than that of slavery. His seemingly endless political flexibility makes Holmes an unusually good barometer of the mainstream position in Maine on slavery and related issues across this broad period. Matthew Mason is a professor of history at Brigham Young University. He is the author of books including Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic(2006) and …

Umaine News Bilingual Signage — English And Penobscot — Now At Umaine, University Of Maine Division Of Marketing & Communications

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Screenshot of the UMaine News webpage featuring a story regarding the fact that new University of Maine building and road signage on campus was now bilingual, English and Penobscot.

Photo Essay: Holding Up The Sky: Wabanaki People, Culture, History & Art, Tilly Laskey

Maine History

Holding up the Sky is on view at Maine Historical Society through February 1, 2019. The exhibition gallery is located at 489 Congress St. in Portland. Please visit MaineHistory.org for hours and ticket information.

Panel #2: The Maine-Missouri Crisis And The Politics Of Slavery, Mary T. Freeman, Matthew Mason, Diane Mutti Burke, Patrick Rael

Maine Statehood and Bicentennial Conference

A panel that included three presentations:

African Americans and the Political Consequences of Maine Statehood, Mary T. Freeman

Doughface Pioneer: John Holmes of Maine, 1773-1843, Matthew Mason

Fire Bell in the Night: The Establishment of a Slave Society in Jefferson's Purchase, Diane Mutti Burke

Crosscurrents: The Daponte String Quartet Explores The Mixed Musics Of Early Maine, Daponte String Quartet

Maine Statehood and Bicentennial Conference

A performance by musical artists Ferdinand "Dino" Liva (violin), Lydia Forbes (violin), Kirsten Monke (viola), and Myles Jordan (cello).

Program notes by Kirsten Monke provide the following background: When we learned about the notated songs of Membertou (c. early 1500s- 1611), a major shaman-chief of the Mi’kmaq nation, the idea for this program began to percolate. What diversity of music might there have been as so many different peoples explored, fished, and colonized Maine’s rocky coast and European influences began to permeate the land? Fragments of elegant china, unearthed at archaeological sites such as Fort Pemaquid, illustrate how some European …

Liberty To Slaves: The Black Loyalist Controversy, Michael Anthony White

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individuals of African descent who arrived in Nova Scotia during and after the War for American Independence have been the subject of extensive commentary by historians. Spurred by the rise of Social History in the 1970s, these individuals have increasingly been identified as a coherent group – particularly by the historian James W. St. G. Walker, whose pioneering 1976 monograph did a great deal to create the term “black Loyalist” as a category of analysis. In Walker’s wake many other researchers have expanded the concept, which now has a prominent place in the public historical memory of Nova Scotia. However, …

Making It Work Before The Movement: African-American Community And Resistance In 1940s And 1950s Portland, Maine, Justus Hillebrand

Maine History

African Americans in Portland, Maine, in the 1940s and 1950s made up less than 0.5% of the population. As a consequence, discourse on race was more subtle than it was in other parts of the country. The Portland black community, as in other small northern New England cities, lacked the numbers for broad public or political action. Instead, African Americans developed individual and informal strategies of resistance aimed at broadening opportunities in education, employment, and housing. African Americans “made it work” by congregating in their own church, persevering in their own educational goals, operating their own businesses, and owning their …

A Child Of The Atlantic: The Maine Years Of John Brown Russwurm, Carl Patrick Burrowes

Maine History

Celebrated in life as co-founder of America’s first black newspaper, John Brown Russwurm was the embodiment of an Atlantic Creole. Born in Jamaica to a white American father and a black Jamaican mother, as a young man Russwurm moved to North America. Throughout his teens and twenties, his “home” was southern Maine, and he was given a good secondary education there. After finishing school, Russwurm taught in several black schools in Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. It was in these cities that he came into contact with America’s free black leaders, some of whom supported the movement to colonize …

Creating An Indian Enemy In The Borderlands: King Philip’S War In Maine, 1675-1678, Christopher J. Bilodeau

Maine History

In the borderlands space between New England and Québec, the Wabanaki Indians had their own reasons for getting embroiled in a conflict that started in southern New England, King Philip’s War (1675-1678). This essay argues that, ironically, the English vision of a monolithic Indian enemy was the key to Wabanaki success in this war. The Wabanakis were a heterogeneous group when it came to the issue of fighting the English, with many eager to join the fight, others ambivalent, and still others against. The English of Massachusetts Bay and Maine, however, treated the entire Wabanaki population as united under a …

