Penobscot Nation, Indian Island

Indian Island in the Penobscot River has been the heartland of the Penobscot Nation for thousands of years. The Penobscot people are one of the Wabanaki nations of Maine, tied to the river that shares their name through fishing, ceremony, and identity. Starting in seventeen seventy-five, Massachusetts and later the state of Maine pressured the Penobscot into a series of land cession treaties.

By the time Maine achieved statehood in eighteen twenty, the Nation had been stripped of virtually all its territory and retained little beyond the islands of the Penobscot River. Today the Nation owns islands along a sixty-mile reach of the Penobscot River, with the tribal headquarters at Indian Island near Old Town. The Nation also holds land elsewhere in Maine acquired under the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act and continues to assert its treaty rights to the river and its resources.