Stumbling into Peace: Property, Diplomacy, and the Success of “Dummer’s Treaty” on the Maine Frontier, 1725–55

This paper examines how Wabanaki Indians and Massachusetts land speculators (who dominated the colony) built a working relationship after fifty years of frontier warfare in Maine. It argues that in a trio of agreements known as "Dummer's Treaty" (1725-1727) the participants tied Wabanaki recognition of various speculators' land deeds to Massachusetts fulfilling promises regarding Native rights to unsold lands made at the conference, and subsequently published. Dummer's Treaty fuzed Native traditions of oral diplomacy and reciprocity with the speculators' strict adherence to written contracts and deeds. On the rough and tumble Maine frontier, the speculators needed Indian validation of their title to ward off rival claimers. As a result of Dummer's Treaty, Wabanaki and Massachusetts leaders formed a working relationship based on mutual recognition of Native land rights.

Explaining the success of Dummer’s Treaty requires an examination of the dynamic relationship between clashing understandings of property ownership and diplomacy in early America. Massachusetts land speculators’ dependence on Indian deeds in the face of competition from frontier squatters, coupled with enduring Native power, enabled the Wabanakis to transform the negotiations during Dummer’s Treaty into a form of deed—albeit one crafted on Indian terms, involving reciprocity and the potential for renegotiation. As a result, the speculators who controlled Massachusetts Indian policy committed themselves to the defense of Wabanaki rights to unsold lands, viewing it as the best way to protect their own titles