A Company Of Shadows: Slaves And Poor Free Menial Laborers In Cumberland County, Maine, 1760 – 1775, Charles P.M. Outwin

Maine History

Although slaves and poor, free menial laborers were by no means a majority of the population in late colonial-era Maine, they represented a culturally and socioeconomically significant part of commercial society there, especially at Falmouth in Casco Bay (now Portland) and in coastal Cumberland County. This essay uncovers the lives of the Falmouth’s small slave population and its larger poor menial laborer population from 1760 up to the port city’s destruction by the British in 1775. The author was granted a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maine in 2009. He is a member of the Maine Historical Society, …

The Maine Indian Land Claim Settlement: A Personal Recollection, John M.R. Paterson

Maine History

From 1971 to 1980, the state of Maine grappled with one of the greatest legal challenges ever before it. That challenge had its origin in a suit brought by the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes against the U.S. Department of the Interior seeking the seemingly simple declaration that the department owed a fiduciary duty to the tribes based on a federal law adopted in 1790. That suit was eventually to lead to a suit by the U.S. Department of Justice against the state of Maine, and potentially 350,000 residents in the eastern two-thirds of the state, seeking return of land taken …

The Library Of Professor Meserve, Daniel Rosenberg

Maine History

Charles Francis Meserve was an early summer resident of Squirrel Island and an important educational reformer around the turn of the twentieth century. Charles married Fannie Philbrick, whose father, John W. Philbrick, built a house on Squirrel Island. Eventually, the Philbrick cottage passed to the Meserves and become home to their books.

The Governor’S Gallows: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain And The Clifton Harris Case, Jason Finkelstein

Maine History

In 1867, Auburn was home to one of the most vicious murders committed in the state’s history. Clifton Harris, a southern black teenager, was corralled for questioning and within hours confessed to the crime. He was tried and convicted solely upon his own confession, without any evidence against him. Harris became only the second prisoner ever to be executed in Thomaston State Prison. Indeed, the de facto abolition of the death penalty had taken place nearly three decades earlier, but Governor Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain steadfastly proclaimed that he would carry out Harris’s death sentence in the face of political opposition. …

A Letter From Joshua Cushman, Matthew Mason

Maine History

No abstract provided.

Burnt Harvest: Penobscot People And Fire, James Eric Francis Sr.

Maine History

The scientific and ethnographic record confirms the fact that in southern New England, Indians used fire as a forest management tool, to facilitate travel and hunting, encourage useful grasses and berries, and to clear land for agriculture. Scholars have long suggested that agricultural practices, and hence these uses of fire, ended at the Saco or Kennebec, with Native people east of this divide less likely to systematically burn their forests. This article argues that Native people on the Penobscot River used fire, albeit in more limited ways, to transform the forest and create a natural environment more conducive to their …

Book Reviews, Polly Welts Kaufman, Christian P. Potholm, Jean F. Hankins

Maine History

Reviews of the following books: The Penobscot Dance of Resistence: Tradition in the History of a People by Pauleena MacDougall; Maine’s Visible Black History: The First Chronicle of its People by H. H. Price and Gerald E.Talbot; Borderland Smuggling: Patriots, Loyalists, and Illicit Trade in the Northeast, 1783-1820 by Joshua M. Smith.

Thomas Brackett Reed, Civil Rights, And The Fight For Fair Elections, Wendy Hazard

Maine History

Few causes in American history have proved more enduring than the effort to ensure all citizens the right to vote. From the enfranchising of African-Americans after the Civil War to the granting of women’s suffrage and the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the country has struggled to live up to its image as the guardian of the ideal that every citizen has a guaranteed right to vote. The prolonged presidential election of 2000 and the vote-counting debacle in Florida once again focused national attention on the issue of enfranchisement. Democrats argued that the Florida election, whether by …

Justice For All: Finding The Courage To Live Our Beliefs, Vladimir Skaletsky

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

On March 16, 2000, a gunfight occurred in the West End neighborhood of Atlanta, Ga. A deputy sheriff fell to the ground, fatally wounded. On March 14, 2001, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of firing the deadly bullet.

Wabanaki Cultural Awareness Program Planned, Joe Carr

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Maine Rural Development Council (MRDC), an affiliated program of University of Maine Cooperative Extension, will host a Wabanaki Cultural Awareness Conference on Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1999 at the Sockalexis Arena on Indian Island. Expected to attend the event are some 100 representatives of Maine's 20 federal and state agencies that provide services and/or resources to Maine's tribal communities. A group of statelegislators will also attend the conference.