Author Topic: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine  (Read 6516 times)

Offline educatedindian

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 4740
Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« on: October 22, 2022, 11:47:28 pm »
Sprague is claiming to be Abenaki, even showing up at cultural events. This is her to the right, red face paint, red shirt.
https://www.centralmaine.com/2021/08/07/richmond-celebrates-prosperity-history-closely-tied-to-kennebec-river/

She's a MAGA candidate, a bigot who hates gays and trans people, an election denier...and a convicted drug trafficker from only four years ago. Most recently she had to back down after claiming the massacre of schoolchildren in Uvalde was caused by liberal teachers.

----------
https://www.pressherald.com/2022/06/03/letter-to-the-editor-no-way-to-justify-republican-candidates-comments-on-uvalde/
Portland Press Herald reported that Republican candidate Heather Sprague from Cushing blamed liberal teachers for the Uvalde school shooting, saying they had brainwashed the shooter into thinking he was gay, resulting in a mentally ill person who subsequently went on a school shooting spree.

----------
https://twitter.com/dirigoblue
Far-right conspiracist Maine House candidate Heather Sprague likes to dress up in Native American attire for various events & claim she's got indigenous...

Offline cellophane

  • Posts: 56
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2022, 05:53:10 am »
For those who have an account with Ancestry.com, Heather Sprague has a public family tree:
https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/80451835/

This is her mother's obituary:
https://memorials.bchfh.com/dawn-sprague/1803549/obituary.php

Offline Sparks

  • Posts: 1412
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #2 on: October 24, 2022, 01:12:38 am »
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/heather.a.sprague — Posing as Native American (three photos):

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10225232120042546&set=pb.1007640426.-2207520000
Photo caption: Heather Anne Sprague June 8: The red paint signifys that I am taken or married.  :)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10225683265840909&set=pb.1007640426.-2207520000
Photo caption: Heather Anne Sprague September 9: My Abenaki name is Molsem Naovos Alemos or wolf chasing coyote. Very fitting.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10225695989758999&set=pb.1007640426.-2207520000
Heather Anne Sprague September 12 (No text.)

About her current role in politics:
https://ballotpedia.org/Heather_Sprague
https://www.facebook.com/heatherspragueformaine
https://www.spragueformaine.com/
https://secure.anedot.com/16509f17-d224-4e49-90b5-2415a308d744/3c34e6b8-0d81-46f3-a5d4-d8625d1f90e5

Offline Sparks

  • Posts: 1412
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #3 on: October 24, 2022, 11:05:15 am »
Posing as Native American (three photos) …

I should have added: "Maybe she is authentic?".

Offline educatedindian

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 4740
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2022, 01:29:13 pm »
I IMd her at FB. She sent this. My question, followed by her answer.

----------
Hello, I wanted to ask about your being Abenaki. Could you tell me about your ancestors? Band or tribe, enrollment, anything you care to share. I did see your photo here and in an article about a gathering in Richmond.

---------
Good morning I do not know if I am Abenaki or not, I was part of a reenactment and invited to the island there by my Abenaki friends.  I am waiting to find out my heritage, I have to travel to Ellsworth to do so and have been busy with the campaign so waiting for that to be over. My friend Ruth Moore is full abenaki and gave me my abenaki name and plans to do a blood adoption. I never said I was abenaki because I do not know and cannot make such a claim. Its obvious I do have native in me Im just not sure which tribe yet and can keep you posted as my journey continues if youd like?

Offline Sparks

  • Posts: 1412
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #5 on: October 24, 2022, 04:14:30 pm »
My friend Ruth Moore is full abenaki and gave me my abenaki name and plans to do a blood adoption.

Heather doesn't show her FB friends list, and Facebook tells me there are almost 30 'Ruth Moore' connected to Virgina, two of them also somehow connected to 'Abenaki', but I really could not establish any connection to Heather with these two, not probable that it's one of them.

