Laurel Hill, at the junction of the Androscoggin and Little Androscoggin rivers in Auburn, is just a short walk from my house. It’s lined with houses today and doesn’t look much different than the rest of the city.

In 1690, though, before white settlers arrived, it was home to a small town that became the site of one of the more sickening of the many crimes done to Maine’s native people   — a massacre that few remember.

As political hopefuls consider whether to support steps to expand recognition of tribal sovereignty in Maine, it’s a good time to look back and absorb an overriding lesson of our history: that the Wabanaki nations have never been treated with respect.

Here in Maine, we can’t correct every historical injustice, but we can tackle this one  — and it’s encouraging that more than half of the 17 candidates running for governor support greater tribal sovereignty.

Whoever succeeds Gov. Janet Mills will have to deal with her mixed and sometimes rocky relations with the Wabanaki  nations — including her refusal to restore their full sovereignty.

Let’s first go back, though, to Sept. 14, 1690, when a military leader named Benjamin Church led his men along the Androscoggin as part of a colonial effort to control the territory. On that day, Church noted that he witnessed “two English and an Indian moving towards the fort” approaching the native settlement.

The troops raced after them and rescued the two settlers before spreading out between the nearby forest and the homes.

“We were very wet, running through the river, but got up undiscovered to the fort till within gunshot,” Church said. They found “few Indians” present, “but two men and a lad of about 18 years with some women and children.”

His report said the expedition “killed six or seven” and took 11 other natives prisoner, leaving behind only “two old squaws” in the ruins to tell the story of what had transpired there.

James Sullivan’s “History of the District of Maine” recorded that “the Savages, excepting the wives of the two sachems, and their children were knocked on the head and buried” by Church’s troops.

Thomas Church, who started his “History of Philip’s War” while his father was still alive, said that the wives of two native leaders and their children were spared. But the price exacted was awful: Benjamin Church was allowed to sell any native captives taken into slavery.

It appears about 80 of them were hauled off in chains, most sent to die on the sugar plantations of the Caribbean.

That’s just one of many ugly examples of how white settlers dealt with the people who had lived in Maine for thousands of years.

Too many Americans have the misguided notion that despite the terrible things done to natives, whose land was stolen along the way, there isn’t anything much that can be done now.

They seem to think the original peoples exist only in history books. But they’re still here.

And what the Wabanaki nations deserve is for our political leaders   — and the rest of us  —  to listen carefully to what they want and do our best to respond respectfully.

It’s encouraging that so many candidates see that while we can’t undo the crimes of the past, we can create a new relationship based on mutual understanding that acknowledges the dignity of people who have been mistreated and ignored for generations.