Chapters

Published
August 3, 2014

Family’s quest for justice still burns, a half-century later

Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer Michael-Corey Francis Hinton, a Passamaquoddy Indian living and working as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., stands on the spot near the Pleasant Point reservation in eastern Maine where his great-grandfather, Peter Francis, was killed after a confrontation with five white hunters from […]
Published
July 27, 2014

‘We are getting stronger’

Spring 2014 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer A Passamaquoddy elder rests his hands on an oar while working near Long Lake in Indian Township this spring. The people on the tribe’s two eastern Maine reservations have spent decades fighting for their rights while struggling to preserve their […]
Published
July 26, 2014

Reservation leadership changes, though little else does

2010 to 2014 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer The pinhole camera captures the trailer home of a Passamaquoddy tribal member in the parking lot of the now-closed Creative Apparel Associates building in Indian Township. Changes in tribal leadership in 2010 did not lead to a longtime goal: […]
Published
July 25, 2014

Tribe’s forests, a crucial resource, fall prey from within

2006 to 2014 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer An area off Peter Dana Point Road in Indian Township has been freshly logged in this pinhole camera photo. How the Passamaquoddy have managed forestlands in the past decade has led to a significant rift between the tribe’s two […]
Published
July 24, 2014

Tribe’s dealings cloaked in secrecy, and distrust festers

2007 to 2010 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer The factory doors have since closed at the Indian Township site for Creative Apparel Associates, a Passamaquoddy venture that once made chemical-protection suits for the military. A lack of transparency clouded many of the tribe’s business enterprises. Photo by […]

Published
July 23, 2014

Tribe reels as its own leaders ‘become our oppressors’

2007 to 2010 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer A run-down basketball court at Pleasant Point. Decades after the land claims pact, Maine’s Passamaquoddy reservations have become difficult places in which to thrive. Ira Gilbert, a tribal member at Indian Township, puts it succinctly: “There’s a big law […]
Published
July 22, 2014

New leader, new scrutiny on where the money goes

2006 to 2010 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer The tribal government building at Indian Township. Even after Bobby Newell was convicted of misapplying federal funds and a new governor stepped into the leadership role, questions about spending and appropriations persisted on the reservation. Photo by Gabe Souza/Staff […]
Published
July 21, 2014

Feds move in, Indian Township governor feels the heat

2006 to 2008 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer With Deer Island in New Brunswick on the horizon, the ocean waters of Passamaquoddy Bay lap against the shore at Pleasant Point. At Indian Township, Gov. Bobby Newell says he “got caught in the political crossfire by ambitious people” […]
Published
July 20, 2014

The perils of placing trust ‘in the hands of the few’

1993 to 2005 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer A pinhole camera captures a dog chained to a trailer on Passamaquoddy tribal land recently. For many people on the reservations, the way that leaders managed the tribe’s newfound wealth after the land claims settlement of 1980 left a […]
Published
July 19, 2014

As reservation’s rule of law erodes, abuses thrive

1978 to 1993 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer A boarded-up building belies the difficult life on Peter Dana Point in Indian Township. Governing without a tribal constitution in the years following the Indian land claims settlement of 1980 put the Passamaquoddy in a risky spot, even with […]