NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY of Maine and New England

This book presents an integrated view of Native American and Canadian First Nations cultures from 6,000 B.C. to 1,000 B.C. Contributions by fourteen leading regional archaeologists cover a vast area, streatching from Maine to Newfoundland-Labrador and Quebec. Several chapters discuss the Maritime Archaic people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and their remarkable adaptation to the rich marine environment shortly after the retreat of the last ice age. The contributions by Quebec authors describe events along the St. Lawrence Valley and in the great Boreal Forest and includes material previously published only in French. The new overviews of Maine and the Canadian Maritime Provinces illustrate that this area has a lengthy and rich archaeological heritage throughout the Archaic period. 2006 hardcover, 486 pages.

He was a man of many talents--the first Native American to graduate from Greenville High School, guide, trapper, drugstore clerk, lumberjack, log driver, vaudeville performer, silent movie actor, trombone player, lecturer, and more. Henry Perley was a maliseet born in Greenville and was promoting Native American rights before the movement began. Here, for the first time, is the untold story of Chief Henry Red Eagle, a true Moosehead legend. Paperback 48 Pages

From childhood to well into her eighties, Fannie Hardy Eckstorm made a study of Maine Indian language, culture and history from her home in Brewer, Maine. Her many years in close proximity and family friendship with the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy people and her diligent historical research made her the perfect and perhaps the only white person who could comment authoritatively on the items presented in this book. In "The Handicrafts of Modern Indians of Maine", Eckstorm provides the historical and cultural background for these important samples of Maine Indian Art. Reprinted with color plates in 2003 from the original 1932 edition. Paperback.

"This is an extremely useful book which one returns to again and again as a reference work. Its scope is the broadest, taking in every aspect of Indian life as the early explorers and the colonists found it, from personal appearance and characteristics to diet and agriculture, social organization and intertribal relations." New England Quarterly. Paper, 1980, 207pp.

Stories about Mt. Katahdin, the origins of corn and tobacco, animal behavior, how the rabbit lost his tail, how mice became small, and numerous others fill this volume. Paperback 203 Pages

A companion to "Passamaquoddy at the Turn of the Century" and "Hard Times at Passamaquoddy," this book details Passamoquoddy history in the nineteenth century. By Donald Soctomah, with assistance from many people who love the history of the Passamaquoddy people. All proceeds will be used in the funding for a Passamaquoddy Cultural Heritage and Resource Center. Paperback, 221 pages.

Noted historian Christine DeLucia offers a major reconsideration of the violent seventeenth-century conflict in northeastern America known as King Philip’s War, providing an alternative to Pilgrim-centric narratives that have conventionally dominated the histories of colonial New England. DeLucia grounds her study of one of the most devastating conflicts between Native Americans and European settlers in early America in five specific places that were directly affected by the crisis, spanning the Northeast as well as the Atlantic world. She examines the war’s effects on the everyday lives and collective mentalities of the region’s diverse Native and Euro-American communities over the course of several centuries, focusing on persistent struggles over land and water, sovereignty, resistance, cultural memory, and intercultural interactions. An enlightening work that draws from oral traditions, archival traces, material and visual culture, archaeology, literature, and environmental studies, this study reassesses the nature and enduring legacies of a watershed historical event. Hardcover. 469 pgs.

Here, for the first time, is the real story about Native Americans who were the original settlers in the Moosehead Lake region. From prehistory to more recent times, Native Americans came to the local region, and many battles were fought between rival tribes over the millennia. In fact, Mt. Kineo and the Moosehead Lake region could be listed among Maine's first tourist destinations and these people came during the summer months for Kineo rhyolite to make their weapons. 55 Pgs Paperback

"Norumbega Reconsidered explores the questions, controversies, and uncertainties about the ethnic identity and historical significance of the Wawenoc Indians of the central Maine coast, their residency in the Norumbega bioregion and their participation in the Native American trading confederacy of Mawooshen. This study asks and attempts to answer the following questions. Who were the Wawenocs? Where did they live, and why did they disappear from our landscape and our history books?" -from the Introduction. Written by H.G. Brack, with a guest essay by Kerry Hardy. Contains maps and an annotated bibliography.

