Madakawando’s Village
A Penobscot Place of Abundance
Mači-pikʷátohsək (Majabigwaduce) / Castine —a place 'where the lands are very good and where there are plenty of oak trees and meadows which do not flood'
Carte du havre de Pentagouet, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE SH 18 PF 135 DIV 3 P 4 D
Site map of St. Castin’s Habitation. Courtesy of Dr. Alaric Faulkner
Since time immemorial, the Penobscot people have relied on the river for every aspect of culture. Just up the Bagaduce River from where you stand now, the Penobscots had a year-round coastal settlement.
In 1680, 30 wigwams stood along the shore, home to the village’s 160 residents. Situated within a criss-crossing network of waterways, families followed the signs of the river in birchbark canoes to hunt seal, moose, and deer, spear eel and salmon, fish for spawning alewives, harvest shellfish, and trap beaver, otter, mink and other furred animals. The settlement was a place for hunting, trapping, gathering, fishing, foraging, trade, rendezvous, and diplomacy.
Madockawando (b. 1620s, d. 1698) the leader of this community, was a powerful Penobscot sὰkəmα (Sachem) whose influence extended over the eastern Penobscot Bay and up the Penobscot River.
In 1665, Madockawando’s daughter, Pidianiske (Marie/Molly Mathilde) married Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie de Saint-Castin, strengthening existing diplomatic ties between the French and the Penobscot. The couple had five children together. Many present-day Penobscot Nation citizens trace their ancestry to this family. Saint-Castin, a French soldier and trader, established a residence and trading post here around 1677 because of the site’s location along a key canoe route from the Penobscot to points east like Blue Hill and Mount Desert Island, waterways still paddled today.
Despite Madockawando’s efforts to avoid the English-French conflict known as King Philip’s War (1675-1678), attempts at peace failed, and the English killed his sister and raided Fort Pentagoet, drawing the Penobscots into the conflict.
Reflection Questions
How does this place look different if you view it from the perspective of the water, rather than the land?
This research was compiled as part of the Mači-pikʷátohsək: A Wayfinding Walk which took place in Castine on October 5, 2025. 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 event was a collaboration between Castine History Partners (CHP) and the Walks for Historical & Ecological Recovery (WHERE), a series convened by Atlantic Black Box. Castine History Partners is a collaboration originally established to create virtual history tours for Castine. CHP supports a variety of learning opportunities around the history of Castine. The partners include Castine Community Partners, Castine Historical Society, Castine Touring Company, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Maine Maritime Academy, Wilson Museum, and Witherle Memorial Library.