Passamaquoddy Maple is tribally owned and operated. We harvest a natural resource just as our ancestors did for many centuries. Offering a variety of organic syrups, sugars and more. Visit our website to place your order today at: www.passamaquoddymaple.com 25% OFF Code: SWEETFALL2018! Starts 8/31/18 Ends 12/31/18 One per customer. Free Shipping over $50 For large quantity orders, please contact us for wholesale prices. 108 p o r t l a n d monthly maga ine ai E destroyed black families, inflating prices for black men in their prime working years and black women in their prime birthing years. The domestic slave market placed a premium on black women as breeders of slaves. The spread of slavery in the U.S. per- petuated rape and sexual violence, separat- ed babies from parents, and promoted citi- zenship based on white racial purity. These are not the topics a state usual- ly includes when it recognizes its origins, but Maine is in a unique position to signal to the nation an important lesson: compro- mising on evil has incalculable costs. ive of Maine’s seven Congressmen— Martin Kinsley, Joshua Cushman, Ezekiel Whitman, Enoch Lincoln, and James Parker—wanted to prohibit slav- ery’s spread into new territories. In 1820, they voted against the Missouri Compro- mise and against Maine’s independence. In their defense, they wrote that, if the North, and the nation, embarked upon this Com- promise—and ignored what experiences proved, namely that southern slave hold- ers were determined to dominate the na- tion through ironclad unity and perpetu- al pressure to demand more land, and more slaves—then these five Mainers declared Americans “shall deserve to be considered a besotted and stupid race, fit, only, to be led blindfold; and worthy, only, to be treated with sovereign contempt.” As we approach the bicentennial of Maine’s statehood, Main- ers should celebrate the leaders who voted against Maine statehood, because they re- fused to support the spread of slavery. Maine occupies a unique position in the nation’s history. It can name as heroes in a bicentennial celebration legislators who stood against its independence. They knew that freedom that promoted slavery was not freedom at all, and not worth the price. In commemorating them, we can build the courage to follow their lead on current is- sues of consequence. One hundred years from now, when a new generation of Main- ers gathers to mark statehood, it will look back on 2020, the year we remembered those who stood against indepen- dence, and for freedom. ■ r. rian urne is a rofessor of fri ana tudies and . .histor at o doin Co e e. courtesy photo