When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I heard about the Maine Indian land claims suit and naively assumed things would work out well for the Indians. Years later (after I’d moved away and then come back again), I still had not learned that Maine’s Native American communities were missing out on essential federal rights and funding.
As an interested neighbor, I did attend workshops and lectures by Indigenous leaders such as Allen Sockabasin (a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe) and Barry Dana (former chief of the Penobscot Nation). But it wasn’t until relatively recently that I saw (online) how far the next generation of Wabanaki leaders has come – as evidenced by such initiatives as the Bomazeen Land Trust, Four Directions Development Corp. and the Wabanaki Alliance.
Hooray for the resilience of the Wabanaki people, who still live and work here, love the land and rivers and care for their families. Let’s stand with them on L.D. 1626.
Mariana Tupper
Yarmouth
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