STRONG — The November meeting of the Strong Historical Society will present “The Lost Indian Tribes of Western Maine,” a talk by Historian Peter Stowell.

The meeting will be held on Nov. 6 at the Strong Historical Society, 79 North Main Street, Strong, and is open to the public.

Doors open at 5 p.m. for browsing. Potluck Supper (bring a dish) will be served at 6 p.m. A brief business meeting will begin at 7 p.m., followed by the program.

Mr. Stowell will discuss how, hopelessly caught between the colonial aims of several European nations, primarily England and France, Maine’s native population never stood a chance. Dozens of tribes in western Maine were decimated by an endless series of war, disease, trauma, and displacement from their homelands. Their cultural presence has been lost to the world; their histories told by white men.

Mr. Stowell grew up in Western Maine. Educated at Gould Academy, the University of Maine, and Tulane University in New Orleans, he was early entranced by the majesty of Oxford County’s mountains and rivers and began exploring its history and geography as a child.

He is now focused on recovering cultural information long lost to present generations through assiduous research in Maine’s defunct newspapers, official state and federal directories and reports, and informed sources. For his presentation at the Strong Historical Society, Stowell has collected information on Maine’s Indians from more than one hundred sources, some of them dating back to the early 1600s and most of them dating before 1900.