Images from the
accompanying power point presentation are numbered in red
Compare and contrast
Native Americans and First English Settlers in:
Landscapes,
Landuse practices with
which they created these landscapes
Attitudes on which these
practices were founded
#1 Native Americans of Massachusetts
#2 Speakers of related
languages.
Eastern Algonquian
language group
ancient and widespread,
Nova Scotia to Carolina
Farmers and
hunter-gatherers
Main Crops: maize,
beans, squash.
Shifting cultivation:
fields cleared, planted for a period of years, then allowed to lie fallow,
uncultivated, until reforested, soil fertility naturally replenished
Also hunting-gathering,
fishing, shellfishing
Social Organization
Family and community
based, egalitarian, communal,
Individuals had
extensive kin networks outside local community
Communities linked by these networks might
form loose alliances, precursors to today's tribes
#3 At about 1600 tribes and
communities included:
Wampanoag (SE Mass),
Massachusett (Boston
area),
Pennacook (North Shore),
Nipmuck (Worcester
County),
Conn River communities
such as Agawam (Springfield, Hampden Cty), Norwottuck (Hadley, Northampton, Hampshire Cty), Pocumtuck
(Franklin County),
Mahicans, (Berkshire
County and Hudson valley)
#4. Native
Americans had been in Massachusetts more than 10,000 years.
During that time there
had been changes in all the elements that create landscape
#5 Those elements are:
Natural Environment, Technology, and Social Organization)
By the 1500s, when
Europeans and Native Americans first began encountering one another, what was
the landscape of Massachusetts like?
An example, a section of
the Connecticut River Valley #6
called Pocumtuck.
People of this area were
sometimes called the Pocumtucks, after the name of their homeland #7
-Natural
Environment: broad valley, 2 major
rivers, ridges and hills, more hills to east and west
-Climate and Topography
very similar to that of today, but much larger tracts of mature forest,
-Flora somewhat
different, alien invaders from Europe not yet arrived (e.g., purple loosestrife), chestnut an important component of
Massachusetts forests
MOST IMPORTANT -strongly
seasonal
Technology: includes tools, but also housing and scheduling of activities adapted to the seasonal abundances of natural environment,
Tools of stone: knives #8, points #9,
woodworking tools #10,
Ceramics #11 made from local clays,
Wooden items, since they
lived in a forest environment, not surprising that woodworking technology was
well developed and numerous items were made from wood including #12
vessels and utensils,
handles and shafts, bows, and canoes,
Woven materials: plant fibers were woven with great skill
into bags #13, baskets, mats,
textiles, clothing, and cordage,
Animal Products: leather and fur, bone, sinew, and shell.
The Pocumtucks were
farmers (had been for as much as 1000 yrs), also hunted and gathered
Although we often think
of farmers as having fixed, permanent dwellings, The Pocumtucks and other New
England Native farmers often moved their houses.
Wigwams/Wetus: well-suited
for moving: the original New England mobile home
basic plan#14: made of bent pole framework covered by bark or
mats.
Benches around sides for
sitting, sleeping.
Central fire.
Small, easily heated
Varied in size and
permanence.
Easily set up, taken
down, moved, rebuilt.
Often linked to moves
that were part of yearly cycle of activities.
Yearly Cycle #15
Spring: fishing, esp anadramous @ falls narrows, weirs in some places (e.g., Ware, MA). Fish taken in large numbers, preserved by smoking.
The Pocumtuck homeland #7 in
spring would feature large cluster of wigwams near the falls (Peskumskut)
This was an important social event too,
because of the large number of people that could congregate.
Summer: planting, move
from falls to fields.
Lived alongside fields
Maize, beans, squash
planted together in hills (the 3 sisters), tobacco, Jerusalem artichokes.
Also may have
cultivated/transplanted/maintained some medicinal herbs, nut trees, berries,
other food plants, fiber plants.
Summer, single or small
groups of wigwams, each surrounded by cleared and planted fields scattered
throughout areas with good soils.
Also many fallow fields,
source of other useful or edible plants and attractive to game birds and
mammals.
Fall: #15 hunting, harvesting, trapping, gathering
(nuts)
Hunting camps, small
scattered through hills, or along rivers for migrating fowl.
Wildlife management was
practiced by burning forest understory to encourage new growth and plants eaten
by deer and other animals
Hunting was sometimes a
large, communal effort to drive large numbers of deer and other animals into
traps and places they could be taken
Meanwhile, crops were
harvested and dried
Wigwams were moved to
sheltered locations, away from river's edges or open fields
Harvested foods stored
in great pits in the ground.
