Benjamin Darling and the Maroon Society of Malaga Island

October 23, 2008 3:07 PM

The story of Benjamin Darling and his descendants begins with a dramatic shipwreck and ends, generations later, in a dark moment of human injustice

Benjamin Darling was the slave, and possibly the son, of a sea captain in the late 1700's. In a dramatic moment of heroism, he saved his master when their ship broke up in a storm. As reward, Darling was freed and given land on Horse Island at the mouth of the New Meadows River in Maine. Darling's tale is told by State Radio in The Story of Benjamin Darling Part 1.

He married and soon, after resettling to nearby Malaga Island around 1794, his family (see also) became the cornerstone of a small, mixed-race community trying to scratch out a meager existence on the hard-bitten island. Isolated by poverty and the harsh sea, the maroon society of Malaga Island contrasted sharply with the increasing wealth of the town of Phippsburg, fast becoming a summer destination for rich tourists. When the Malagaites reached out to Phippsburg for help in 1912, the town decided to cleanse the island of its inhabitants by force.

posted by Foam Pants (5 comments total)

The last link, a website by a 7th grade class, is kind of charming, if not necessarily in the content itself, in how easy it is to imagine the kids working on it from the writing.
posted by maxwelton at 3:15 PM on October 23, 2008

That sounds about right for rich summer people in Maine.
These days though, they have their own little enclaves so they only have to look at the unwashed masses when they come in to wash their toilets.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:39 PM on October 23, 2008

These days though, they have their own little enclaves so they only have to look at the unwashed masses when they come in to wash their toilets.

I hear Barbara Bush won't make eye contact with them, even then.

(Thanks for the links -- I didn't know anything about this story.)
posted by scody at 5:11 PM on October 23, 2008

Amazing story. Thanks so much for this!
posted by mwhybark at 5:39 PM on October 23, 2008

Thanks, neat story. And not just because it's about another Darling (seems to be no relationship).
posted by qldaddy at 7:22 AM on October 24, 2008