Unsettled
Chapter 1: An unlikely handshake alters the course of Maine's history
'Unsettled' begins. Over the next 29 days, reporter Colin Woodard tells the epic, half-century saga of the Passamaquoddy people, a story of shocking injustices and triumphs. It holds a mirror up to Maine’s recent history, reflecting back a forgotten record of uninvestigated killings, state conspiracies, and a legal vacuum that has blocked an entire people from re-establishing their cultural and economic prosperity.
-
Read the prologue to ‘Unsettled,’ the 29-part saga chronicling 50 years of triumph and tragedy among Maine’s Passamaquoddy people.
-
Five Massachusetts men arrived at the home of George Francis, who was watching Canadian football in his living room chair. They had come to eastern Maine to hunt. And they wanted women.
-
At the Altvaters' residence, where white hunters had made themselves at home, Peter Francis tells his friends: "Don't trust these guys ... They keep trying to start trouble."
-
Murder warrants go unserved in the death of a Passamaquoddy man, and a newspaper reporter gets an earful.
-
By the second day of James Ellinwood's manslaughter case, the Passamaquoddy Indians were alarmed at what the county attorney wasn't asking them.
-
After his initial meeting with tribal Gov. George Francis in May 1964, Don Gellers throws himself into representing the Indian tribe.
-
State officials were publicly dismissing the validity of the 1794 document on which the case was built. Privately, however, Gov. John Reed's administration was nervous.
-
A traffic stop spirals into violence between law enforcement and the Passamaquoddy, and attorney Don Gellers' vigorous defense only intensifies the scrutiny on him.
-
After five years of research, attorney Don Gellers believed he had cracked the Indians' land claims case.
-
A known user of marijuana, Don Gellers is greeted by an Indian rival and a mobster who isn't quite what he seems to be.
-
A prominent trial lawyer from Boston comes forward with a remarkable story about a conversation in a Bangor restaurant in 1968.
-
Destitute, Don Gellers turns to his former intern, but even this 'trusted person' would suddenly abandon his client just hours before a crucial hearing.
-
In the winter of 1971, Tom Tureen developed his own theory about the Passamaquoddy's rights, and with it he would make legal history.
-
Increasing numbers of Passamaquoddy had come around to former Pleasant Point Gov. George Francis' more confrontational perspective toward authority.
-
Everyone connected to the Indian land claims had ample incentive to keep talking because sending such an explosive case to trial carried staggering risks.
-
Indeed, many were realizing that the Passamaquoddy tribe's quest for dignity, prosperity and self-determination was just beginning.
-
After winning the Maine tribes' land claims case, attorney Tom Tureen becomes a celebrity in Indian country.
-
As money begins coming in and investments are made, the Passamaquoddy start to become aware of an unexpected but extremely serious implication of the land claims deal.
-
As a result of an unusual 1986 tribal caucus initiative, hundreds of Passamaquoddy had their right to vote in tribal elections taken away because they lived outside Washington County.
-
The need for a tribal constitution is abundantly clear, but getting it enacted proves a complicated and formidable challenge, one that remains unfinished to this day.
-
In a sad irony, the Passamaquoddy are slipping into another legal breach, one made far wider by the actions of their own elected leaders.
-
Resource mismanagement leads the Bureau of Indian Affairs to suspend Passamaquoddy timber sales in 1993. And that was only the beginning.
-
Maine officials say the land claims settlement Act spells out and limits what the tribes oversees; the Passamaquoddy say those powers are in addition to their sovereign rights.
-
'I'm the new Don Gellers,' says Bobby Newell, referring to the tribe's one-time attorney, who was run out of the country on a minor marijuana charge.
-
Billy Nicholas, who defeated Bobby Newell in the 2006 election, was a colorful, charismatic figure with a checkered past.
-
In the continued absence of a constitution to ensure government accountability, an atmosphere of fear and intimidation took hold on the Indian Township reservation.
-
Lacking a constitution and an independent judiciary, the Passamaquoddy have few tools with which to hold their senior officials accountable.
-
In practice, critics say, the 100,000-plus acres have been used to enrich a handful of well-connected tribal members at the expense of the larger community.
-
After a hopeful start, Indian Township Chief Joseph Socobasin disappointed many fellow Passamaquoddy by failing to push through promised reforms, most critically the passage of a tribewide constitution.
-
After 50 years of successes and failures, the Passamaquoddy people's hope endures.
-
The Passamaquoddy tribe still feels the wounds of Peter Francis' 1965 slaying, for which no one was held accountable.
THE “UNSETTLED” EBOOK IS HERE
The saga chronicling 50 years of triumph and tragedy among Maine’s Passamaquoddy people is now available as a FREE eBook to all Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram subscribers.
Non-subscribers can purchase “Unsettled” online through major eBook retailers.
Illustration by Pete Gorski/Staff from rendering by Stephanie Ann Francis.Staff Writer Colin Woodard spent more than a year researching “Unsettled,” logging thousands of miles and more than 250 hours of interviews with some 70 sources, including past governors of Maine and the reservations, tribal elders, councilors and activists, as well as attorneys, state officials, police officers and academic experts.
Woodard – who is the author of four books, including three works of history – reconstructed events through eyewitness interviews; newspaper archives; the correspondence and departmental records of government, including numerous files that had been previously sealed; state, tribal and federal court records; thousands of pages of tribal, state, and federal documents acquired through public records requests and confidential sources; and decades-old correspondence between attorneys, government officials, and tribal members.
Behind the photography
Each chapter of “Unsettled” will be accompanied by one photograph that was shot using a pinhole camera, or camera obscura, an early form of photography using a pin-sized hole instead of a lens to capture a moment in time.
The soft-focus images that result from this rudimentary form of documentary photography create an aesthetic that blends modern-day scenes with the Passamaquoddy community’s past.