A “Labyrinth of Uncertainties”: Penobscot River Islands, Land Assignments, and Indigenous Women Proprietors in Nineteenth-Century Maine

Abstract:In 1835 a unique dual property system developed within the Penobscot Indian Nation in Maine that involved a combination of individual land lots or private property holdings with reservation lands held in common for communal benefit. This dual land system permitted married women and couples to hold island lots at a time when, by the law of coverture, non-Native married women lost all property rights upon marriage. The coexistence of Penobscot reservation islands held in common with individual or family lots created a distinct land tenure that reinforced tribal ownership in powerful ways. The origin of the Penobscot land system reveals multiple Penobscot views of their changing homeland. Components of the Penobscot property system represented Indigenous values, specifically by guaranteeing to Penobscot married women and often their spouses the ability to own land at a time when few non-Native married women could legally own property in Maine. Penobscot families struggled with land transfers and the inheritance of lots under state supervision. By 1883 state commissioners had attempted to resolve competing claims as they affirmed Penobscot land title, a process that hindered further dispossession. Under this land system, many Penobscots expressed strong attachment to specific locations on their reservation islands, showing that their changing perceptions about land and property and, equally important, their connections to particular places were reminiscent of a much older view of their homeland, which was comprised of family hunting territories.