Saving Maine for the Indian: The Legacy of Joseph Nicolar’s <i>The Life and Traditions of the Red Man</i>

Abstract

I read book once again. This time it struck me how Indian way of life and culture is built largely on legends and passed down from one generation to next--and how my grandfather tried to communicate this in written form. I see it as a preservation of what he knew, what he'd heard and learned directly. Concerned that old storytellers were dying off and that new generations would be swept up in assimilation, he gathered up their stories and put them in book form so that those who came later might learn and understand. --Charles Norman Shay (x-xi) In an audacious and unprecedented move on 26 October 2007, 188th Convention of Episcopal Diocese of Maine passed a resolution calling for Archbishop of Canterbury, titular head of worldwide Anglican Communion, and Queen Elizabeth II, Supreme Governor of Church of England, to disavow and rescind 1496 royal charter granted to John Cabot and his sons. (1) Originally issued by England's King Henry VII in March 1496, that charter established legal foundation for England's version of infamous Doctrine of Discovery. (2) Under charter, Cabot, his sons, and their heirs were authorized to conquer, occupy and possess any and all peoples and lands before this time were to all Christians. If unknown to all Christians, these peoples and lands were considered as yet undiscovered. (3) Thus, according to charter, islands, countries, regions or provinces of heathens and infidels, in whatsoever part of world placed, could now be claimed by Cabots for the dominion, title and jurisdiction of English crown (First 9). Of course, by 1496, large parts of Asia, Africa, and Middle East were already well known to Christian Europe and, following upon Christopher Columbus's voyages, Europe was now beginning to explore westward across Atlantic. In effect, therefore, charter issued to Cabots had its greatest impact in North America and, more specifically, in those territories supposedly yet undiscovered by Christian world and now legally available to be claimed for England by Cabot and all subsequent explorers sailing for British crown. proponents of 2007 resolution in Maine had no illusion that they were in any way reversing consequences of long and ugly history that unfolded from 1496 charter's Doctrine of Discovery. Nonetheless, they hoped at least to force their church into a public acknowledgment of a in which both church and crown had been complicit. As one member of October 2007 Convention put it, We who enjoy so much privilege owe it to those whose privilege was taken away to call a a wrong (188th). A few days after passage of resolution, John Dieffenbacher-Krall, a member of Diocese's Committee on Indian Relations, group that originally sponsored resolution, explained in Bangor Daily News: My objective is universal recognition that doctrine [of discovery] is repugnant. In his view, The doctrine ... should not be used to justify taking of and other rights from indigenous people (Harrison B1). Needless to say, Doctrine of Discovery had been used to justify England's claims to traditional tribal homelands in Maine only real property that Europeans understood indians to possess--and nothing in resolution passed by 2007 annual Convention of Episcopal Diocese of Maine does anything to alter this fact of dispossession. But return of land to Indians is not what motivated those who sponsored resolution. With 1980 settlement of Maine Indian Land Claims lawsuit, that dispossession had already been at least partially redressed. First filed on 17 July 1972 by Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe (and later joined by another federally recognized Maine tribe, Houlton Band of Maliseets), suit generally argued that federal government and State of Maine had broken or ignored long-standing treaty agreements to protect in perpetuity large swaths of tribal lands. …