U & D

In case you missed it, Canada is offering reparations for boarding schooling and other abuses of the Native populations. Lucky for us, NPR was right on top of it. You can listen to the story, download a podcast, and post a Comment at their website: Marketplace: How far can money go toward healing?

That’s an interesting title for the Marketplace article, isn’t it?

When I follow state, federal and even news announcements about Native issues, many of the Non-Native commenters express anger. Many are lacking information that would have helped them to read or listen to the article with an open mind. It would be a worthwhile journey to show the story to your MS or HS students, read the comments, and perhaps add your own.

One question that comes up in Native comments on legislative issues and other blog posts: what about cross-nation (US-Canada) or cross-state borders? How about tribal members who have left tribal lands to live elsewhere? Or those who were born and still live off Native lands? Or those who live on both sides of a border?

These are not questions your students will wrestle with, for the most part. But raising them broadens the scope of what might seem to be a straightforward issue.

see also my previous post.

Do you know about S.1200  Indian Health Care Improvement Act Amendments of 2008?  This Bill has passed the US Senate and is on its way to the House (which means it should get on the docket eventually…)

The major purpose of the Bill is the yearly renewal, for budgetary purposes, of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. Amendments are, hopefully, to improve Indian Health Care. This particular version of carries an important Amendment, the first on the list:

S.Amdt.3893 - To acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.

Both of Maine’s Senators voted in favor of the Bill. Senator’s Obama and McCain missed the vote.

There is more interesting language in the Bill as passed. I may be misreading what I have found online (at OpenCongress - you may need to set up a free account to view the Bill), but it looks to me like this is also part of the Bill:

(Sec. 301) Recognizes the relationship Indian Tribes have with the United States.
Honors Native Peoples for their stewardship and protection of land.
Recognizes that there have been years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants by the federal government regarding Indian Tribes.
Apologizes to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by U.S. citizens.
Urges the President to acknowledge the wrongs of the United States against Indian Tribes.
Encourages state governments to work toward reconciling relationships with Indian Tribes.

It is time to write our Representatives, encouraging them to support the Bill, to bring it to the floor, and especially to support Amendment 3893.  This would be a good activity for students - also meets MLR relating to participation in the Democratic process.  Find a list of Maine’s Representatives at Member Search by State (when I tried it, the link to ME did not work - so you might have to scroll down). It does not look like the Bill is on the current list of “listed bills.”  Hmm.  Maybe students can make a difference before Election Day.

Civilization: from the Latin civilis, pertaining to the citizens (as opposed to the soldiers), polite, courteous. Not until around 1600 did the French and English begin to use the verb civilize, meaning to bring out of barbarism. Civilization was not used consistently until the late 1600’s, about the same time that barbarian came to mean other than foreign - by the French & Indian Wars, it had come to mean rude, wild, savage, uncivilized.

Civilization: a word that originally would have certainly pertained to Maine’s earliest cultures - and was used purposefully to rationalize the destruction of those cultures.

An excerpt from An Atlas of the Year 1000 states that “in all of North America around 1000 there was no native American whose name has survived.” This is in contrast to civilizations of Europe, Asia and the Islamic world, “where the story of the past is in large measure rooted in human character - history as narrative.”

What? It seems to me that John Man has it backwards. He certainly has paid no attention to the legacy of oral history from North America. The Native nations of Maine and the Maritimes are not covered in the atlas, and most of the North American nations are lumped into groups like “Plains Indians”. He does spend some time with the Mississippian culture, with whom the Wabanaki nations certainly traded, and with the Dorset and Thule (new to me - Inuit) cultures of modern day Canada. He even bring the Vikings into the story (see Investigating the Maine Penny).

With this lack of information “out there”, even from a Harvard scholar, it is no wonder that Maine’s legislators don’t accept that the Wabanaki nations have claim to ancestry beyond 1000 years ago. History begins with writing, at least for Europeans. Everything else is “prehistory.” That makes Maine Natives before 1008 prehistoric.

It is “missing history” and labels like this that defeat the effectiveness of LD291 too many times, in too many places. The thinking goes something like this: One has only to pick up the Atlas of the Year 1000 to see that there were other civilizations around the globe that had not only written language, but also highly developed architecture, astronomy, mathematics, art forms, etc. If the Wabanakis did not have this, they must be an inferior civilization - not a civilization at all! Their claims for land and artifacts must be just to “get something for nothing…” This sounds quite a bit like the 19th Century history text I quoted in my webquest: William Henry Elson on King Philip’s War (scroll down to read). It is a myth that needs exploding.

So - where does a Maine teacher go with this? If not dealt with directly, students might leave a good Wabanaki Studies lesson believing that European and later conquests, land claims and resettlements are justified because the Native culture was too weak, naive, or ill-prepared - that they deserved it OR it was inevitable that a more highly developed culture would transcend.

