Chief nadabe
Penobscot nation history...
Joseph Orono, The Blue Eyed Indian Who Helped the Revolutionary Cause
The Penobscot sachem Joseph Orono died in 1801, too early to know about his consolation prize for losing his people’s land to white settlers.
He lived plenty long, though.
He was said to have been born in 1688, which made him 113 when he died in 1801. If that’s true, Joseph Orono lived through every one of the French and Indian Wars as well as the American Revolution, in which he participated
A Penobscot chief
Five years after his death, Orono, Maine named itself after him.
Orono island maine
He probably would have preferred the land along the Penobscot River promised him, and then taken.
Joseph Orono
Historical accounts agree that Joseph Orono had reddish hair, blue eyes and a pale complexion. He spoke fluent French, English and Penobscot.
Accounts disagree about his lineage.
Some say he had some relation to Baron de Castine, a French nobleman who married an Indian. (Castine also had a town named after him in Maine.)