Of course, the mentioned 'Ruth Moore' doesn't necessarily live in or stem from Virginia.

Offline Sparks

  • Posts: 1412
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine [Also Jonathan Yellowbear)
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2022, 06:55:29 pm »
Sprague is claiming to be Abenaki, even showing up at cultural events. This is her to the right, red face paint, red shirt.
https://www.centralmaine.com/2021/08/07/richmond-celebrates-prosperity-history-closely-tied-to-kennebec-river/

Photo caption: "RICHMOND, ME - AUGUST 7: Jonathan Yellow Bear, left, and Heather Sprague talk about the history of Abenakis on Swan Island and also also about the traditional regalia they are wearing during the bicentennial kickoff Saturday August 7, 2021 in Richmond."

My boldings. That's the only mention of Heather Sprague in the article. There is much more about Jonathan Yellowbear:

Another photo caption: "Jonathan Yellowbear talks about the history of Abenakis on Swan Island and also about the traditional regalia being worn Saturday during the bicentennial kickoff in Richmond. Although it has begun celebrating, the town won’t officially turn 200 until Feb. 10, 2023."

Quote
Jonathan Yellowbear of Litchfield, a member of the Abenaki Tribe wearing the clothing and face paint of a warrior, spoke briefly of times well before Richmond’s incorporation, in the 1700s, when Native Americans “had a big booming metropolis”on what is now known as Swan Island. The island is now a state game preserve and camping area, where he said Native Americans lived peaceably and harvested wild rice from the southern end of the island.

But he said the island has an ugly past for his people, claiming “our ancestors were slaughtered there,” by white people who took the island from them. He said there is said to be a deed documenting that Native Americans sold the island to white men, but he said he hasn’t seen the deed and has never heard or seen evidence the natives were actually paid for the land. He said the slaughter has not been acknowledged, publicly.

“I’m honored to be here, for the healing aspect of it, for you and us,” Yellowbear said of events which kicked off Saturday morning with a prayer offering at the town’s waterfront park, which sits across the Kennebec from Swan Island. “It was ugly. But it is history, there is nothing we can do to change it.”

Yellowbear seems to approve of Heather Sprague being an Abenaki? Maybe we should look into him, to?

Old Facebook profile, it seems: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.yellowbear.7  (Not active since 2010.)
Possibly another Facebook profile (one post from 2020): https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100055416392237 [Jonathan D. Yellowbear]

Current Facebook profile, very active: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.yellowbear.3 [Jonathan D. Yellowbear]

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100054282649476 [Abenaki Gun Works Co - Jonathan D Yellowbear]

He has a connection to this museum: https://www.facebook.com/oldfortwestern/ [Old Fort Western - Augusta, Maine] One example:

https://www.facebook.com/oldfortwestern/posts/pfbid02nV7f6bs2dndKheGXMHpgJQWcjghZMM3C7bvkGgt8bQkwd5388dRJ1Vy8mVUcrEGfl
Photo caption: Old Fort Western - Augusta, Maine May 26:
"Jonathan Yellow Bear, Abenaki Living Historian, will be here on opening day, May 28th. He will be representing and demonstrating the 17th century way of life."

Lots of other stuff about him around the Internet; seems he is a staunch Republican, just like Heather Sprague.

From what I have found, Jonathan D. Yellowbear is certainly about reenactment, just like Sprague. But is he really an Abenaki, which she seems not to be, according to her email reply, quoted by educatedindian?

Offline educatedindian

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 4740
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2022, 10:53:04 pm »
She sent this series of immature hissy fits. Both below are hers.

----------
Listen I never claimed to be Abenaki in any of posts or anytime in my life so your post is misinformation and you are trying to paint me as a fraud. If you and your organization dont want to go to court over this I would take that false claim down or I will be forced to take legal action against you.