The best strategy is to stick to the facts about culture and worldview - let the technologies, old and new, speak for themselves. Let the cultural ethic speak for itself. Let the leadership models and community models speak for themselves. Read the Native voices that are available to us in print. You must teach these aspects of Wabanaki Studies before, after, and during a study of maps, treaties, conflicts, and contemporary issues.

What will you accomplish by doing this? You will be redefining Civilization for your students. Or rather, you will reapply the true meaning of the word. Your alert students will, as mine did, note the irony in the barbaric acts of the “civilized” Europeans. Acts that continue in this state, albeit not with the violence and destructive intent of the 1600 and 1700’s.

Take on this challenge and you will be helping to set a new course for Maine - one that your students, as voters and as adults, will continue to build.

This post could be subtitled: Read this Interview. The interview in question is Indian Country’s interview with Penobscot Chief Kirk Francis, following the Wabanaki Confederacy Conference at the end of June. In the interview, Chief Francis speaks about Maine state economic aid to the Penobscot nation, clarifying for readers “how much” aid is actually received and where it is directed. He mentions three specific arenas in which the State is currently challenging, or ignoring, Penobscot and/or Wabanaki sovereignty: state environmental “protection”/inspection of facilities on tribal lands; guidelines for the treatment of Native ancestral remains and artifacts; and continued State regulation of Native gaming.

Why should Maine’s teachers be alert to these issues?

1. Foremost, because a major outcome of the Conference was a unanimously passed [by the Council of Chiefs] “historic resolution calling on United Nations nongovernmental organizations, the Human Rights Council and the Organization of American States to intercede on the tribes’ behalf against incursions on tribal sovereignty by states and courts.” Were intercession to happen, the State and its courts [perhaps even the Federal courts] would find their actions and decisions placed under review and probably censure, if not “officially” then certainly in the public eye. Students may be confused. They may want to “take sides.” Teachers in districts that have consistently complied with LD291 will find that they can engage students in meaningful dialogue, rather than just respond to knee-jerk reactions.
   
2. The concept of employing the Wabanaki Confederacy as a political means of applying pressure on and negotiating with other governments and alliances is not new. This event connects directly to Maine’s Native history timeline, beginning as early as 1676 (Waponahkiyik); it is, in a real sense, the continuation of an alliance formed because of the actions of non-Natives. Teachers can connect the necessity for the new Resolution to the actions and situations that necessitated earlier Wabanaki Confederacy councils and resolutions. Search the various timelines to create your own overview [dates differ].
   
3. It is ironic that the State should wish to investigate Penobscot constructions that impact the environment. Not only is this a direct challenge to tribal sovereignty, it is an affront. Teachers of high school students can direct students to research the Native battles against the pollution of waterways over the last 25 or so years. Many of these drew attention to industrial pollutants, and health issues, that might otherwise have been swept under the rug. Marvel! and Tribal sites [would be good starting points.
4. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (read an overview here) is a Federal law protecting Native remains and supporting cultural continuity by restoring artifacts to the appropriate nations. In 1993, Maine limited the scope of the law as it applies to the Wabanakis to remains under 1000 years old. This has been challenged by the Wabanaki Confederacy [read a good article in Indian Times which discusses both some of the issues and Bonnie Newsom's challenge of the Maine law]. This is a great opportunity for teachers to review over 10,000 [recent research indicates probably more like 14,000] years of Native life and culture in Maine. This heritage is a core issue. As will be discussed in an upcoming post, it is the taproot for what European would call “power.” To challenge or limit the historical claims of the Wabanaki people is to directly challenge their sovereignty. To claim that the artifacts of this heritage belong to other than the Nations [or worse, to no one at all] is, in this day and age, “politically incorrect” as well as insensitive. Teachers might begin by discussing this statement from the Francis interview: “The people who came here left their ancestors. They don’t have the same kind of respect or sense of responsibility.” (Indian Times interviewer). Students can move on to explore the burial sites and artifacts of their own families. High School students can discuss also African American burial grounds and the respect they are afforded in Maine and elsewhere. Middle School students can connect this issue to the that of Egyptian, Greek, and Mayan treasures that are being returned to their home countries. At all levels, students can support the intersection of “law” and culture and the role of museums in preserving culture and heritage [the largest collections of Wabanaki ancestral artifacts are in Maine's museums]. This is truly an issue that should be unifying, but one where dichotomy often rears its ugly, and destructive, head.
   
