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'So Secure a Harbor': English Settlements in Maine
| Article
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14608 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
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5 / 1988 |
4,855 Words |
| Author
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Eric Olsen
Eric P. Olsen is associate executive editor at the World & I. |
In the summer of 1605, five neolithic tribesmen from the coastal forests of Maine in North America disembarked from the Archangel at Plymouth, England. After being forcibly removed from their homeland and people by English explorers, the native Americans apparently were relieved to find they weren't mistreated. On the contrary, Englishmen cultivated their friendship, anxious for any insights into the mysteries of the unknown continent or the promise it might hold for the English.
The appearance of the American aborigines created a sensation in England, and the dignified, handsome Indians were not reluctant to engage their hosts with pleasing accounts of their native soil. As an excited British society listened, plans for a convincing English presence on the American continent took form, and prominent investors looked to Maine as a potential settlement site. The five Abnakis not only took the earliest steps toward bridging the enormous cultural gap between European and native American societies, but also sparked the expectations and hopes that would culminate in the successful transplantation of British life and institutions onto the American continent.
Few regions in the United States today recall the nation's earliest history as clearly as does the coast of Maine. For Americans raised on the near-mythical narratives of the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies, it may be surprising to learn that the exploration and settlement of Maine was undertaken fully as early as, and with important consequences for, the fragile settlements to the south.
The harsh winters and topography of the Maine coast no doubt have helped preserve the region from large-scale settlement for the more than three and a half centuries since the first colonization. Coastal Maine was unlike any other area the British, French, and Spanish explorers encountered. Long, irregular peninsulas and countless islands dictate many aspects of life for the Down East Yankee even today. The ocean as much as the land is where one works, plays, and travels. The trip from New Harbor to Boothbay, for example, is roughly three miles for the local fisherman, but perhaps thirty for the unhappy car-bound tourist on a tight schedule.
Livelihood is the thread that joins this region to its earliest colonial forebears. Unlike the religious dissent and millenarian hopes that blew the Mayflower to the shores of Cape Cod, it was the spectacular catches in the Maine waters that heightened the interests of the boldest fishermen in
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