-----------
Calling me a bigot and saying I hate gays is defamation of character because I have never said that either!! What is wrong with you people? You try to ruin me your going down with me. I cant stand people that lie to get votes. My good friend Jonathan Yellowbear is my good friend and invited me to do those reenactments with him and he will be in contact with whoever the head of your fraudulent organization is. I do not take stuff like this lightly and wont back down until my name is cleared so you may want to back off asap. I will retain a lawyer and I will see you in court. Any further contact from you people will be used against you in a court of law. You just picked on the wrong candidate.


Offline Sparks

  • Posts: 1412
Re: Heather Anne Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2022, 01:52:27 am »
Heather doesn't show her FB friends list, and Facebook tells me there are almost 30 'Ruth Moore' connected to Virgina, two of them also somehow connected to 'Abenaki', but I really could not establish any connection to Heather with these two, not probable that it's one of them.

I cannot explain why I searched for connections to Virginia and not Maine. In Maine I found this one:

https://www.facebook.com/amy.daley.35/ [Ruth Moore] ("Tall Standing Buffalo Woman")

She is connected to Heather Anne Sprague and Jonathan Yellowbird, as shown in this post and comments:
https://www.facebook.com/amy.daley.35/posts/pfbid02CRWH2ozE7JhyJG4X5GVeTbNGZcojNxrEQWprcKsRQ7PKoM5WgYyLRbCJvN3Vu45Pl

Offline Sparks

  • Posts: 1412
Re: Heather Anne Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2022, 01:58:54 am »
She is connected to Heather Anne Sprague and Jonathan Yellowbird, as shown in this post and comments

Correction: Please read Jonathan Yellowbear.

Offline cellophane

  • Posts: 56
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2022, 04:03:34 am »
Jonathan D. Yellowbear identifies himself at various places as "Sokoki Band of the Abenaki Indian Nation".

In Darryl Leroux's Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity (U. Manitoba Press, 2019), p. 218, I read:
Quote
Similar numbers have become the norm in Vermont, where a media report in July 2018 stated that nearly 15,000 people (or over 2 percent of the state’s population) claimed to be Abenaki. After a failed attempt at federal recognition in 2007, the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of Abenaki (now the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi) received state recognition as an “Indian” tribe along with the Koasek Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation in May 2012. A year earlier, in April 2011, the Elnu Abenaki Tribe and the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe also received state recognition. According to my primary research—based in part in membership records and statements by a range of Abenaki leaders from the two Abenaki communities in Quebec (Odanak and Wolinak)—all four of these state-recognized tribes are comprised primarily of French descendants who have used long-ago ancestry in New France to shift into an “Abenaki” identity. The self-indigenization movement among French descendants appears to have begun earlier in Vermont—as early as the 1970s—though it has picked up speed in recent years, no doubt facilitated by the ready availability of French-descendant genealogy infrastructure in English.

The BIA determination against tribal recognition of the St. Francis / Sokoki Band, here:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2007-07-02/pdf/E7-12727.pdf

says:
Quote
The SSA petitioner claims descend as a group mainly from a Western Abenaki Indian tribe, most specifically, the Missisquoi Indians. During the colonial period (approximately 1600–1800), the Missisquoi Indians lived in northwestern Vermont, near the present-day town of Swanton. The available evidence indicates that by 1800 the disruption caused by colonial wars and non-Indian settlement had forced almost all the Western Abenakis in northern New England (including Vermont) to relocate to the Saint Francis River area of Quebec, Canada, and become part of the St. Francis, or Odanak, village of Canadian Western Abenaki Indians. The petitioner, however, contends that its ancestors remained behind in northwestern Vermont after 1800, or moved to Canada until it was ‘‘safe’’ to return. The petitioner also maintains that its ancestors lived ‘‘underground,’’ hiding their Indian identity to avoid drawing the attention of their non- Indian neighbors, until the 1970’s. Some of the available documentation indicates that, over the course of the 19th century, a few of the group’s ancestors moved from various locations in Quebec, Canada, to the United States, but not as a group.