#7 Example: in
Pocumtuck, in just such a sheltered location, archaeologists found a winter
site with many large pits
Fall-Winter: #7 larger clusters of wigwams in protected
locations, also scattered hunting/gathering camps
The overall pattern was
one of permanent settlements, but not permanent houses
“Home” would be all
Pocumtuck, the entire valley and surrounding hills.
Within this area one's
house would be now here, now there, now combined with other families, now solo
or split.
This system worked
because land and its resources were owned by the community rather than by the
individual.
Individuals and families
had use rights, but not exclusive, permanent ownership.
The landscape to Native
Americans was also a mythic landscape #16.
Landscape features were
often tied to traditional stories associated with legends and myths
through which people
understood the universe and their place in it.
When people have
inhabited an area for thousands of years, this can become very rich. Many of the Native American stories that
have been collected over the years are strongly tied to specific places.
#7 Review: the
features of the Pocumtuck Landscape circa 1500-1600
Natural features: such as Wequamps,
Peskeomscut, Connecticut and Pocumtuck Rivers with their ties to stories
Human-made features:
cleared fields, fallow fields, burned-over areas, cleared areas around the
falls.
Burial places: (singly
or small groups, possibly large enough to be called cemeteries),
A network of trails:
linking these places together, and linking Pocumtuck to surrounding homelands
The First English Settlers
How they viewed the land, how they used the
land, and the consequences of these new ideas and practices
Although
the natural environment was the same, the technologies and attitudes were very
different
In contrast to
traditional Native Americans the English saw land, plants, animals as
commodities to be bought, sold, and privately owned, to be permanently altered
and exploited, for the purpose of making a profit, even at the expense of
extinction or permanent destruction.
These
ideas were part of a new worldview that was only just taking hold in Europe
itself (1500-1700). An older organic
view of the universe was replaced with a mechanistic worldview that encouraged
Europeans to separate themselves from and exert control over nature.
Seen in the work of European philosophers such as Descartes, Bacon, Newton: who saw the world as a mechanical system amenable to control and domination for human benefit.
#17
With
the arrival of the first Europeans in the Americas, a process began that
historians call
“The
Columbian Exchange” The flow of people,
other animals (including microorganisms), plants, goods, practices, and ideas
across the Atlantic in both directions.
Historically,
one of the most important introductions to the Americas was diseases. Smallpox and other diseases paved the way
for the conquest and resettlement of the Americas. Because Native Americans had been isolated from European, Asian,
and African populations for thousands of years, they lacked immunities to many
diseases that were endemic to Europe.
Among these were smallpox.
Exposure to smallpox wiped out entire communities of people, sometimes
long before they directly encountered Europeans. Europeans often found only remnants of what had been large Native
populations.
#18 The English in New
England settled in places such as Plymouth and Boston where planting fields had
been cleared and then abandoned because of depopulation.
Depopulation
also created ecological changes as the forest burning and field clearance were
abandoned, and environments maintained by these practices disappeared.
This effect helped to create the idea of virgin territory and wilderness when the reality was what the historian Francis Jennings called "widowed land."
Armed
with new ideas, microbes, domesticated animals, permanent field cultivation, and
extractive industries tied to distant markets, European settlers moved into the
widowed land of Massachusetts and transformed the landscapes.
#19 An example where the
effects of these transformations were particularly dramatic:
Nauset,
now known as the town of Eastham, #20 on Cape Cod,
The area underwent major environmental, economic, and social changes as it passed from Wampanoag to Anglo-American hands between 1600 and 1800
#21 close up of Eastham
today
In the first years of the 17th Century, Champlain visited Nauset twice.
He
drew this plan of Nauset #22 (compare w #21)
Champlain drew a typical summer landscape, with scattered dwellings surrounded by planted fields, lots of open land/fallow fields
In
1620, when the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts, they first landed not at
Plymouth, but at Provincetown, not far from Nauset #20
They
explored the area for several weeks. Observed a landscape almost entirely
forested. Described forests extending
right down to the shore. Different
kinds of forests
Uplands:
pitch pine, oak, often very open and easy to traverse (because of deliberate
burning of the forest understory)
Lowlands,
mixed forest, moister conditions, better soil.
Here they found cleared fields, fallow fields, wigwams that appeared to
have been abandoned at their approach
The
Pilgrims ultimately settled at Plymouth, which was the site of a Native
homeland called Patuxet #23. Here there were cleared fields that had been
abandoned after an epidemic in 1617.
In
1622 an epidemic hit Nauset and killed more than half of the people.
Meanwhile,
after initial difficulties, Plymouth became crowded, and satellite settlements
began.
One
of the first was at Nauset (1644)
With
its excellent agricultural lands, Nauset, renamed Eastham in 1651, became a
center for farming.
