A Kind of Warr
The Contest for Land on the Northeastern Frontier, 1750-1820
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4222271 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alan Taylor (0000-0003-1137-0691), Alan H Taylor (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3 |
| Publication date | 1989-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The William and Mary Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0043-5597 • E-ISSN: 1933-7698 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1922405 |
| OpenAlex | W2324061996 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
W tRITING from Pemaquid on Maine's coast in I730, Col. David Dunbar prophetically warned the imperial Board of Trade that if it recognized Massachusetts's claims to the region, there will be a kind of Warr 'tween these pretended proprietors and those that will go to Settle upon the Kings terms, for they will not quit the possession. Dunbar referred to an emerging conflict between settlers to whom he had promised free homesteads and payment-seeking, nonresident holding land titles under the Province of Massachusetts's jurisdiction. The Board of Trade ignored Dunbar's warning and confirmed the region east of the Kennebec River as far as the St. Croix to Massachusetts and its proprietors. Thirty-eight years later, the Boston Evening-Post reported that in Woolwich, near Pemaquid, about 20 or 30 Men disguised in an Indian Dress and armed with muskets forcibly evicted a family, pulled down their house, and threatened to serve some others in the same Manner. The Indians were settlers who hoped to retain their homesteads without buying proprietors' title to the land; the victims were newcomers who, by taking leases from the Clark and Lake Company, imperiled settler solidarity. The newspaper noted that such Disputes relating to the Right of Lands between some Claimers and the Possessors were very common in those Parts. Indeed, violent confrontations over land persisted into the next century in mid-Maine-the region between the Androscoggin and Penobscot rivers.1 The fundamental conflict pitted the Great Proprietors and their agents
Archaeology · CONTEST · Frontier · Geography · Political science · American Environmental and Regional History · American History and Culture · Archaeology and Natural History · Law
| Citations per year | 0.21 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1993 - 2016 (24) |
| Highly cited | No |