In the late 19th century, the islands of the midcoast were dotted with the homes of hermits, squatters and fishermen. Malaga’s people lived like so many others, eking out an existence trapping lobsters, hooking cod, digging clams or laboring at boardinghouses and farms on the mainland. But the fact that many islanders were of at least partial African descent put the community afoul of the burgeoning eugenics movement, whose practitioners married racist assumptions with a social Darwinist policy agenda. And the island they occupied — and may well have had title to — was thought ripe for development as a summer colony. “Racism is an undeniable linchpin to this story, but it is far from the only reason things happened the way it did,” said Allen Breed, a North Carolina-based reporter for The Associated Press, who has been researching a book on Malaga for more than a decade, and said there were other mixed-race hamlets on Great Yarmouth and Hen islands that were left alone. “They were on a very visible, potentially valuable piece of real estate near the mouth of arguably the state’s tourism crown jewel, Casco Bay.”
(via Malaga Island: A century of shame | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram)
