In the late 1700s, when the first Anglo settlers stepped ashore on Deer Isle, Maine, they were far from the first to do so. For thousands of years people had lived, loved and labored on this and other islands as well as on the mainland. Early French explorers, traders and missionaries, who knew far more about indigenous people than their English counterparts, referred to the region’s inhabitants as Etchemins, a people who occupied the entire coast from the Kennebec River down east as far as the Saint John River. Their descendants today are known as Maliseets, Passamaquoddies and Penobscots.

By the time English settlers arrived in the Penobscot region, native populations had been radically reduced by epidemics of diseases newly introduced from Europe, as well as more than a century of warfare. However, the survivors did not just abandon their old homeland, and in fact, their descendants have continued to visit Deer Isle and nearby islands down into the 21st century.

So, what do we know about these folks? This book relates the state of our knowledge as of the early 21st century. It began as a series of columns in the Island Ad-Vantages newspaper and includes considerable additional material and images, including a self-guided tour around the island of “Indian Deer Isle.”

Ask the author: Click here for a conversation with Bill Haviland, author of Indian History on Deer Isle.