Confronting White Nationalism In Schools 
Classroom Resources 

“The Dark Secrets of This Now-Empty Island in Maine” by Atlas Obscura, adapted by NEWSELA, published on January 3, 2020 

The cold waters of the Gulf of Maine lap against the shore of Malaga Island. There is an absence of life. One can find peacefulness on Malaga today, a striking contrast to its grim past. Sadly, history reveals that a destructive chain of events happened on this island. It was triggered by racism.

A small, poor fishing community once resided on Malaga Island.    According to researchers, their lives were not that different from those who lived on the mainland, and, like many Mainers, they lived in shacks. Their homes were often no more than shelters with a roof and four walls.   

Mainers' Moral Indignation 

Malaga was different from other coastal villages, though. The residents were of mixed races, drawing the attention of racist people from Mainers, or people from Maine.  Although many couples were not legally married, they still lived as families and their lifestyles struck moral indignation in the people of Maine. 

The residents of Malaga were considered barbarians. They were described as being filthy and immoral. Mainers also accused the islanders of feeblemindedness, and of passing on inferior genes.   

In the early 1900s, eugenics grew popular in Maine. Eugenics is the science of trying to control the genes of the human population. The belief is that some people are less fit than others because of the genes they have. People who practice eugenics think these people should not be allowed to repopulate. People inherit traits such as skin color from their relatives' genes. 

Eugenics 

Eugenics split the world into good and bad genes. Professors even taught eugenics at universities at this time. One of the practices of eugenics was  forced sterilizations. When a person is sterilized, they are not able to have children. The purpose of sterilization is to improve the population by only allowing people who are considered superior to have children. Historians have discovered 326 cases of sterilization in Maine between 1925 and 1963. 

Kate McMahon is a student at Howard University who has been researching Malaga Island. According to McMahon, the racist belief system and practices of eugenics were very popular in Maine at this time in its history. 

The residents of Malaga Island became the center of some of these social practices because people feared that the black faces of Malaga would affect Maine's ideal. They believed white people were the superior race.  

At the turn of the century, the state took over Malaga Island. The government believed that the residents of the island were a disgrace to Maine. Many people from Maine also believed that people of different races should not marry and have children together. Today, such views are considered intolerant and even hateful. Their racist beliefs paved the way for the breaking apart of this island community. 

No Longer Welcome 

In the summer of 1911, Governor Frederick Plaisted promised the residents that they would not be forced to leave. Three weeks later the state informed the community that it was no longer welcome to live on the island. They must all leave or suffer the consequences. 

It was put simply to the residents — leave and remove your homes, or forcibly be removed and your homes will be burned. On July 1, 1912, representatives of the state arrived on Malaga Island to find all residents and houses gone. Only the cemetery remained. The government did not help people to relocate.  

Many residents floated their homes up and down the river. Few towns welcomed them. Some people did not survive. Other residents were institutionalized based on biased, or unfair, evaluations of their intelligence. They were asked to name things like what a telephone was. But because they were poor, they did not have telephones and had never seen them so they could not name them. They were also unable to name the current sitting president. Again, they were unable to read and lived on an isolated island, so they were not familiar with objects and facts commonplace to those who had money and education. Because they could not answer those questions, residents of Malaga Island were considered mentally challenged. They were placed in the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded. Some residents would never leave this facility. 

State Removes Evidence of Community 

The state removed evidence of the community. They destroyed the cemetery from the island and put 15 bodies into five caskets. These bodies were buried in unmarked plots at the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded. 

Even though the state tried to erase the past, a reminder kept surfacing in the words used to refer to those who came from the island. They were called "Malaga-ites," which is an unfavorable term. Another hateful word people used was "malago." According to one Maine resident, this word refers to people of dark skin, or people with low intelligence. Another Maine resident recalled that when she heard the term "Malago" she knew it was a bad term about people of color.   

Trying to put together the lives of people using archaeological materials is never an easy task. It is like trying to put together a puzzle without the box-top picture to reference. Archaeologists still set out to learn about the history of the island. With few written records from the residents of Malaga, much of what we know about life on the island was pieced together from the materials discovered from archaeological excavations. 

These excavations began on Malaga in the early 2000s, and the past of this island was soon brought into the spotlight. In 2010, the state of Maine passed a resolution expressing regret for the mistreatment of the residents of Malaga. Governor Baldacci visited the island to spread a message acknowledging and apologizing for past crimes. It doesn't make up for a century of pain and destruction, but it's a start.