5. Native control of gaming on tribal lands is, of course, an ongoing sovereignty issue, and, from the student point of view, a basic issue of “fairness,” of government, of economy, and [for many] of ethics. It is also an issue of stereotype, which students can explore by looking at Chief Francis’s statement that, “ ‘They [non-Natives] think, ”Oh, they just talk about their ancestors, and their future and their elders, to try to get slot machines or gain some kind of control they shouldn’t have.’ ” Beginning in Middle School, students can research the pros and cons of recent referendum and legislative votes, and of the Governor’s position. They can interview their own commmunities. This is, in fact, one of the best issues on which to frame a Debate unit in Social Studies, for, if I read Chief Francis correctly, there may be a media-perfect showdown coming up.
   

Teachers need to be sensitive to the fact that each of these issues has multiple sides. It would be unfortunate if misunderstanding and bias were the outcome of their study in the classroom. The goal should be an understanding of the Wabanaki points of view, and the student’s own point of view, which leads to respect and dialogue. It is likely that today’s students will be finding these same issues when they reach voting age.

By the way, if you are in need of a review of the Wabanaki Confederacy, read Prins’ article prepared for the Passamaquoddy and still found online.

It was just a matter of time before YouTube and Google Video became LD291 resources. Give them a look (you won’t be able to do this from your Maine school, probably):

1. Go to YouTube and enter “Wabanaki” into the video search window. What you will find is a wonderful set of audio files from Spirit of the Dawn, Micmac videos from a PowWow, and videos of Micmac responses to this spring’s flood. Try the same with tribal names (have not fully explored this myself - report on what you find that can be used in the classroom) - “penobscot dance” yields a wonderful short on teaching children to dance.
2. Go to Google Video and enter “passamaquoddy tribes” into the search window. What you will find (and this is why I sent you to this search) is a new student video about the Land Claims Settlement, The Passamaquoddy: a People Reborn - also posted asThe Conflict and Compromise of the Maine Indian Land Claims Case (view it directly at Viddler, which also has some introductory material), and two important shorts specifically about the Passamaquoddy that will probably be familiar to you. Searching for “Wabanaki” yields up the same videos as you will find in YouTube.

Of course, anyone can post to these video networking sites. The student video is actually by a girl from Massachusetts, who “hopes to get permission from the Passamaquoddy” to make this film into a major film. The thing that puts Conflict and Compromise over the top, for me, is the annotated bibliography that can be downloaded separately here. I captured both the video (as an mp4) and the bibliography. I got the video from YouTube (here), using a GreaseMonkey plugin (learn about how to do it in my Literacy Journal - scroll down to the bottom of the post) that downloads seamlessly.

My point is this: why aren’t Maine’s students making these videos? It is almost impossibly easy - all students need is an inexpensive video camera OR a still digital camera, iMovie (for editing - on all laptops) and a sound application (GarageBand or Audacity - ditto) OR just a good plan and a $99 Flip camera - voila Primary Source. Tie it into a “social issue” and do it collaboratively, and several of the new MLR for social studies are handled in one project. Someone might counterpoint Conflict and Compromise.

YouTube and Google are places for posting, but there is actually a better place now. Did you know that the Maine DOE has created an iTunes U space? Check it out by going to iTunes, opening the iTunes Store, and entering “Maine Department of Education” in the search window. What a great place for LD291 student videos! These are like podcasts: you can subscribe or download individual espisodes.

From my point of view, this is a powerful tool for exploring U & D - and for archiving culture and history.

Perhaps what we need is a challenge, sort of like the State’s challenge to write an essay about a Native or Social Studies topic. I am going to write Jana Boody and make that suggestion, but you, dear reader, might actually see Jana this week. Why don’t you just buzz the idea of a video contest in her ear?

• The prize - Recognition and Publicity
• The value - Education that will last!!

By the way, I found out about the Land Claims video from a new DOE site dedicated to providing current Maine Native resource links - I have put it in the sidebar of Essential Resources, but here it is again: Maine Native/Wabanaki Studies.

Am I planning to do any films? Yes, I am. Any speaker who comes will be a subject, but students will also be doing at least one short per core (that will be 5 over the year). Our topic will be “Unity and Diversity” of course.

If you are like me, you might feel a little bit weird about GoogleEarth. This powerful application on the MLTI laptops (and freely available for download) allows you - anyone - to zoom in to look closely at just about anywhere on Earth. If you haven’t already, zoom in to find your own school or house. That’s what feels weird - you can be located.

