ABSTRACT
Between the mid-1790s and a local affair in 1809, the frontier of Maine was plagued by a wave of violence attributed to a group of dissident agrarians known as the White Indians. Post-Revolution agrarian resistance movements in Maine and as well as New York, concentrated on issues seemingly tied to the ownership of property, but in many ways represented a larger, more significant philosophical divergence over nothing less than the meaning of the American Revolution itself. The Great Proprietors reacted to the wave of White Indian terror in different ways. The White Indian insurgency in Maine culminated with a series of events in 1809 known to the locals as the Malta War, although this so-called "war" really consisted of nothing more than a murder, a highly visible trial, and a failed rescue riot. It is evident that Maine's White Indians demonstrated all of the characteristics of terrorists.