Of the petitioner’s 1,171 members with enrollment files completed to the petitioner’s satisfaction, only 8 (less than 1 percent) demonstrated descent from a Missisquoi Abenaki Indian ancestor. By 1800, most of the historical Missisquoi Abenaki Indian tribe had migrated to St. Francis, or Odanak, in Quebec, Canada. The available evidence demonstrates that these eight members descend from Simon Obomsawin, who once belonged to the St. Francis, or Odanak, Indian community, and who can be traced to the historical Missisquoi Abenaki Indian tribe through lists of Indians belonging to St. Francis, or Odanak. The available evidence does not demonstrate that these eight members were associated with the SSA petitioner before the 1990’s.

Offline cellophane

  • Posts: 56
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #11 on: October 25, 2022, 04:06:41 am »
I meant to write "federal recognition", not "tribal recognition".

I'm keeping in mind that BIA recognition determinations are not always just.

Offline cellophane

  • Posts: 56
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #12 on: October 25, 2022, 05:15:35 am »
Some of the person search websites say that Jonathan D. Yellowbear also went by Jonathan Craft and Jonathan Snidercraft. Since the sources are not specified, these need confirmation.

Jonathan Yellowbear's FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.yellowbear.3

Says he went to McMinn Central High School (Etowah, TN), class of 1986. The yearbook for that year shows two Jonathans. Jonathan Craft is the one whose picture is a good match.
The FB page also says he went to Mount View High School in Maine until 1985, but then went to play football in Tennessee. I couldn't find a yearbook for that school.

The Muscatine Journal (Muscatine, IA) of 7/27/1994, p. 1, shows Jonathan Snidercraft, of Burlington, IA, discussing a plan to build a replica of an Indian village in Louisa County, complete with reenactors. No participation by any Native Americans is mentioned as part of the plan. "Snidercraft"'s identity or ancestry are not mentioned.

The FB page says he studied Native American History at Ohio Valley University (1986–1988) and later worked as a truck driver based in Oxford, IA, and Bangor, ME.


Offline cellophane

  • Posts: 56
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #13 on: October 25, 2022, 06:21:24 pm »
Tidbits from Jonathan Yellowbear's LinkedIn page:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-yellowbear-07035b19

He has a gun shop.
Quote
We continue to build high quality Flintlock long guns and pistols. Our focus still remains on firearms that the First Nations People (Indian's) used in these time periods.

As member of "The Ancient Ones of Maine" (2004–present),
Quote
I re-enact the ways of my ancestors as a "Native American" for the PCer's. I belong to the Tribal Band of the SOKOKI and we are of the ABENAKI INDIAN NATION!!!! My job is to accurately portray my ancestors, by making all the things that I wear for clothing, footwear and all of my accouterments. I also do school presentation for the scouts and other venues as well.

While a student at South Eastern Community College (1992–1994, AAS Gun-Smithing):
Quote
Activities and Societies: Living Historian at Old Fort Madison in Fort Madison IA, Owned a Custom Gun Shop, Native American Awareness Group.

While a student at Ohio Valley University (1986–1988, AAS Pre-1840 Native American History):
Quote
Portrayed a Shawnee at Fort Randolph at Point Pleasant, WV during the 1986, 87, and 88 years. I had lots of fun at this and talked to my History Professor about the weekend and told him the historical accuracy aspect of this particular event.

I take from this that he has had experience impersonating Indians of various tribes before settling on Abenaki full-time.

(In Maine he was also "Working on ridding the state of Obumers communist Common Core State Standards", but that's neither here nor there.)

Offline Diana

  • Posts: 435
  • I Love YaBB 2!
Re: Heather Sprague, Republican Candidate Maine
« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2022, 01:50:22 am »
I did a quick look-see on this Heather Sprague and so far everyone is white. She and her family also has a very impressive lineage in the state of Maine. I've found ancestors as far back as the 1700s. I'll  post her genealogy in the next couple of days.