Malaga Island has come into current debate because in 1912 the State of Maine forced its racially mixed population off the island, many into the Maine School for Feeble-Minded (Pineland Center), and reburied some of the dead in Pownal. The buildings on Malaga were leveled and the school was moved to Louds Island (Muscongus), where it was converted into a church. The definitive published piece on this 19th century Maine black history was "The Shameful Story of Malaga Island" by William David Barry in Down East, November 1980. In the 21st century, descendants of families
who lived on Malaga are researching the real story to bring to the attention to Maine for an apology.

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Some blacks in 19th century Maine stand out because of their accomplishments or their history has been rescued by an historian or writer.

Robert Benjamin Lewis (1798-1858) from Gardiner wrote the first Afro-centric book in America, Light and Truth (sub-title: "collected from the Bible and ancient and modern history, containing the universal history of the colored and the Indian race, from the creation of the world to the present time"), published in 1833 and several subsequent editions.

The Rt. Rev. James Augustine Healy (1830-1900) had the greatest long-term impact on Maine of any black person in the 19th century. He was the first African American Catholic priest and bishop in the country. Healy was bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland (Maine) from 1875 until 1900 and of New Hampshire from 1875 until 1884, when it became its own entity. Healy spoke French fluently and required his priests in Maine to be bilingual, including preaching in both French and English, and is remembered as The Children's Bishop because of his mission and kindnesses to them.

Macon Bolling Allen, Esq. (1816-1894) was the first black person in America to be licensed to practice law, and he was accepted to the bar in 1844 in Portland. E. Mark Terison writes about Allen's achievements in the October, 2000 issue of Maine Bar Journal.

Reuben Ruby (1798-1878) of Portland was a leader in the anti-slavery movement in Maine and beyond. He worked with William Lloyd Garrison, supported the start of Freedom's Journal -- the first black newspaper in this country, was president of an organization in New York that worked for the black elective franchise, and hosted black preachers and speakers and white abolitionists for both Portland's and Maine's education. Bob Greene, a direct descendant of Ruby and author of Maine Roots II, is writing a book about this remarkable man and his family.
   
The Honorable John Brown Russwurm (1799-1851) was born in Jamaica and as a youngster ended up in Maine, where he went to Hebron Academy. He then taught at some of the earliest black schools in the Northeast, but returned to attend Bowdoin College. Russwurm, the first black to  graduate from Bowdoin, gave the commencement speech at his graduation in 1826 and became the third black person to graduate from a college in this country. He moved to New York City, where anti-colonizationist feelings among blacks spawned Freedom's Journal (1827). Russwurm was its  co-editor, until he was forced to resign because he showed an interest in African colonization. He emigrated to Liberia, where he eventually became the first black governor of the Colony of Maryland, now part of Liberia, West Africa.

Pedro Tovookan Parris (1833?-1860) was a slave twice. He was born in the early 1800s, probably in East Africa, and captured and sold as a slave when he was about ten years old. He never saw his family or people again. Slaves were often nicknamed, like pets or objects of ridicule, to dehumanize them. A Portuguese slaver named him "Pedro" and sold him to someone who took him to Rio Janeiro on a Maine ship that was used to transport slaves. When its illegal business was discovered, the ship and cargo were brought back to Portland where its captain was indicted and Tovookan was kept in jail for six months as a witness. The U.S. Marshall for Maine in 1845 was Virgil D. Parris of Paris, Maine. He took Tovookan into his family and Tovookan took his name, calling himself Pedro Tovookan Parris. He became an artist. His delightful drawings and paintings depict recollections of Africa, being captured, some of the places he was taken, and life in Paris.

Some other well-known blacks in 19th century Maine were Samuel Osborne (1833-1903), long-time janitor and influence on the students at Colby College, and his family; Phebe Ann Jacobs (1785-1850) of Brunswick, written about by Mrs. T. C. Upham in an American Tract Society publication; and the George Washington Kemp (1832-1911) Family of Leeds, who were "Jubilee Singers."

Others are less well-known, but are now receiving attention from scholars, writers, and historical societies: the Nancy Avery Family of Waterboro, being researched by Bruce Tucker for his master's thesis; the Carter Family in the Collection of the Yarmouth Historical Society; George W. Jackson of Vienna, whose tombstone is in the shape of a tree stump (as are the stones of the white family he lived with) and is being researched by Edward Ives; Charlie Norris of East Livermore, who is one of many men who came to Maine with soldiers returning from the Civil War and whose story is being brought to our attention by W. Dennis Stires; Clifton Harris (also Haries) of West Auburn who was hung in 1869 for murder, after Governor Joshua Chamberlain passed over 11 white men scheduled to be executed and ignited the debate on capital punishment in Maine that  exists today; Henry Van Meter, of Brewer and Orono, who lived to be nearly 100 and had been a slave in his youth (including for a governor of Virginia), a runaway from slavery, and a prisoner at Dartmoor, England; Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, born in 1859 in Portland, who is considered by literary critics to be the most prolific black female writer and influential literary editor at the beginning of the 1900s; and, a black gentleman's club in West Gardiner, the Cambridge Gun and Rod Club, which was started in the 19th century, still going strong in the 21st, and is the subject of Leigh Donaldson's article, "The W.E. B. DuBois Files" in 2001 Summerguide of Portland Monthly Magazine.

The best sources for uncovering Maine black history in general are from black genealogies and cemeteries, oral histories, scrapbooks, research works such as the above, files at the Maine Historical Society, the African American Collections at the University of Southern Maine, African American place names, and local histories. For work on 19th century Maine blacks in the federal census, specifically gender, migration, and origins, see "The black population of Maine 1764-1900,"  New England Journal of Black Studies, No. 8, 1989, by Dr. Randolph Stakeman. Many of the references above may be found on our Resources page.

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