Radio Script #1330

Little Talks on Common Things
December 5, 1982

In accounts of early Maine settlements we frequently find references to Indian deeds. That calls for explanation since, by virtue of discovery, either French or English kings had claimed title to all lands in Maine. Whenever an explorer set foot on American soil, he set up his nation’s flag and announced his sovereign’s ownership of the land. Then the king would grant a charter to a private or quasi-public company, which would attempt to make settlements on the land across the sea.

Such a company was formed by a group of shippers and merchants in Plymouth, England early in the 17th century, that became known as the Plymouth company. It established both the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia and the one at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Those grants did not give the company actual title to the land, which remained with the crown, but they did give the right to grant holdings in fee simple to groups who would make actual settlement, and those groups could convey similar titles to individual settlers.

In 1629 the Plymouth Colony obtained for trading purposes such a grant of land on the Kennebec River, fifteen miles on each side of the stream, from Merrymeeting Bay to Skowhegan Falls. In 1661 the Plymouth Colony sold that right to a group of four men, whose heirs again sold it in 1749 to a group of Boston merchants called the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase. All present deeds in this part of Maine, including the cities of Gardiner, Hallowell, Augusta and waterville, therefore descend from that grant to the Pilgrims in 1629.

During all the years, however, settlers found that, if they were to have peace with the Indians, they must recognize the Red Men’s time-honored use of the land. What the white men failed to understand was the conception held by the Indians of land ownership, quite different from that of the Europeans. The Indians believed that the Great Spirit owned the land and allowed his worshipping people to use it for hunting and fishing. The Indians could not read or write, and they thought the deeds they signed conveyed only the same rights of use, not rights to complete ownership. They did, however, understand that the deeds gave the whites the right to build cabins as permanent homes.

Although the settlers claimed their titles from the companies approved by their king, they found it expedient to get additional deeds from Indian chiefs in an attempt to keep the tribes friendly. The first deed by Indians to English settlers was on the Pemaquid peninsula in 1626, only six years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Two chiefs, Samoset and Onongoit, sold to John Brown the land on which the present village of New Harbor and the rest of the Town of Bristol now stand. The price was fifty skins, which, of course, the chiefs at once sold to European traders.

During the 17th and 18th centuries many other Indian deeds were recorded, granting smll areas to white men in different parts of Maine. By the time of the American Revolution those deeds were largely confined to two tribes, the Penobscots and the Passamaquoddies. In 1786 Massachusetts decided the time had come to settle long-disputed claims on the Penobscot River. Agreement was reached by which the Indians relinquished claim to all land on the west side of that river up to the mouth of the Piscataquis and on the east side to Mattawamkeag, retaining for themselves Indian Island at Old Town and all islands north of it. For the Indian relinquishment the Massachusetts government agreed to pay the Penobscots 350 blankets, 200 pounds of powder, and a quantity of shot and flints. Massachusetts was represented by a committee appointed by the legislature, which met with 65 Penobscot Indians, headed by Chief Orono. His relative, John Nephew, was the Indian spokesman at the conference.

Besides the land disputes there were other matters to be faced. The Penobscots said that the Indian Island group had placed in the hands of a priest who had come to them a number of skins to be sold in Boston. When the priest returned he brought no money, saying that it had been taken from him to pay for clothing that the Indian Island chief had previously received. The chief claimed that the clothes had been a gift of the Commonwealth, and that, if the government had any regard for the truth, it would pay him for the skins. The
committee reported: “However small and insignificant this matter may appear, it is of great importance to the Indians”; and the recommendation was that payment be made to the Chief.

That famous committee of 1786 found other matters confronting them besides the Indian claims. They had to consider a petition from the inhabitants of canaan, Maine. That was not the present town of canaan, but a larger area whose principal settlement was at Skowhegan. Those people asked to be exempt from all taxes levied against them previous to 1781. Their petition said:

“About 14 years ago, being in indigent circumstances, remote in a wilderness where we encountered numerous hardships, we were able to sustain only the barest existence for ourselves and our families. We confronted the burdensome task of clearing the heavily timbered land. We had no roads to any market and we were 15 miles from the nearest mill to grind our grain. Depredations by beasts of prey constantly depleted our sheep and cattle. We are sometimes still forced to live for weeks without bread and to go nearly naked in this severe climate, to live in rude huts, and have none of the comforts enjoyed by settlements to the west of us. We therefore notify the General Court that we have nothing to pay into the public treasury. Several times we have vainly petitioned for incorporation, from lack of which we can secure no revenue for roads or other improvements. We are filled with despair, unless the General Court will grant us relief. Our hearts ache to see our starving children suffer, and we humbly cast ourselves at the feet of our public fathers, begging them to relieve us from taxes which we have no capacity to pay.”

Another petition came from Winslow. Constable Nathan Low said: “In 1780 I was ordered to collect taxes from a list provided. On that list were several non-resident owners of Winslow land, who did not pay their tax. According to law the lots were then advertised for sale by auction. But the auctioneer made several mistakes and the proceeds did not agree with the assessment in a number of instances. There were 2400 acres sold for 15 shillings 6 pence hard money, or 100 pounds paper money, to James Huston, who paid part of the taxes. In 1785 William Taylor brought suit against Huston in the Pownalboro Court, and Huston is now suing me. I humbly ask the General Court for a stay of execution.”

Another petition came from the Town of Vassalboro. It said: “Being stronqly agitated by the difficulty that has overtaken our town by the very heavy tax to supply a quantity of beef for the Army, we seek redress. The amount is 235 pounds, which we are completely unable to pay. We note that neighboring towns in similar situations have been exempted. The burden of expenses for the war that has fallen on the Commonwealth has left us locally wholly responsible for our own defense at considerable expense. Consequently our roads are untended and our people are poor. We urge that we be exempted from this heavy tax. It now, returning to the subject of Indian deeds, it was failure to settle what the Indians insisted were their land rights that caused the long succession of Indian Wars that harassed Maine settlements from 1675 to 1740. The Indians admitted that the old deeds gave the whites the right to build homes and plant crops, but they insisted that their rights to hunt and fish on those lands were neither abrogated nor modified by those deeds.

The dispute reached its climax in 1675 when a Massachusetts chief called King Philip stirred an uprising that spread allover New England, even to the Penobscots and Passamaquoddies of Maine. The conflict was known as King Philip’s War. That war and a series of subsequent uprisings made impossible further settlement in Maine and wiped out most of those already made from the Piscataqua to Casco Bay.

No lasting relief came until 1724 when the Saco tribe was dispersed by the Battle of Lovewell’s Pond near Fryeburg, and the Norridgewocks by the attack on their village at Old Point, resulting in the killing of the Jesuit priest Father Rasle. Those incidents so dispersed the tribes that they never recovered full strength and their uprisings ceased.

Nearly two centuries later, in 1981, Indian land claims were recognized both by Maine and by the federal government, and the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes received large compensation.

It is not a pleasing story, the white man’s treatment of the Red Men who had inhabited the land for hundreds of years before the whites came, but, at least of the Maine tribes, it can now be said that they have been treated handsomely.

Year: 1982