Why are phippsburg and malaga island connected in history?

Answer 1

Malaga Island is a 41-acre (170,000 m2) island at the mouth of the New Meadows River in Casco Bay, Maine. It was the site of an interracial community from the Civil War until 1911, when the residents were forcibly evicted from the island.[4]

The Casco Bay Breeze and other newspapers nosed around in the 1890s, then printed stories about a "degenerate colony," whose indiscretions included use of tobacco and of tea. The towns of Phippsburg and Harpswell fought not to take jurisdiction over the settlement, and in 1905 the State of Maine took responsibility for this poor island community that nobody wanted. The State built a school and furnished a schoolteacher and began focusing its attention on the unorthodox community.

While some authorities saw improvement in the island, Governor Frederick W. Plaisted saw blight on his state's reputation. His ranting and threats caused a few Malaga Islanders to float their houses and their lives to the nearby mainland, where their descendants have blended in. In 1912, the governor went to Malaga as the head of a clean-up party, consisting of members of his Council. They evicted the remaining families, dug up the graves, and took the living and the dead to the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded in Pownal. Then the governor and his party torched the community's buildings.

On April 7, 2010, Maine legislators finally issued an official statement of regret for the Malaga incident, but did so without notifying descendants and other stakeholders either before or after the fact. The "public" apology didn't become known to the public until nearly four months later, when an article appeared in a monthly magazine, Down East, which also procured a statement of regret by Governor John Baldacci.[5]