Maine History Online

The average duration of the colonial wars –– King Philip's, King William's, Queen Anne's, Drummer's, King George's, French and Indian –– was seven years during which time Indian and settler families were displaced, crops destroyed, and villages razed. Most of the colonial conflicts resulted in temporary peace, redrawn borders, and British expansion.

The French and Indian War, the final conflict between colonial powers in the region, was the North American segment of a much wider Seven Years War that pitted English interests and allies against those of the French in the mid-18th century. Previous wars had already split Wabanaki tribes in Maine, disrupted leadership patterns, and eroded their territory. The war drove out the French and opened even more Wabanaki lands to English settlement as the English repeatedly disregarded Indian rights and treaty agreements.

Peace did not follow, however. The beginnings of the American Revolution in 1775 began a new era of conflict. Maine was divided in its allegiances by 1775 with some upholding ties to Britain, others pledging support to the rebellion, and others wishing not to be involved. Maine could not long avoid fighting, however, and the Revolution consumed coastal and inland towns alike as the British met resistance with growing force.

Still, the Revolution was different than the wars that preceded it. Maine's Indians had to choose sides or attempt to remain neutral, but the Colonial wars had largely settled the question of who was to rule the land known as Maine.

The story of the first naval battle of the American Revolution – the seizure of the British ship Margaretta in Machias Bay in 1775 is a good example of local involvement in war. Residents of Machias, upset about a local loyalist's plans to sell Maine lumber to the British in Boston, demanded that the British tender Margaretta surrender.

The British refused, the Machias residents fired on the ship, then followed it out of the harbor in a sloop and a schooner and captured the Margaretta. It was a local action, taken against a perceived threat only a few weeks after the battles of Lexington and Concord.

Other Revolutionary-era battles on Maine soil did not turn out as well.

One notable failure in the early days of the Revolution took place partially in Maine as Benedict Arnold set off up the Kennebec River valley through the trackless backwoods in the fall of 1775, leading a combination of raw and seasoned soldiers. Until he turned his coat, Arnold was one of Gen. Washington's most trusted officers during the American Revolution. As such he was charged with invading Canada and holding the French fortress in Quebec as a strategic maneuver against the English.

Maine's desolate wilderness and early winter almost did them in. Illness, exhaustion, frostbite, hunger, and despair weakened all and killed many before the survivors staggered forth into Canada nearly two months later utterly ill-equipped to hold so much as their heads up, let alone a fortress. Said one soldier before resting "on the cold, wet ground, hungry and fatigued," "such distress I never before felt or witnessed." The effort, valiant as it was, failed miserably.

Arnold and his troops interacted with sympathetic Maine residents along the way, bringing the hardships of the war close to home.

Also in 1775, the British burned Falmouth (Portland), possibly in retaliation for patriots capturing Lt. Henry Mowat several months earlier.

Massachusetts left Maine to its own defenses following the 1779 debacle of the Penobscot Expedition where an American fleet, largely comprised of Massachusetts militia and poorly trained privateers along with impressed seamen, charged with attacking the British in Penobscot Bay, ended up fleeing the enemy in panic and scuttling their ships upriver. Local militias thus became increasingly important to the district's survival.

As they had in previous colonial conflicts, Maine's Indians pursued their own path in the Revolution, generally preferring neutrality, but often siding with the Americans out of a combination of self-interest, genuine sympathy for the American cause, fondness for their former French partnership, and antipathy toward the British.

One piece of evidence, a letter written to a British commander at the St. John's River, suggests the St. Johns tribes employed this combination to rattle the English command in the east:

The chiefs, sachems, and young men belonging to the River St. John's have duly considered the nature of this great war. … They are unanimous that America is right and Old England wrong. … The river, on which you are with your soldiers, belongs from the most ancient times to our ancestors. … You know we are Americans; that this is our native country. … Now as the king of England has no business nor ever had any on this river, we desire you to go away with your men. … If you don't go directly you must take [care] of yourself, your men, and all your subjects on this river for if all or any of you are killed it is not our faults for we give you warning time enough to escape.

The letter ended with an assertive and, as it turned out, poignantly optimistic "Adieu for ever."