Song for Machigonne
Machigonne, your truest name before the French and English came to
raid the land of her tallest trees and pull the fish from her blue knee.
The fur they took in trade for pots and drink and rusty blades, could not sate
their endless hunger or abate their supernatural greed.
Oh, Machigonne, your name is dust.
You have begun to bleed.
Casco, now, is how they call the great neck as the mighty trees fall.
Land divided among men is stolen once again.
Waymouth kidnaps five of us before Gorges and John Mason arrive
to claim the eastern lands, and now we die and die.
Treaties cannot last when traders block the fish from moving past,
cows trample our corn, yet you say we are a thorn in your side.
You are the ones who cannot abide by your own laws.
When we fight, we have just cause to grieve for Machigonne
and those who now walk beyond this world.
French or English, we must choose or so you say, if not to
lose the land we hold most dear.
We come away only to starve anew and now our hearts are hard.
In spring of 1690, we gathered with Castine, our anger
risen like the streams you choked with nets to starve our kin.
We followed one trusted chief whose child the Baron sought to keep.
Madockawando leads the men and killing will begin.
Just for today we are many and shall break our anger on your flesh,
burn your walls to nothingness.
Four hundred fighting men and more, with French to
batter down the door, we come to Machigonne to prove
Fort Loyal cannot stand against our warring hand.
An English is a worse brigand than any Frenchman, so they tell us
when we fight and burn your forts down in the night.
We are not the ones you trusted to survive, white flag waved before your eyes.
That was Burneiffe, in charge of keeping order and giving quarter.
Trust is almost always wise but not to trust your English lies.
Thus you learn the bitter price you pay for our forgiveness.
This research was compiled as part of The Walk to Unsettle Portland, which took place in Portland on June 22, 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 with The Third Place, Maine Audubon, and Atlantic Black Box.