But here is the cool thing. This tool, alone or used with other free tools, adds a reality dimension to Wabanaki studies and can support the type of collaboration efforts that we need in our schools. A classroom with an LCD projector can make these mapping tools the center of dynamic visual lessons. Here are some ideas for using GoogleEarth:

1. Explore canoe routes. Using the map in The Wabanakis of Maine & the Maritimes as a guide, explore Maine by water. The joystick-like controls in GoogleEarth make it easy to scroll upriver on the Penobscot, for example. Students will gain a new understanding of the use of waterways for trade as well as travel.
2. Attach a GoogleEarth map to history. The Land Transfer of 1833 (my lesson is online - scroll down) is more clearly understood if students can actually see where the negotiations took place (how far the Agent had to travel - no wonder he was feisty at the get go), and the lands, islands and rivers involved in the negotiations and in the subsequent transfer.
3. Locate Native reserved lands, and land purchases, on the Maine map. It won’t take much more than the image, zoomed out and in again, to deliver a powerful message about how much land has been taken. By combining this technique with treaty studies (I hope to provide a detailed timeline of land transfer by the end of the summer - or maybe someone else can do that and let me link to it), students can gain a very visual understanding of the havoc of history.

GoogleEarth is even more powerful when combined with other tools. Digital cameras, Flickr, and Trippermap are three key tools that work together seamlessly.

Flickr is a photo storing and sharing space - free and online. You will want a classroom account for Flickr - it is hugely useful in many ways (as a source of copyright free images, to store and manage photo collections, etc.) And it is not blocked. Once uploaded to a Flickr account, your photos can be given titles, annotations and “map definitions.” They can be organized into folders. They can be kept private or shared with other Flickr users (be forewarned: this is a huge community).

Trippermap combines with GoogleEarth to create interactive maps that are labeled with photographs of specific places!! You can get an overview of this by accessing this video tutorial (I had to watch it three times - don’t send middle school kids to do this on their own - HS students can probably handle it).

Here are some ideas I have for using this combination of tools:

• Native place names map - imagine if every school in Maine contributed images to an interactive Maine map of places, businesses, geographical features, roads, etc. that had Native names (with meanings, if possible). What a powerful message!
• Stereotypes still standing - same, but map negative stereotypical signs, etc. The more we see, the more we understand how the message continues. And where are these places (remote? on well-traveled roads? by cities or schools?)
• What is it like in your town? Students all over Maine could record (a limited number) of key places and/or events that sent a message about U & D - and also about culture and worldview. Image the kid-to-kid dialogue that could happen between communities that would not otherwise dream of communicating.
• Economy is a large part of the SS learning results. Map pictures of where visitors can find Native arts, crafts and other products (in museums, businesses, galleries), map Native businesses. Look for trends in your class. Are you surprised by what you find?
• Where do the members of Maine’s Nations live? This information is not available anywhere else. One at a time, students in Maine’s schools can map Native populations as of NOW. All you would need is a picture of a “Welcome to…” sign - or even a manufactured photo of a place name. Photos of individuals would not be a good idea, unless they were self-supplied.
• Map Resources - chert (needs a big map), marine and land species, sweetgrass (we really do wonder about that), other??  This would be really valuable to me.

I’ll be setting up accounts and exploring the interrelationship of these tools over the next week. Hopefully, I will have a sample map to share with you before the end of the month. If you make one - or want to spearhead a project - let me know! Do you need a digital camera for your classroom? Send the HELP call out and we’ll see what we can do.

It’s a long drive from Stowe, VT, to Georgetown, ME. We break it up by taking the scenic route, across VT and NH on Rt. 2, then down 26 to Poland Springs. This time we wandered down to Montpelier and took in lower Rt. 2. The sky was grey, a mist obscured the scenery, and the radio had lost everything we wanted to hear. So I studied the scant human presence by the side of the road.

Oh no! We passed a wooden Indian carved, like a bear, from a single tree trunk. Ouch! We passed Injun Joe Court campground, a Plains Indian in white feather headdress on the sign. Yikes! We passed Indian River variety store, a large-nosed Indian profiled on the sign.

These were new to me - in over 25 years of driving Rt. 2 I had not noticed these signs. Well, that was because I had never gone this far south before. And in the last four years, my sensibilities have been heightened.

What is wrong with Vermonters anyway? These stereotypical signs were within 20 miles of the state capital! Within five miles of the Ndakinna Abanaki Indian Museum and Cultural Center! How unenlightened!

The Abenaki Nation (also spelled Abenaki) of Vermont is recognized by the state (2006) but not yet federally recognized. There are several active bands (see Vermonters Concerned on Native American Affairs) This interesting little article in Indian Country, which you might read cautiously, demonstrates that certainly there is organized discussion among Vermont’s nations and bands. Lee Sultzman, in his Compact History, uses Abenaki as an umbrella term for all tribes of New England, including the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Micmac and Maliseet. Many websites and texts do the same. Ne-Do-Ba is a site specifically for “the Abanaki of Western Maine,” and White Dove’s history includes the Penobscot in this group, as opposed to the Abenaki of Eastern Maine, which includes the other three tribes. Labels on old European maps (or see an overview from Snowwowl) further complicate the issue.

