‘Beaten before we started’ at a controversial trial

Unsettled

Published
July 3, 2014

‘Beaten before we started’ at a controversial trial

March 1, 1966 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., visits the spot in eastern Maine where his great-grandfather, Peter Francis, was killed in 1965. Hinton has been lobbying the Department of Justice to […]
Published
July 1, 2014

Tepid response from authorities leaves tribe furious

November 16, 1965 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer The headstone for Peter Francis sits in a small graveyard on the Pleasant Point reservation Down East. When his slaying in 1965 failed to result in any murder warrants being served, it became “a turning point in … Indian […]
Published
July 1, 2014

A simmering conflict, stoked by alcohol, erupts

November 14, 1965 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer Violence broke out in November 1965 in the yard outside Christy Altvater’s house, above, located just outside the Pleasant Point reservation. Two Passamaquoddy Indians were left badly beaten, one of them fatally. Photo by Gabe Souza/Staff Photographer The Altvater […]
Published
June 30, 2014

White men from out of state come hunting for girls

November 14, 1965 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer Captured in the early morning through the aperture of a pinhole camera recently, this stretch of road leads into Pleasant Point Indian Reservation, where a menacing situation developed late in 1965, when out-of-state hunters clashed with the native residents. […]
Published
June 29, 2014

An unlikely handshake alters the course of Maine’s history

May 19, 1964 Story by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Photos by Gabe Souza / Staff Photographer Traditions and trials have been a part of Indian life in Maine for as long as members of the Passamaquoddy tribe, like this elder at Indian Township, can remember. Their ancestors found sustenance in this corner of the world […]

Published
June 27, 2014

A 13,000-year journey leads to a breaking point

Over eons, the tribe's ancestors established a cycle of sustenance on their lands. Then the Europeans arrived.