“A Means of Removing Them Further from Us”: The Struggle for Waterpower on New England's Eastern Frontier

Abstract

This article reframes the Anglo-Wabanaki wars as conflicts fought over river energy. Beginning in the 1680s, Massachusetts officials began building forts away from settlements and next to waterfalls to control prime fishing and portage sites. These river forts, particularly one at Pejepscot Falls in Brunswick, Maine, would trigger conflict more than colonial encroachments on Wabanaki land.