The nature and use of Abanaki in Maine is confusing to students and teachers. It is therefore more appropriate, in Maine, to focus upon our four recognized nations (this is my Now approach), as the nations themselves prefer.

So we can, in Maine, claim to be enlightened. Our Native nations are state and federally recognized, after all. A successful campaign has been waged to remove S– from place names in the state (2000 - An Act Concerning Offensive Names - read a nice editorial about it). We are over the hump. In the words of Maureen Smith, we are beyond Stereotypes 101.

Are we? Round about Oxford, in the middle of a powerful storm, we passed the sign shown above. How many families pass this sign daily in the summer time? It is only a mile or so from the Speedway; a short drive from a Walmart. Hundreds must see it every day.

Yes, the sign is old - perhaps a community icon. Icon? Symbol? Let’s review Stereotypes 101:

• feather headdress
• black hair, braided
• large nose
• high cheek bones
• dark skin
• beaded mocs
• toothy grin, squinty eyes: suggesting greed, sneakiness, dishonesty
• fringed costume - looking a bit like a stereotypical “shyster suit” as well
• holding a feather: trading ignorantly, impoverished, “Indian giver”
• this is an OLD Indian, if not already dead
• 5¢ - is the Indian worth 5¢? Is his trade being ridiculed? or is this a parody of a Cigar Indian

Certainly, the Native is being ridiculed - in Maine - just like in Vermont. Perhaps the designer of the sign was ignorant enough to find this humorous. The fact is - the sign is still there. In Maine, we are not yet enlightened because it is still there.

This would be a great opportunity for Maine teachers to show students how to make a difference (RE: Maine Social Studies Parameters for Essential Instruction A3…).

I suggest a letter-writing campaign.

The focus: Pa’s Tradin’ Company needs to replace its sign. By clicking the Letter tab at the top of this page, you will find a sample letter. This can serve for any anti-stereotype classroom campaign.

If you want to write your own letter, here is the address of Pa’s:

PA’S TRADIN’ COMPANY
1190 Main St
Oxford, Maine 04270

Alternative Plan B:

I have in my stereotype toolkit about 50 items purchased locally - each of which perpetuates a Native stereotype. My suggestion to all teachers in Maine is this: Check out your local tourist, discount, fabric, craft, and dollar stores. Are they selling items that you find stereotypical? If so, note the item and its code. Photograph it. Purchase at least one item to make the point!

Task your students to write letters to your local businesses asking for these items to be removed from the shelves. Have them explain why this is important in Maine. Provide a return, stamped envelop to encourage store owners and managers to respond. Send another letter to the importer or manufacturer of the item, if you can find an address.

While you are at it, you might send some mail to Big Sqaw Mountain Resort (Route 15, Greenville, Maine 04441), which seems to have escaped notice, perhaps because it is one of Maine’s “little gems.”

Will this make a difference? It certainly will provide an authentic learning experience for your students. And perhaps if 800 letters are sent Pa and others will get the point that the landscape of Maine and its stores must change with the times.

Or what is LD291 for?

Our friend Rosie Shiras passed on last week. She would not be pleased to know of the emptiness and sorrow I feel. She would want me to laugh and tell stories about her. She would laugh that just now I could not find my glasses in my handbag, only to discover them hanging from a chain around my neck.

Rosie has only seven Google hits. She would ask, What’s a Google hit? I would try to explain, and she would nod her head seriously, but I would stop before finishing because the nature of the hits would be more important to Rosie. She was one of the 902 signers of the 2007 Just Say No to Fast Track letter to Congress printed in the the NYT. There she is on page 8, between Susan V. Shipherd and Ravinda Shukla. She must have been pleased to be part of such a diverse group; pleased to have made a difference; pleased to be able to DO something. I bet she clipped that ad and filed it away somewhere - in a notebook - annotated. Perhaps she went to Staples and had it photocopied and sent it to someone in her vast network, accompanied by a letter written by hand on lined paper.

I surprised Rosie at Staples one day. I was buying computer cables; she was pretending to buy an electric typewriter. She told me it was time to enter the electronic age. I’m pretty sure she didn’t buy the typewriter, or if she did buy it, she didn’t learn to use it, because I continued to get long notes written on lined paper.

The last note Rosie sent to me was accompanied by a photocopy (for some reason, all of Rosie’s photocopies looked like they had been made in the 80’s - I imagined that she had an ancient Xerox machine in her winter home) of an article about the psychology of Native American depression. Her note said, “I thought you would find this interesting. Let’s talk.” Of course Rosie subscribed to this scholarly journal, and of course she read every word. We did talk about the article, on April 3, at the LD 291 Best Practices conference. I left that conference all fired up; Rosie called me that night because sparks were not her way. She wanted, I think, to make sure that I would stay on an even path. That was our last conversation; it was also the genesis of U & D.

