Felling Native Forests, Defending Indigenous Power: Penobscot Labor and Industrial Lumbering in the 19th Century Maine Woods

• In Event: Deep Cuts: Forests and United States History

Abstract

This project investigates the relationships between the 19th-century lumbering industry in northern Maine and Penobscot people, with particular emphasis on Penobscots who worked for lumbering companies. I argue that even though lumbering companies harvested thousands of trees each year from Penobscot homelands, Penobscot workers were able to take advantage of this industry’s harvesting practices and labor system. Penobscot men found gainful employment as river drivers, Penobscot women harvested Brown Ash and Paper Birch trees to craft and sell important cultural items while lumbering companies felled softwood trees, and the Penobscot Nation earned money by leasing valuable riverside land to industrial companies. Overall, Penobscot people were able to harness the economic and environmental trends of the 19th century to defend their Native identity and control important resources. I engage Native, labor, and environmental historiographies in this project and challenge understandings of industrialization that imply it always generates unidimensional environmental destruction and oppression of marginalized people.

Author

• Joseph P Yauch, Brandeis University