Malaga Island, Maine
The Little School on Malaga Island, 1907. From Maine Coast Heritage Trust. Note the caption in which the students are identified by race.
During my research into the shoreline of Popham Beach, I came across the history of Malaga Island. It is located off the coast of Phippsburg, 20 miles northeast of Portland.
We have no black history here
Many of my fellow New Englanders think that their town has no black history because very few BIPOC settled there in living memory. The historical homogeneity of these towns is an outcome of white supremacy. Realizing this fact is at the root of my Intervisible installation.
This Juneteenth, I want to spotlight one piece of New England history. According to the Maine Coast Heritage Trust website,
“Benjamin Darling, an African man from the West Indies who may or may not have been enslaved, arrived in Maine in the late 18th century with a Captain Darling to help establish a saltworks in the town of Phippsburg.”
Thus begins the story of a small community of black and white folks. The story begins well, and ends, as you might imagine.
Popham Beach from my visit in February 2021.
The removal of the mixed race community on Malaga Island took place between 1911 and 1912, Just 10 years before the massacre in Tulsa.
I purposely refer to the Malaga event as happening in New England rather than in Maine. As a New Englander, I consider this part of my heritage. Even though my blood relatives were coal mining in Pennsylvania and newspaper people in Troy, NY, in the early 1900’s. I recognize that the privileges of whiteness and the erasure of people’s homes and histories, has benefitted people like me. And I also don’t want to point a finger at the lovely people of Maine. I’m pointing it at all of us white folks.
Racism isn’t your fault but you do have a responsibility
Before you think I’m wearing a hair shirt or otherwise beating myself up, I’m not. We all share the complex history of race and white supremacy in our beautiful country. I love Maine, from the Penobscot River to the outlets of Kittery, and of course the rocky pine tree edged beaches. I have a deep concern for the natural environment, and for the fishermen and other folks whose livelihoods are being impacted by climate change. I can’t wait to get up there this summer and sink my toes into the sand. But I also appreciate that land ownership is a complex story, too often including removal of and violence toward BIPOC people in our country.
I’m dedicated to understanding that history better.
I enjoy my relationship to the land, while still seeking to understand how land ownership came to be what it is today. I’m not responsible for what happened, but I am responsible for helping to make things better now. One way to begin is by learning these histories.
I don’t want an idealized version of how we got here. I want the whole mess. And from that mess, I hope we can all learn to do better. The land, and all the folks who love our corner of the world, deserve our efforts.