When I first met Rosie I wore my most NY preppy outfit. She took one look at me in the driveway of her beautiful Orr’s Island home and said, “That’s nice, very nice.” Her voice was gravel ground smooth by time, a whisper carried like birch seed around and through. She was lovely, in slim jeans, a Western belt, and turquoise. On anyone else I would have found the outfit “wannabe” and the greeting presumptuous; but on Rosie they fit just right. Rosie was old words, like grand, mannerly, polite, honest, cultured, generous, and even elegant (if you have ever seen Rosie eat a hoagie, you will know what I mean). But she was also now words, like protest, rebel, change, intensity, and cause. Wonderful Rosie wore these words not like badges, but like life. She had become them and they became her.

I learned over time and rides to Orono a little about Rosie’s past - her activism for Native and peace causes, her true love of Native cultures in Maine and in the West, her tireless work to educate and extend learning, her deep love and admiration for her family. Walking away from lunch on April 3, we talked about the illness and death that had been around us both that winter and spring. These things, her voice told me, have their time.

Rosie never seemed to be in a hurry; but she was always deliberate. Next to her, I felt like a duckling.

Rosie’s passion for LD 291 was deep and true. She would be pleased that her 3rd Google hit is as a list of participants in the 2007 Common Grounds Fair. She is listed under Native American. Rosie’s spirit must be saying, “That’s wonderful, just wonderful.”

Oh, Rosie Shiras, how wonderful it must be to have a name that sounds like the wind.

There have been at least three specific recent events that illustrate the complex issue of Native sovereignty in Maine: the ongoing debate over the proposed LNG facililty at Sipayik / Split Rock on the Pleasant Point reservation; the meeting between Penobscot (and other) tribal leaders with Tribal officials from Venezuela; and the participation of the Wabanakis in a national resolution to restore full sovereignty to the Maine tribes. All are grounded in - you guess it - tribal economics. At issue in each is also tribal sovereignty, specifically the degree to which a Maine tribe has control over its economy and its development.

The middle and high school teacher who looks at these issues, if only briefly, can frame some discussions that get to core issues related to contemporary sovereignty. This are the most difficult issues to include in the classroom.

I will look at each issue separately, seeking to find not answers, but information and a process for teaching.

Quoddy Bay LNG

It surprised me to find the LNG facility, specifically the Quoddy LNG project, not mentioned at the Pleasant Point - Passamaquoddy website, while other important tribal actions, such as the successful fight to have Ntolonapemk federally cleaned up and placed on the historic register, are documented here. On the other hand, the Passamaquoddy Tribe of Maine - Indian Township contains a link directly to Quoddy Bay LNG, a site developed specifically for this project with Quaddy Bay LLC, the Oklahoma company developing the project. According to this site, Pleasant Point was selected for development after an invitation by the Passamaquoddy tribe. According to a December, 2004, article in the Bangor Daily News, “a nonbinding Passamaquoddy Nation vote supported the project, 193-132.” This information is confirmed in a report by Micmac reporter Maureen Googoo. Read a critical discussion of this vote in this interview with Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy David Moses Bridges (download a podcast) and in this article from Cultural Survival.

According to Quoddy Bay LNG, the economic advantages of the facility, in one-time and yearly income to the tribe, and in job opportunities, would be significant. According to Googoo, this income would provide support for essential community programs as well as individual incomes from jobs and local contracting.

A sovereign nation would have the power to “make such a deal,” but so would a town or city - a municipality - within Maine - Harpswell, for example, defeated a similar proposal by citizen vote. The fact that there is negotiation does not necessarily confirm or arise from the fact that the Pleasant Point tribe is a sovereign state. Were it so, then there might already be an LNG terminal there.

Another point to consider is the town of Perry’s veto of the licensing, which was possible because of a 1986 land conveyance agreement. Read about that limitation of sovereignty here. The Tribal Council is pursuing the Quoddy lease anyway.

The lease deal is still up in the air. Leading the opposition is a coalition group called Save Passamaquoddy Bay, comprised of individuals and organizations from the three nations inhabiting the shores of the Bay:

(image source)

Passamaquoddys from bands on both sides of the border have joined the Alliance (unfortunately, the link shown above is not active, so we can not access their information and opinion directly). They are acting as individuals within sovereign nations, some in opposition to their own nations and tribal Councils. Which is also true for the Canadian and US citizens and groups (organizations, towns) in the Alliance. There is even a line of “Against LNF in Passamaquoddy Bay” products available from Zazzle. This line, by the way, was created by a home-business in Georgia - too bad the Alliance did not ask a Passamaquoddy artist to do the design. In 2007, Nulankeyutomonen Nikihtahkomikumon brought suit against the Bureau of Indian Affairs to reverse their approval of the project (read the court ruling reversing dismissal of the suit, which also offers a good review of the issue). Success of this suit will overturn the approval of the initial lease, the first step in the facility development process.

