Remembering the Malaga Island tragedy

Earlier this month my Press Herald colleagues asked me to record a video bit for the "this day in Maine" Bicentennial of Statehood feature on a story I reported on closely before I joined the paper in 2012: the Malaga Island tragedy.

It's an awful story -- a shameful official act by Maine's government exceeded only by its past treatment of the Passamaquoddy and other tribes -- featuring racism, social darwinism, and plain old corruption. I first learned of the 1911-12 saga while researching my history of Maine, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier, and followed with a story in Down East about Maine's bungled attempt to apologize (no longer online). I also wrote about it for the Press Herald shortly after joining the staff.

Hope you appreciate the brief video. For more on Malaga, start with my former Salt Institute colleague Rob Rosenthal's excellent and important audio documentary, Malaga Island: A Story Best Left Untold.

The Malaga Island tragedy, one century later

I have two lengthy stories in today's Maine Sunday Telegram, and it's the one way inside in the Insight section that's been the most popular, shared, and commented article on the paper's website today.

I'm pleased this is so, as it is on the Malaga Island tragedy, a shameful episode in our state's history that documentarians Rob Rosenthal and Kate Philbrick aptly termed "a story best left untold." Well the story -- of a Maine island community cleansed from the coast on the orders of the governor of Maine in 1912 -- is getting told, and by the Maine State Museum no less, which opened an impressive and symbolically important exhibit on the incident yesterday.

One correction: one of the islanders was declared "feebleminded" and incarcerated at a state asylum because she didn't realize Teddy Roosevelt had been succeeded by William Howard Taft as president. In the print version of my piece, I understand I wrote "Robert Taft" by mistake, which means I ought to have been sent to Pineland as well.

Malaga Island: a proper apology

For those following the Malaga Island story, there was an important development over the weekend.

Governor John Baldacci joined descendants of those evicted from in 1912 by his predecessor for a visit to the island. The governor apologized for the state's (eugenically-inspired) actions. State Rep. Herb Adams (D-Portland) read the state legislature's resolution expressing regret for the act. One descendant said she thought the event had "lifted the curse" on the islander's story.

As I reported in Down East a couple of months ago, the legislature bungled their official apology back in April, passing the resolution without prior notice to descendants or stakeholders and then not informing anyone that it had happened. My story -- published months later -- was the only press report that appeared, and apparently focused Gov. Baldacci's attention on this historical injustice.

I wasn't able to attend on account of my son's birth, but MPBN and the Brunswick Times Record have stories. Richard "Scoops Don't Matter" Connor's Press Herald is expected to run a piece tomorrow.

(Here are all my posts on Malaga Island.)

Bangor Daily News on Malaga Island

The strange tale of Maine's "hidden public apology" for the infamous Malaga Island evictions in 1912 -- which I broke in the current issue of Down East -- is the topic of this morning's editorial in the Bangor Daily News.

The daily provides a thumbnail sketch of the events and the legislature's decidedly unpublicized apology, before concluding:

"Fortunately, the Legislature and Gov. John Baldacci have opportunities to rectify this. They, along with descendants, will be invited to an Aug. 1 ceremony on the island. That event, along with next year’s centennial of the Malaga deportations, would be perfect times to amplify the apology, making it much more meaningful."

One correction: the News writes that "by the early 1900s, many Malaga residents were mentally and physically disabled." As radio documentarian Rob Rosenthal and others have revealed, this was not, in fact, true. Eight people -- a fifth of the island's population -- were incarcerated at the Maine School for the Feebleminded, but for most of them on what essentially amounted to trumped up charges.

I've been trying to learn more details about the August 1 event and will pass on what I discover.

[Update, 7/28/2010: Rachel Talbot Ross of the NAACP tells me the Malaga commemoration event is on, but has been pushed back to August 28.]

[Update, 9/14/2010: The event happened, complete with governor.]

In Maine, a whispered apology for Malaga

The new issue of Down East is out, including my piece on the Maine legislature's incredibly low-profile formal apology for the state-sponsored Malaga Island evictions in 1912. How low profile? It happened back on April 7, and I'm "breaking" the news right now.

The piece is now online, so I'll let you read there about how the racially-mixed community was wiped from the map, the conspiracy of silence that followed, and the legislature's whispered apology this spring.

The piece also contains what I understand to be the first gubernatorial statement of regret for the incident, provided by Governor John Baldacci within hours of querying his office as to why the issue had been left to the legislature in the first place, since the 1912 evictions were orchestrated by one of his predecessors.

If you want to learn more about Malaga, you can hear Rob Rosenthal's radio documentary, Malaga Island: a Story Better Left Untold, while viewing images from his Salt colleague, Kate Philbrick. (The full text of the legislature's April resolution is available as a PDF at their website.)

[Update, 7/24/2010: There's an editorial in this morning's Bangor Daily News on this issue.]

[Update, 9/14/2010: Maine does the apology right the second time around.]

Maine: The Malaga Island story, this Friday

Readers of The Lobster Coast may recall the story of Malaga Island, whose African-American residents were evicted -- and imprisoned at a state mental health facility -- by the State of Maine to make way for tasteful summer resort in 1912.

My Salt Institute colleagues Rob Rosenthal and Kate Philbrick have just completed a radio/photography documentary project on the Malaga story, and it opens in Portland, Maine on Friday (6 to 9pm), complete with historical artifacts and a guest panel discussion. The radio portion of Malaga Island: A Story Best Left Untold will be broadcast on local alternative station WMPG on February 26 at 7:30.

[Update, 7/16/2010: I report on some new developments in the Malaga story.]
[Update, 9/14/2010: The governor apologizes to descendants for his predecessors' actions.]