Exhibition
Adaptation and Resistance: Indigenous History of the Pejepscot RegionNotes
During the seventeenth century, Europeans began to claim ownership of the region around what is now Brunswick. Often, this occurred without consulting Abenaki people, who had lived in the area for tens of thousands of years. Instead, when Europeans wanted to settle an area previously unknown to them, they asked their own European government for a patent. These land deeds ignored all Indigenous residents, “allowing” Europeans to use the land freely. This practice was the standard in this region and throughout the Atlantic seaboard throughout the course of the seventeenth century.
Abenaki people attempted to use European deeds to document their claim to their own land. However, even when this documentation existed, colonizers did not always recognize it as legitimate, as shown in this deed from 1763. The note scribbled on its back asks “whether Indian Deeds is(sic) good in any part of the government or ever was good without a liberty from the general Court for making purchase.” Bureaucratic rules imposed by a government with no actual ownership rights attempted to strip Indigenous owners of their right to occupy their land, even when documentation existed. These practices lent false legitimacy to European settler claims of having acquired Abenaki lands fairly.
Deed between Belcher Noyes and Thomas Wilson detailed the sale of land in Royalston (Durham), Maine.