This is the story of N'tolonapemk as seen through archaeology and the stories and knowledge of the Passamaquoddy people. The scientific methods used by archaeologists and traditional Passamaquoddy stories complement one another and create a more complete picture of this important place. Color photos, drawings and maps throughout. Spiral bound paperback. 30 pgs.

With rigorous original scholarship and creative narration, Lisa Brooks recovers a complex picture of war, captivity, and Native resistance during the “First Indian War” (later named King Philip’s War) by relaying the stories of Weetamoo, a female Wampanoag leader, and James Printer, a Nipmuc scholar, whose stories converge in the captivity of Mary Rowlandson. Through both a narrow focus on Weetamoo, Printer, and their network of relations, and a far broader scope that includes vast Indigenous geographies, Brooks leads us to a new understanding of the history of colonial New England and of American origins. Brooks’s path breaking scholarship is grounded not just in extensive archival research but also in the land and communities of Native New England, reading the actions of actors during the seventeenth century alongside an analysis of the landscape and interpretations informed by tribal history. Paperback. 430 pgs.

This book is ethnographic classic, written by an anthropologist trained to reconstruct traditional native american lifeways. The author attempts to reconstruct the lifestyles, or cultures, of the native american before the arrival of Europeans upon the continent. Hardcover.

This spiral-bound book is another of the series of Donald Soctomah's books preserving the records of Passamaquoddy life in the 1800's. Many detailed records are assembled chronologically to present a moving picture of the relationships between Europeans and Native Americans, often showing clearly how Europeans took advantage of the people they found here when they arrived. Paperback, Spiral-bound 160 pages

Nearly Twelve Thousand Years ago Native Americans began moving along the rocky coast, rivers,lakes, valleys, and mountains of a region that would later become known as Maine.This is the story of many generations of native peoples who for twelve millenia called this region home. Paperback. 2004. 368pp.

In late September 1820, hoping to lay claim to territory then under dispute between Great Britain and the United States, Governor William King of the newly founded state of Maine dispatched Major Joseph Treat to survey public lands on the Penobscot and Saint John Rivers. Traveling well beyond the limits of colonial settlement, Treat relied heavily on the cultural knowledge and expertise of John Neptune, lieutenant governor of the Penobscot tribe, to guide him across the Wabanaki homeland. Along the way Treat recorded his daily experiences in a journal and drew detailed maps, documenting the interactions of the Wabanaki peoples with the land and space they knew as home. Edited, annotated, and with an introduction by Micah Pawling, this volume includes a complete transcription of Treat's journal, reproductions of dozens of hand-drawn maps, and records pertaining to the 1820 treaty between the Penobscot Nation and the governing authorities of Maine. As Pawling points out, Treat's journal offers more than the observations of a state agent conducting a survey. It re-creates a dialogue between Euro-Americans and Native peoples, showing how different perceptions of the land were negotiated and disseminated, and exposing the tensions that surfaced when assumptions and expectations clashed. In large part because of Neptune's influence, the maps, in addition to detailing the location of Wabanaki settlements, reflect a river-oriented Native perspective that would later serve as a key to Euro-American access to the region's interior. The groundwork for cooperation between Treat and Neptune had been laid during the 1820 treaty negotiations, in which both men participated and which were successfully concluded just over a month before their expedition departed from Bangor, Maine. Despite conflicting interests and mutual suspicions, they were able to work together and cultivate a measure of trust as they traveled across northern Maine and western New Brunswick, mapping an old world together while envisioning its uncertain future. Paperback. 300 pgs.

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A short but rich exploration of the lives of four Wabanaki women. The narrative begins with Molly Mathilde, a mother, peacemaker, and daughter of a famous chief. Born in the mid-1600s, when Wabanakis first experienced the full effects of colonial warfare, disease, and displacement, she provided a vital link for her people through her marriage to the French baron of Castin. The saga continues with the shrewd and legendary healer Molly Ockett and the reputed witchwoman Molly Molasses. The final chapter focuses on Molly Dellis Nelson (known as Spotted Elk), a celebrated performer on European stages who lived to see the dawn of Wabanaki cultural renewal in the modern era. "Women of the Dawn" is lyrical and poetic but based on many years of fieldwork and scholarship. Winner of the Friends of American Writers Literary Award. Paperback, 131 pages.