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AUGUSTA — The Kennebec Historical Society’s February public presentation, “Lost Indian Tribes of Western Maine,” will be 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 19, at Hope Baptist Church, 726 Wester Ave., Manchester.
The presentation by speaker Peter Stowwell is free and open to the public.
Stowel, who grew up in Andover and Bethel, is focused on recovering cultural information long lost to present generations through assiduous research in Maine’s defunct newspapers, official state and federal directories and reports, and informed sources. For his presentation to the Kennebec Historical Society, Stowell has collected information on Maine’s Indians from more than 100 sources, some of them dating back to the early 1600s and most of them dating before 1900.
Hopelessly caught between the colonial aims of several European nations, primarily England and France, Maine’s native population never stood a chance. Dozens of tribes in western Maine were decimated by an endless series of war, disease, trauma, and displacement from their homelands. Their cultural presence has been lost to the world; their histories are told by white men. This presentation locates the tribes along western Maine rivers and identifies the forces that sealed their fates. Learn of the names of Wawenocks kidnapped by George Weymouth and Capt. Henry Harlow, of the murder of Squanto, and of the western Maine Indians who were tricked into capture at Dover, N.H., and later imprisoned, hanged, or sold into slavery never to be heard from again.
The presentation will be followed b light refreshments. While it is free, donations are accepted.
PHOTO: Captive Indian tribes sold into slavery. (Submitted photo)
