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News Article Maine state power Written by from Indian Country Today The following 1829 letter from the Penobscot ‘Governors and Indians in Council’ to the governor of Maine is from the Maine Archives. In answer to the application made by John G. Deane Esq, in the name of this State, that we the Penobscot Tribe of Indians will sell to the government of this State our two Townships, we say as follows: The white people have repeatedly asked us to dispose of our lands, and we have sold to them one portion after another till we have but very little left. The prospect is that in two or three generations there will not be enough for our children. To us it looks strange that white people knowing this should ask us to sell nearly half [of] what we have left, when at the same time they have in this State so many thousand acres of wild land. If all their lands were cleared and settled, and consequently they wanted more, we should be willing to yield them a share of our own, for we are brothers, & one God made us all. Till this is the case, leave to us this little pittance, the miserable remains of the wide lands our fathers left us, enough to sleep on while we live & to bury us when we die. And what do white people suppose we must think when we see they wish to take from us one piece of land after another, till we have no place to stand on, unless it is to drive us, our wives, & our little children away? But if so great & so free a country as this would exterminate us, we have no chance any where else; we or our children must sooner or later be driven into the salt water & perish. But you say it is necessary that our Townships be settled, that there should be taverns on the military road [road built during the Aroostook War passing through Indian land at Mattawamkeag to northern Maine]. Have not the Indians tried already to settle the Township you want most because they needed it for its advantages of farming, hunting & fishing? Our Governor undertook this. Why did he not stay there? Because a bad white man, in his absence, by continually alarming his family, at last frightened his wife & children away. Nor was this all. He had with great labor constructed an eel weir with which great lots of that fish were taken & and quantities of them salted down. This they destroyed. They also dug up & carried away his provisions, his pork, his fish, his potatoes etc. Finally they burnt his cabins to the ground. It is treatment of this sort that has prevented the Indians hitherto from settling on some of their Islands, & on their Township. By & by they will try again. As to opening taverns on the military road, Indians have had talk among themselves sometime ago. They know that white men who travel that road must want taverns. They wish such men to be accommodated, & they have done last year & this present year what they were able by giving permits to white men to open a tavern at Matahwamkik Point, where it was most needed. Next year they will contrive with their Agent to have other taverns provided when and where they are wanted, so that travelers shall have no reason to complain on this point. This we have done and are willing to do all that is reasonable to accommodate our white brethren. Why then do they seem as if they wished to reduce us to extremity? When the United States were fighting for liberty, Gen. Washington sent for the Chiefs of our Tribe, and gave them his promise that, if we would remain neutrals in the war, he would secure to us our rights. We have been faithful to our white brethren & all we ask in return, is, that their contract towards us should be just & reasonable. Old Town Nov. 5. 1829

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