{"id":38200,"date":"2014-11-09T22:33:20","date_gmt":"2014-11-09T22:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=38200"},"modified":"2014-11-09T22:40:08","modified_gmt":"2014-11-09T22:40:08","slug":"only-history-maligns-malaga-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=38200","title":{"rendered":"Only history maligns Malaga Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only history maligns Malaga Island<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Portland Press Herald<\/a>
\nPortland, Maine
\n2014-10-26<\/p>\n

Dierdre Fleming<\/strong><\/a>, Outdoor Reporter<\/p>\n

The Casco Bay<\/a> island’s future needn’t be lost in a painful past marked by intolerance.<\/em><\/p>\n

MALAGA ISLAND<\/a> \u2014 The tragic story of Malaga Island has been told many times since the tiny isle off Phippsburg<\/a> was sold in 2001 to the Maine Coast Heritage Trust<\/a> and archaeologists began to unearth the remains of its disenfranchised community.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s still much pain for the descendants of Malaga Island, despite the fact this wild, pristine island in the Gulf of Maine<\/a> is now visited by boaters and coastal hikers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope as time goes on it becomes easier for people to talk about, because the island as a physical place does carry a lot of significance to the descendants,\u201d said Kate McMahon<\/a>, a doctoral student at Howard University, who gives historic tours on the island for the Heritage Trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important to them. It\u2019s important to them that the kiosk on the island \u2026 presents the history of the island in a respectful way, because it\u2019s a living memorial to them. It\u2019s the only thing they have left of the people that lived here.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the mid-1860s a small, racially diverse community inhabited the north end of the island to fish and eke out a living as many coastal communities did back then. The community grew to 40 islanders by the early 20th century.<\/p>\n

In 1912 the state, in the interest of growing tourism along the coast, evicted the residents, who included black, white and interracial families.<\/strong> In addition, relatives buried on the island were exhumed and re-interred at the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded<\/a>, now the site of Pineland Farms<\/a>. Another eight residents were institutionalized there against their will.<\/p>\n

A century later, in 2010, a ceremony was held on the island at which Gov. John Baldacci<\/a> publicly apologized for his predecessors\u2019 decision in 1912…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only history maligns Malaga Island The Portland Press Herald Portland, Maine 2014-10-26 Dierdre Fleming, Outdoor Reporter The Casco Bay island’s future needn’t be lost in a painful past marked by intolerance. MALAGA ISLAND \u2014 The tragic story of Malaga Island has been told many times since the tiny isle off Phippsburg was sold in 2001 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,8,20],"tags":[18389,18388,2381,2379,18387,18386],"class_list":["post-38200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-dierdre-fleming","tag-kate-mcmahon","tag-maine","tag-malaga-island","tag-portland-press-herald","tag-the-portland-press-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}