Maine History Online

Falmouth July 12 1781
Young Son … Joseph and John gone to Sea a Privetarriyin and your Brother Isaac moss that married your sister Hannah is at Sea to the Wast indias I have Not hurd from you Sincs Last October I Should Be Suray glad to Hear from you to know the Reason that you are Not at Home … the farm Lays Comon as all my sons is gon away I Should be glad if you Wold Come Home or Write to me the Reason of your Not Coming … –– Jean Bayley

Friday the 20th
We do all we can for them – give one man a cup of tea and a slice of dry toast, another corn starch, another sago pudding, another crackers, anything we can think of to eke out their scanty meals. Some of them said they thought it was hard to be obliged to take whiskey and cinchona to give them an appetite when they could not get half food enough to satisfy their hunger. –– Rebecca Usher, 1865

Maine's geographic location — bounded on two of its four sides by Canada, another by ocean, and only one, its shortest, by the United States — hints at its past as contested borderland and frontier zone. Some of those contests were settled by negotiation, but many escalated into violent conflicts.

Although Maine's native peoples conducted warfare over the centuries before the arrival of Europeans, their disputes were generally of short duration with specific ends in mind: capturing individuals for adoption or ritual torture, settling intertribal quarrels, or testing the courage and skills of their youth. War was as seasonal as hunting, and had its respected place in native culture.

Euro-American contests, however, were international affairs of devastating incidence and duration, displacing people, destroying property, and consuming enormous resources as they blazed across the region. For the first few centuries that settlers from afar inhabited Maine, wars on Maine soil were frequent – British and French fighting with one another for territory and Indians involved as friends or foes, often trying to protect their own territory and livelihoods.

Conflicts fought on home territory involve civilians and soldiers in the fighting and involve citizens as political leaders, supporting personnel to the military, and in keeping farms, families, communities and soldiers functioning.

When wars moved to other states or to other countries, the effects on the homeland changed, but disruptions remained. Those left at home took over work and chores usually done by the departed soldiers, death and injury changed families forever, and civilians were called on to support war efforts in a variety of ways.

Soldiers had many similar experiences across time, but once the wars moved from nearby to more distant land, the soldiers, nurses and others following them added new cultural experiences to the other effects of war. Soldiers were injured, killed, taken prisoner. Some returned and some did not, either because of death or opportunities elsewhere.

During each of these wars, not every eligible soldier went to war. The voices and actions of protesters, deserters, "shirkers," anti-war activists, and peace advocates have been heard throughout the region's history, overtly in protests or more quietly in refusals to serve or leaving the country. War has not been universally embraced.

Wars, and participation in them at any level, inspire passionate, touching and sometimes commonplace diaries, journals and letters. Wars also inspire memory – of time served, of sacrifices, and of the cost and effect on local communities. Official records of battles and soldiers, maps, paintings and drawings also inscribe the experiences. Other memories take the form of monuments, statues, and plaques commemorating service, speeches, and parades. Wars have touched most generations in some way.

Maine as Battlefield

Before the American Revolution, European competitions for trade, land, and influence dominated Maine's landscape. Maine Indians fought against European settlers to preserve their territory and sometimes negotiated alliances with Europeans. For Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and other native peoples, however, becoming allies with the Europeans must have been a bit like riding a whirlwind.

Beginning with King Philip's War in 1675 and ending with the American Revolution, Maine and New England experienced 50 years of fighting. Indeed, the entire colonial period was seared by various conflagrations among European powers and their allies. Mainers participated in and were affected by these conflicts on their home ground.

Most existing sources present the experiences of these struggles from the point of view of the European settlers. To imagine what the experiences of Maine Indians might have been, one needs to read between the lines. Europeans viewed Indians as dangerous, as different from themselves, and as threats to settlers' rights to fish, farm, and otherwise carry on business.

For instance, several settlers wrote in a 1676 document about how Indians "fired all the houses" on the Blackpoint side of Casco Bay. They "slew one man, took another prisoner, & wounded a third who escaped, with another who hid himself in the bushes and lay within two or three rods of them, heard all their discourse, who confidently affirmeth them to be 70 or 80 whom he saw ..."

The writer notes that one of the attackers was a Frenchman who asked "whether it were difficult to take Richmond Island & Blackpoint." The overheard question prompted inhabitants to leave their homes on Richmond Island.

Some 45 years later, in 1721, Massachusetts Bay Governor Samuel Shute wrote to Samuel Thaxter, commander of the military forces in York County, providing direction in dealing with the Indians.

"You are to take all possible Precautions your Self, & to give the strictest Orders to the Officers and Soldiers under your Command to avoid the Shedding of Blood, But if you are attack'd You are to Defend your Self with Courage and Conduct, And if any Place be assaulted you are to do your utmost to defend it, & give your Command to all the Inhabitants to take Arms and join you," Shute wrote.

He added, "You are to take especial Care that your soldiers be under good Government. That they behave civilly toward the Inhabitants & do not Straggle from their Post."

The colonists planned to hold their ground, but wanted to avoid starting trouble.

The battles, of course, never were a clear conflict between colonist and Indian. Some Indians were friendly with French colonists and joined with the French to try to stop English colonial expansion; some Indians were friendly with the British, or the Americans.