More Broken Treaties

Despite the help they had given to the Americans during the war, the Wabanaki People were back to their weakened position as soon as the war was over.  The encroachment on their land continued without their consent.  The United States government did not extend protection to the Wabanaki People following the Revolutionary War.

The Nonintercourse Act was first enacted by the newly formed Congress of the United States in 1790 and was subsequently re-enacted five times.  It consisted of many provisions regulating activities between American Indians and the non-Indian citizens of the United States.  A salient provision prohibited the transfer of any lands from Indians without the approval of the United States.  However, the United States government did not apply the Nonintercourse Act apply to the Wabanaki People, because they were under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which then had jurisdiction over all of what is now Maine.

The Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Penobscot Indian Nation hoped to protect some of their land through treaties that gave most of it away, but which legally bound the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and later the State of Maine to honor the boundaries of land that the Indians retained:

In 1794, the Passamaquoddy Tribe signed a treaty in which they ceded their territory, except for approximately 23,370 acres. 

After they had signed treaties in 1796, 1818 and 1820 and a deed in 1833, the Penobscots retained islands in the Penobscot River above Bangor.  

The Wabanaki People had to survive on a much reduced land base. The Penobscots and Passamaquoddies lived on reservation land that they had not been forced to cede in treaties.  In Canada, the Maliseet and Micmac People applied successfully in a few cases to keep some areas.  Later, a few other areas were returned to them.  The places that Wabanaki People were allowed to occupy were usually remote and isolated.  

Between 1821 and 1839, the Maine Legislature authorized the harvesting of timber from Passamaquoddy land in violation of the 1794 treaty.  Over the years, also in violation of the treaty, the Legislature authorized sale or lease of various pieces of Passamaquoddy land without compensation and without consent of the Tribe. 

Several of the Penobscots' islands were sold, as well.   In the early 1800s, funds from the sale of these islands, only some of which the Penobscots received compensation for, began to flow into the Penobscot trust fund.  In 1833, in violation of its own deed procedure as well as a former treaty, the State of Maine transferred to itself four townships which constituted 95% of Penobscot land at that time.  The State added to the trust fund the $50,000 paid for the four townships.  Moneys from the sale of timber, hay, and shore rights also went into the fund.
 
The Passamaquoddy trust fund was established in 1856 by a deposit of $22,500 for a lease of timber, grass, and power rights. The next year $5,225 was added and in following years additional proceeds from the timber harvest on Passamaquoddy land were added.   Interest on the deposits to these funds was supposed to be paid at six percent per year.  From 1859 until 1969 no interest was ever paid to the tribes.  Instead, it went to the Indian agents.

During the nineteenth century, Maliseet and Micmac People, who had always lived on both sides of the United States border, lost their hunting territories in Aroostook County when Americans opened this area to settlement.  They were not asked permission, they were paid no compensation, and in the end they were left with nothing.