#21 The English practiced permanent field
cultivation, in individually owned fields associated with fixed, more
permanent dwellings clustered at Nauset Bay
The
English settlers had allotments for gardens and saltmarsh for salt hay for
feeding cattle.
The
uplands were used as common land for cutting wood for fuel and building, and
for running pigs.
English
gardens used permanent field agriculture.
They grew corn, wheat, more of a monocrop than the traditional Native
American mixture. Without labor-intensive replenishment, soil
fertility was quickly exhausted. When
this happened, new acreages were cleared.
The cattle required pastures; forests were cleared to provide pasture.
Pigs wreaked ecological havoc on fragile resources such as shellfish beds and bird nesting grounds.
common lands were eventually divided, sold and traded, and cleared. Individuals had exclusive rights to these lands.
The English brought extractive industries to
Massachusetts such as timber cutting, fishing, mining, and potash production,
all practiced on unprecedented scales.
In
Eastham, huge quantities of timber were cut for building, firewood (estimated
need: 40 cords/year per household), fences, to make pitch, turpentine, fuel for
try works, and saltworks. By the end of
the 17th century Eastham’s inhabitants were importing wood from Maine.
Deforestation
exposed soils to wind erosion, and drying.
Overgrazing and erosion quickly became a serious problem.
By
the 1730s, the settlers' agricultural and stock raising practices, and their
lumbering had transformed some of the most productive parts of the region into
barren desert-like landscapes covered with dunes, especially in Truro, Eastham,
and the Provincelands (today’s Provincetown).
#20
Today
you can visit the Provincelands, still covered by shifting sand dunes.
The
agricultural sector of the economy was forced to reorganize as soil fertility
was exhausted.
Farming
methods changed: smaller plots of land were farmed using more sustainable,
& labor-intensive, methods, like using fertilizers such as manure and fish
There
was a gradual change from extensive grain monocrop fields to mixed vegetable
gardens, orchards, dairy, poultry, and cranberry bogs, tied to emerging urban
markets in the region.
Agricultural
reorganization allowed farming to survive in places like Eastham, but it became
less economically significant as interest turned to maritime resources which
were not as quickly depleted.
Summary:
this 200-yr period of history of the outer Cape, from its first settlement by
Europeans to the nineteenth century, was marked by ecological and economic
transformations #24
From
forests and farms with abundant and fertile soil, to fields and pastures, to
barrens and dunes
From
shifting farming to permanent field farming and pasturing to specialty farming
and fishing
From
communal to private ownership
From
local to transatlantic exchange
Characteristics of places throughout Massachusetts were profoundly changed in the transition from Native American to Anglo-American occupation. These are the subject of Cronon’s book Changes in the Land. Exploring the specific changes in different places and the general patterns of changes in the region is a fascinating exercise in history, anthropology, and ecology.
Sources for images
|
Number |
Title |
Source |
|
2 |
Native American Languages |
? |
|
8 |
Stone Knives |
Fowler 1963:3 |
|
9 |
Stone points |
Fowler 1963:5 |
|
10 |
Ground Stone Woodworking Tools |
Fowler 1963:8 |
|
11 |
Ceramics |
Fowler 1966:60 |
|
12 |
Wooden Bowls |
Salwen 1978:171 |
|
13 |
Basketry |
Salwen 1978:163 |
|
14 |
Wigwam/Wetu |
Conkey et al. 1978:183 |
|
15 |
Yearly Cycle of Activities |
Wilkie and Tager 1991:13 |
|
18 |
Widowed Land |
Russell 1982:14 |
|
22 |
Champlain’s map of Nauset |
Russell 1982:4 |
|
23 |
Champlain’s Map of Patuxet |
Russell 1982:6 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Conkey,
Laura E., Ethel Boissevain, and Ives Goddard
1978 Indians of Southern New
England and Long Island: Late Period. In Northeast,
edited by Bruce G. Trigger, pp. 177-197. Handbook of North American Indians,
vol. 15, William C. Sturtevant, general editor. Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.
Fowler, William S. 1963 Classification of
Stone Implements of the Northeast. Bulletin
of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society 25(1):1-29.
Fowler, William S. 1966 Ceremonial and
Domestic Products of Aboriginal New England.
Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society
27(3-4):33-68.
Russell, Howard S. 1982 A Long Deep
Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England. (abridged) University
Press of New England, Hanover, NH.
Salwen,
Bert 1978 Indians of Southern New England and Long Island: Early Period. In
Northeast, edited by Bruce G.
Trigger, pp. 160-176. Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15, William C.
Sturtevant, general editor. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Wilkie, Richard W. and Jack Tager 1991
Historical Atlas of Massachusetts. University of Massachusetts
Press, Amherst.