Why talk about African American and Wabanaki history together?
Most of the signs here today focus on Wabanaki history and presence because they reflect the expertise of most of the organizers of today’s event. At the same time, though, a number of scholars have retold histories of Brunswick’s Black communities. The few signs about the town’s African American past suggest some of that extensive work. More of their work will also be added to the WHERE website for Brunswick.
What do we see when these histories are presented together? Is it a connection born of struggle, as Europeans and European Americans built towns like Brunswick by dispossessing Natives and enslaving Africans? Is it multiple and disparate experiences, distinctions that can so easily be lost behind acronyms like BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)?
Recognizing both sets of histories reminds us of what Anishinabe scholar Gerald Vizenor calls “survivance.”
“The character of survivance creates a sense of native presence over absence… Survivance is a continuation of stories… survivance is greater than the right of a survivable name.”
“Settler colonization and the genocide of Indigenous people as well as the erasure of both Indigenous places and African American and Indigenous history is rooted in the forced enslavement and extraction of African and African American labor. Without this form of accumulating wealth and the ideologies that underpin racism and White Supremacy, settler colonial structures would not have been possible.”
“To talk about our collective history of colonization and oppression creates an opportunity to amplify the suppressed histories of ourselves and others within a system of solidarity. As a result, there are more hands and minds in the effort for historical and ecological recovery.”
Brunswick, with its beautiful Mall and lovely waterscapes, is built from these painful pasts. It also has important work to do with historical and ecological recovery.
How do you understand the relationship between Wabanaki and African American pasts and presents? What does that answer lead you to do next?
This research was compiled as part of the Pejepscot Portage Walk, which took place in Brunswick on October 6, 2024. For more information about this walk, click here.
For more research related to this area, click on the tags below. To download a hi-res version of the posters below for educational use, please contact where@atlanticblackbox.com.
This walk was a collaboration between the Pejepscot Portage Mapping Project and Atlantic Black Box.
