Spinning Wampum: Reclaim-memorating the Treaty of Casco Bay as Wabanaki Practice

A reading of an in-process play, written as street theater in the style of commedia dell’arte by Mihku Paul, followed by a group discussion on the Treaty of Casco Bay and the group behind Spinning Wampum, a multi-year project centering Wabanaki perspectives through multidisciplinary artworks engaging the public.

SPINNING WAMPUM: Reclaim-memorating the Treaty of Casco Bay as Wabanaki Practice is a Wabanaki-led public art project that will bring a cross-cultural group of artists and scholars together in Caskoak (Casco Bay). This group — which includes artists Lilah Akins, Mihku Paul, Darren Ranco, Jennie Hahn, and Ian Saxine and more — gather monthly to collaboratively design a series of artistic interventions commemorating the Casco Bay Treaty processes of 1726-1727. The project will culminate in a participatory storytelling walk incorporating interdisciplinary creative processes with stories of the historic treaty and contemporary Wabanaki diplomacy. This project is part of a larger initiative to support Wabanaki artists in creating a series of new public artworks to reclaim-memorate the Casco Bay Treaty gatherings in 2026-2027.

Spinning Wampum was a recipient of a 2023 Kindling Fund grant administered by SPACE as part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts’ Regional Regranting Program.

In the summers of 1726 and 1727, Penobscot leaders traveled from Panawahpskek to Casco Bay to meet in peace treaty negotiations with representatives of the colonial Massachusetts government and of several major land companies. Led by Penobscot speaker Saugaaram (Loron), the gatherings continued decades of negotiation processes between Wabanaki communities and colonial leadership, while responding directly to ongoing wars caused by the continuous infringement of colonists in Wabanaki territories. In 1727, Loron and Penobscot leadership were joined in Caskoak by Wabanaki participants who traveled from communities throughout the Dawnland, gathering within the boundary of present-day Portland. The resulting Council, employing Wabanaki treaty-making protocols alongside documentation signed and ratified according to English colonial custom, created conditions for a brief period of upheld agreements between the colonial Massachusetts government and Wabanaki land stewards. 

To increase public awareness of these historical events and their ongoing relevance for contemporary relationships wαpánahkik (in the Dawnland), Spinning Wampumwill draw attention to the stories surrounding the Casco Bay Treaty processes of 1726 and 1727. Our primary goal is to support Wabanaki artists in creating new multidisciplinary works in public space that center Indigenous perspectives. This project makes a case for public history engagement through artistic practice.