Discovery

In 1957, Passamaquoddy tribal leader Joseph Stevens discovered a copy of the 1794 treaty between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Passamaquoddy Tribe that, among other things, reserved title for the Tribe in perpetuity to 23,000 acres at Indian Township, 15 islands in the St. Croix River, and two islands in Big Lake near the township.  By the time Stevens found the Tribe's copy, one-fourth of the 23,000 acres had become "alienated" (in the hands of non-Indians.)


Catalytic Event

William Plaisted, a non-Indian, acquired control of a parcel of land in Indian Township from the Town of Princeton, which had seized it as compensation for burying an indigent Passamaquoddy person.  In 1964, at a poker game in Princeton, Plaisted won another parcel of Passamaquoddy land next to the property he already controlled.  His new parcel included an area that for years had been used as a garden by George Stevens, the brother of Tribal Governor John Stevens. 

When Plaisted decided to begin building new cabins on the land the Tribe was angry.   They set up road blocks and tried to halt his efforts.  A group of Passamaquoddy women sat in to protest and block construction on the disputed land.   They were arrested by the Maine State Police and taken to jail.  Charges of trespass later were dropped. Tribal Governor Stevens and other tribal leaders drove to Augusta to plead for help from Governor John R. Reed.  He told them there was nothing he could do.  This event produced two major results:

It called attention to the more than 6,000 acres of Indian land that had been sold, leased, or given away in violation of the 1794 treaty.  Over the last 150 years, the State had sold, leased for 999 years, or claimed by eminent domain portions of Passamaquoddy and Penobscot land guaranteed by their treaties. 

It convinced the Passamaquoddy Tribe to file the first land claims lawsuit.  They filed a suit in March 1968 in Massachusetts which claimed that Maine had violated the 1794 treaty while it was a province of Massachusetts and which asked for damages of $150 million for 6,000 acres of land that had been stolen from the Tribe.  Three days after the suit was filed, their attorney was arrested for possession of marijuana and the lawsuit he filed never went before a Massachusetts court.