Blog: Voices of Decolonization

During the last few cold and windy days of December, I decided to hike to the top of Black Mountain. I was very excited, especially since it had been a while since I had...

How do you prepare to bear witness—even if from a distance—to genocide? Bringing the archive of the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and  Reconciliation Commission (TRC) into a classroom environment demands engagement with this...

When I was first approached to work on TRC efforts, I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. As a Penobscot historian, I was well aware of the legacy of trauma that Wabanaki people had endured in our...

In 2015 the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe voted to remove their Representatives to the Maine State Legislature. The Representatives held seats in the House (lower) chamber, could sponsor legislation, give floor speeches, could...

From the dawn of history when the people were one and the gatherings weren’t of need but were life, there was nothing to turn back to, nowhere to come from, just moving forward from...

(An  excerpt from “`Wilderness within Wildness without’ by Bridget Besaw) During an up river canoe trip to Katahdin, our sacred mountain, my son Scott and I paused to rest as we carried our birch...

[Warning – painful content on Indian Boarding Schools below] In May, 2021 the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation of Canada announced that they had discovered the bodies of 215 children buried on the grounds...

In 2009, I learned of my connection to an infamous act of violence against Indigenous people. My family name was on the four cannon that helped to kill hundreds of Lakota men, women and...

The Dawnland Signals show for December was such a special treat. We had a wonderful virtual visit with poets Mihku Paul and Penthea Burns, discussing how they came to write poems and how they...

This month’s blog features a contribution earlier this year to The Maine Policy Review by Wabanaki REACH Team member Katie Tomer  Katie Tomer, part Penobscot and Maliseet, has co-facilitated Native healing circles in Maine’s...