The Passamaquoddy nations have actively supported a revision to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (S 2822) that would repeal expansion of FERC’s control of the LNG application and approval process. Currently, the Act allows FERC to approve a project over local objection, including the objection of a sovereign Native nation. This change in the bill would increase Passamaquoddy sovereignty over this decision.

There are many points of disagreement: environmental impact of the terminal (fisheries, whaling, impact of the pipeline on wildlife and wildlife refuges), impact upon Passamaquoddy cultural heritage and sacred sites, safety of the Bay water passages (including possible terrorism), FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) licensing, the role of FERC in the decision overall, the role of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the approval of the lease, Canadian concerns about ships containing hazardous materials in already dangerous passageways, concerns about changes in quality of life, effects on the tourism economy VS. economic gains from the terminal.

What we have is a two-fold sovereignty issue: As leaders of a sovereign nation, the Passamaquoddy Tribal Council has entered into an agreement to develop a LNG facility. As members of a sovereign nation, Nulankeyutomonen Nikihtahkomikumon have formed an alliance with like-minded groups in Canada and the US, and they have filed suit under the Leasing Act to reverse federal decisions that do not respond to their concerns. As such, they are acting as members of a sovereign nation that is restricted by a paternal federal government (leases of Native lands are subject to federal approval). No matter how you look at it, this issue is example of restricted sovereignty.

In this time of election turmoil, we non-Natives can certainly understand how a large issue can divide a nation. From my point of view, the fact that the Maine Passamaquoddy are taking an active part in this decision is an important expression of sovereignty. The fact that they do not have a large role - or even a major role - in the final decision is a limitation of their sovereignty. To take a line from a Downeast editorial, “The final decision rests in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa, Canada, and there’s not a whole lot the local folks can do about it.”

Are the Passamaquoddy local folks, or a sovereign nation?

It is not my intention to take sides - but teachers who open this issue to class discussion should use the resources in this post, and MaineNewsstand, ProQuest, etc., to gather information on both sides of the question.

If you want to teach about this current issue:

• Provide a current blow-up of the Passamaquoddy Bay map
• Review the location of Passamaquoddy ancestral lands, reservation and tribal land locations - remind students that the US/Canada border is not an obstacle to tribal economy, trade, hunting, etc.
• Provide a blank timeline so that students can accurately map the events of the last 5 years
• Make a word wall or chart - Words: LNG, FERC, Passamaquoddy Bay, tankers, Coast Guard, Sipayik, reservation, descendents’ rights, homeland, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), cultural identity, Pleasant Point, Indian Township, sovereignty, economy, Leasing Act
  
• Social Studies MLR: A1, B1, B3, C2, D2
• Possible speaker: David Moses Bridges, Vera Francis
• Overview articles:
  • from Environmental News Service

The economy is on the mind of everyone it seems. When I was growing up, I saved pennies. One by one, they were counted - and they counted for something (usually candy or ice cream…). Today we are again counting pennies in our house. Which has brought to mind The Maine Penny. If you have never heard of it, check out Wikipedia - we’ll come back to the quality of this source.

First of all, this could not be a “Maine” penny. There was no Maine when the coin was coined over 965 years ago. Furthermore, “penny” was not the name of a Norse coin - the word itself has its roots in Old English. Uh oh - that could come from Norse, couldn’t it? It turns out there is a connection, although all connections run through Britain or Ireland. There is, of course, the famous silver penny of Anlaf Guthfrithssonon, which dates from around 11,000 BP, even before “our” penny. So we have to allow “penny,” whatever that means.

A Journey Through Maine calls our penny the Norse Penny and labels it an important primary source. It is, yes, a primary source, more because it is an original, an artifact, than because it tell us much of anything. Or does it?

According to Journey, “a Viking coin from about A.D. 1000 was found in Brooklin…The Vikings settled in Greenland and Iceland, and even lived for a time in several places between Newfoundland and Massachusetts. Indian tribes who lived in what is now Canada probably got the coin from the Vikings and traded it to the Wabanaki (p 47).” What are about and probably doing in a history text? And didn’t the Micmac and the Passamaquoddy live in both what is now Canada and in what is now Maine? Does this validate that the Wabanaki were (at least) in what is now Maine shortly before 1000 BP? Can we rely on a probably?

Does a text saying it is so make it so?

