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LEWISTON — Bates College associate professor Joseph Hall will discuss “what Androscoggin means” at the annual meeting of the Androscoggin Historical Society on Tuesday, May 23, at at Marco’s Restaurant at 12 Mollison Way. Reservations must be made by Friday, May 19.
Hall is researching the history of Wabanakis, the collective name for the Penobscots, Passamaquoddies, Mi’kmaqs, Maliseets, and other indigenous people of Maine and the Canadian Maritimes. He is especially interested in the ways that Wabanakis cultivated their ties to their homelands even as European-American colonists dispossessed them of most of that territory, according to a news release from the historical society.
“My favorite class is a course on the history of Wabanakis in Maine,” Hall said. “Students are almost always surprised to learn that Maine has Native American inhabitants, and they are even more surprised to learn that Wabanakis continue to play a prominent role in our state.”
Hall, in partnership with Bates students and Wabanaki scholars, has developed a map of Wabanaki place names for the western part of Maine, which describe how Wabanakis made this place their home. In some circumstances, they also describe how Wabanakis were making claims to the land that the English thought they were buying.
Hall teaches courses at Bates College about colonial North America, the United States’ War for Independence, environmental history and Native American history. He is the author of a book exploring how European and Native American understandings of trade and gift-giving shaped the history of the Southeast between 1350 and 1740, “Zamumo’s Gifts: Indian-European Exchange in the Colonial Southeast.”
The annual business meeting of the society begins at 5:30 pm, followed by a social time. Tickets for the dinner, which starts at 6:30 pm, are $20 for members and $25 for non members. They must be reserved by Friday, May 19, by calling 784-0586.
