I could have pointed out that though Maine was established specifically to be a free state as part of the Missouri Compromise, and people like Agnes took great pride in this fact, it was also true that Agnes and Hannah’s family and almost all the others in Awadapquit were very much involved in the slave trade. The slaves in question were laboring in the Caribbean, out of sight. But the sugar and tobacco they harvested came back to America on the ships of New Englanders. No one wanted to discuss this.