Some archaeological reports name important artifacts from their site names. This particular coin was found at what is called the Goddard Site. We learn this detail from Finding Katahdin (p. 25), which tells us that the coin was minted between 1065 and 1080 (943-928 BP). It also gives us another probably: “The coin probably traveled to mid-coast Maine through the early Native trade networks.”

early Native?? Were the Wabanaki then a late arrival at Blue Hill Bay? This does not jibe with our timelines, which place the Natives in what is now Maine well over 12,000 BP. Or with the Native memory, which places them here from creation. Perhaps this text means that the trade routes were “early.” That makes more sense, but what about trading over the previous 11,000 years? One little word can be demeaning and misleading, especially in a text

From The Maine State Museum’s article on the Goddard Norse Coin (they have the coin in their collection), we learn that “there is a good deal of evidence that the Goddard village was an important hub within a far-ranging native trade network, one which brought goods from as far away as Pennsylvania, the Great Lakes and Labrador to the site. Thus, we think the most likely explanation for the coin’s presence is that it was obtained by natives somewhere else, perhaps in Newfoundland where the only known New World Norse settlement has been found at L’Anse aux Meadows, and that it eventually reached the Goddard site through native trade channels.” This works nicely with Journey’s side note and map of Wabanaki Trade Routes (p 49). When we study the canoe route maps in The Wabanakis of Maine & the Maritimes (D 20-21), we can see that this trade would certainly have been possible - by water. Were canoes available to the Wabanakis 1000 BP?

Yes, for at least 1200 years before 1000 BP (verify this at any or all of the timelines for Wabanaki studies). So we are beginning to see some credible evidence for widespread trading based upon canoe routes, well before the Vikings appeared on the coast of Newfoundland.

From Vinland Archaeology’s review of the L’Anse aux Meadows site, we learn that the silver penny was indeed a Norse coin, and also that this important Viking site contains carved stone artifacts from Newfoundland’s Dorset Eskimo culture - and so does the Goddard Site. Therefore, “archeologists believe this penny probably arrived in Maine as an interesting curio by native trade from Labrador or Newfoundland rather than by a Norse ship.” If you want to view the Viking site, you can do so in 360 at this wonderful Unesco site, WHTour.org. Take the time to create a free account, then click on Planisphere, then Eastern Canada. You will find a popup link (one of the circles) for Anse aux Meadows.

From Historic Newfoundland and Labrador (selection), and from Exploring Our Past, we learn that the Dorset Eskimo culture, from its paleo-Indian beginnings, was noted - and distinct - for carved stone tools and animal figures. Moreover, we learn that the Dorset living in Newfoundland 1000 BP, at the time of the Norse explorations/settlements, coexisted with at least two different cultures, the Recent Indian (that is the real name!) culture and the Beothuk. It was the Recent Indian culture that further evolved, in Labrador and then south along the cost, the use of Ramah chert, a stone first used extensively by the Middle Dorset from northern Labrador, with whom they must have traded. The Beothuk were devastated by diseases shortly after European contact and became “extinct.” Or perhaps the Recent Indians, with whom they culturally overlapped, assimilated the Beothuk. There is a great deal of confusion about these three cultural groups (read about it here) - but not about the fact that Ramah chert was actively traded over a wide range, by a variety of Native cultures and over at least 1000 years.

At any rate, the Recent Indian culture survived Contact and Ramah chert tools have been found in coastal Maine. There is an image of a Ramah chert long knife available from both Windows on Maine and Maine Memory Network and you can find a map of chert trade distribution here and a more extensive discussion of why Ramah chert was so widely traded at the Canadian main site. Good readers will enjoy this discussion of flaking a large piece of chert - and will be rewarded with a clue as to why it was so actively traded.

We learn more about the trade of stone and other artifacts in Lesson 7 (.pdf download) of the Passamaquoddy Kit.

It is looking more certain than probably that the Wabanakis traded with either the Norse, the Recent Indians of Labrador/Newfoundland, the Beothuk, or the Middle Dorset. Or with all of them.

Now - back to Wikipedia. Their entry on the Maine Penny ends: “The most plausible explanation is that the coin was purchased by a collector and planted at the Goddard Site.”

As an educator, you know that Wikipedia is the most common “reference” for most middle and high school students. In this case, it is not correct. And we have two Maine history texts and a Canadian online history that imply that the Wabanakis were recent additions to the Native landscape. History is certainly uncertain, but it should not diminish the value of a culture or population.

Lesson? Send students on a research journey, like the one I have taken. Push them to ask questions about their reading, especially about Wikipedia and about “fuzzy facts.” Make sure that they cross-reference and make use of timelines and artifact-rich resources. Guide to them find keywords in each piece of text - call these “Clues.”

There is more online that educators might think, although some of it will require translation.

I will be following other topics this summer - and you might do so too. Please share your journeys and the resources they uncover.