The Case Of Squawpoint Road

In a town that I drive through sometimes is a road named "Squawpoint Road". Under Maine law, this word is illegal to use in the State of Maine for the purposes of identification. This law was amended by efforts of the Passamaqouddy tribe, one of four tribes in Maine, who introduced legislation in the Maine Legislature.

Under the law, anyone can file a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission if they find one of these offensive words used in the state. I decided to send a letter to the town to let them know about the law and illegal name. This is the letter that I sent:

Dear Selectman ***:

I am writing to inform you that the town of *** is in violation of having an offensive name assigned to a road. The road in question is named “Squawpoint Road”, off the *** Road, in ***, Maine.

As defined by Maine Revised Statues, Title 1, Chapter 27, Section 1101, subsection 1A, an “offensive name” is, “the designation of… "squaw" as a separate word or as part of a word.” Subsection 2 of the above law defines “place” as, “any natural geographic feature or any street, alley or other road within the jurisdiction of the State, or any political subdivision of the State.”

As indicated by the laws above, the road in question, “Squawpoint Road”, is offensive and is within the political subdivision that constitutes the municipality of ***, which is within the jurisdiction of the State of Maine.

Originally, the word "squaw" meant a "woman" or "female" in the Algonquin language that was spoken in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest. It is still spoken to this day. Over time, European settlers corrupted the word to mean a Native women who is not sophisticated or someone ones property. This misunderstanding was from the lack of knowledge of the language on the European settlers part.

The reason why I am doing this is that Native-Americans have had their lives dictated to them by White culture and this was one way of determining who they want to be and how they want to live. This was the same reason that the word "nigger" was declared offensive. This by no means takes the sting out of the words when they are used in a derogatory way. It just makes it harder to use them as public place names.

For now, I have decided not to file a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission. This does not mean that I won't file a complaint. It just depends on what will be done on their part.

I sent the initial letter on March 23 of this year and just received a responce from the town. I will be posting their responce in an upcoming post in a couple of days.