Micah Pawling
Contact
Location
As an ethnohistorian of the far Northeast, my research focuses on the Wabanaki people of “the dawnland,” including the Passamaquoddy (Peskotomuhkati), Penobscot, Maliseet (Wəlastəkwiyik), and Mi’kmaq in the nineteenth century. Wabanaki homeland encompasses present-day northern New England and eastern Canada. My first edited book, Wabanaki Homeland and the New State of Maine: The 1820 Journal and Plans of Survey by Joseph Treat (University of Massachusetts Press and the Penobscot Nation, 2007, paperback 2017), was a cross-cultural collaborative project with the Penobscot Nation. The book reproduces the journal of a survey expedition across Wabanaki homeland where Indigenous cultural practices and knowledge of their lands and waters prevailed.
My work has appeared in American Indian Quarterly, Acadiensis, Ethnohistory, and the Historical Atlas of Maine. The 2017 article received the 2018 Canadian Historical Association’s prize for the best article in Indigenous history. As a recipient of the Whiting Public Engagement Fellowship, I work with the Passamaquoddy Tribe of Indian Township (Motahkomikuk) on community history. My forthcoming book is on Wabanaki waterscapes in the nineteenth century.
Courses taught
HTY 103: Creating America to 1877
HTY 220: NAS 220: North American Indian History
HTY 222: NAS 230: Maine Indian History in the Twentieth Century
HTY 311 : NAS 201: Junior history seminar on Native American History
HTY 464: America at the Crossroads: The Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1840-1877
HTY 481: NAS 401: Amerindians of the Northeast: A History
HTY 498: Senior history major seminar on Native American History
HTY 550: Readings in Indigenous Legal History
HTY 580: Indigenous History of North America
HTY 599: Native American History & the Environment
Areas of Expertise
Canadian History
Indigenous History of North America
Northeast Borderlands History
Tribal Community History
Education
M.A., University of Maine, 1999
B.A., University of Delaware, 1996
