"Some say the island was a convenient place for merchant seaman to drop their black paramours before sailing home to their wives" or being a stop on the Underground Railroad, but neither of these theories have evidence to back up their claims.

[4] Instead, it is believed that most Malaga settlers were descendants of Benjamin Darling, a Freedman who settled nearby Harbor Island.

The first resident of the island was a black man named Henry Griffin from Harpswell, who is believed to have moved there in the early to mid 1860s.

[4] The Casco Bay Breeze, Bangor Daily News and other newspapers investigated during the 1890s, then printed stories about a "degenerate colony" whose indiscretions included use of tobacco and of tea.

Under the Governor's direction, Maine's authorities abducted and removed men, women, and children many of whom were forced into various institutions and, in 1912, undertook the mass eviction of the remaining 45-member interracial community.

[10] On April 7, 2010, Maine legislators finally issued an official statement of regret for the Malaga incident, but did so without notifying descendants and other stakeholders either before or after the fact.

[citation needed] American novelist Paul Harding uses the history of the island and its people as inspiration for a fictional narrative in 2023's This Other Eden.