Colonialist fence lawfare
Beginning in 1620s: Acquiring
use of “abandoned” cornfields and village sites by treaties, early settler
colonists began writing fence laws and making wooden rail fences. Common fields
and crops at first, extending into uplands for pastures and firewood etc.
later.
From 1673 and up to about 1740, the people living at the Nonnewaug Wigwams were planting in these "Indian cornfields" while south of there the early settler colonists were also planting:
A preexisting low stone “big snake effigy” fuel break of
unknown age might enclose or border “something for something” (a road, a
stream, places not to be burned, or multiple patches of blueberries to be burnt
over on a staggered 4 year schedule etc.) but it’s not a legal 4 and a half foot high fence...
William Cothren, Woodbury Connecticut's favorite historian,
mentions burning and cultural landscape management: “They encamped on Good
Hill that night. The next day they proceeded to the valley to examine their
possessions. Much of the intervals and plains on the river, throughout the
whole extent of the first purchase, had been divested of trees and undergrowth,
by the Indian custom of burning over the woods in the autumn, and the natives
had for many years raised their slender crops of corn, beans and tobacco, in
these pleasant valleys, before the whites set foot in Connecticut. By this
method, the forests were cleared of underbrush, so that the hunters could
better pursue their game, and could have some open spots for their rude
husbandry."
Cothren’s footnotes the passage with a quote from "Hildreth:”
“While the red men
possessed the country, and every autumn set fire to the fallen leaves, the
forests presented a most noble and enchanting appearance. The annual firings
prevented the growth of shrubs and underbrush, and destroying the lower
branches of the trees, the eye roved with delight from ridge to ridge, and from
hill to hill; which like the divisions of an immense temple, were crowded with
innumerable pillars, the branches of whose shafts interlocking, formed the
arch-work of support to that leafy roof, which covered and crowned the whole.
But since the white man took possession, the annual fires have been checked,
and the woodlands are now filled with shrubs and young trees, obstructing the
vision on every side, and converting these once beautiful forests into a rude
and tasteless wilderness.”' - Hildreth
"Hildreth" in the footnote turns out to be:
"S.P. Hildreth, (an) early historian of Marietta, Ohio, writing in 1848,
said: “The yearly autumnal fires of the Indians…had destroyed all the shrubs
and undergrowth of woody plants….and in their place had sprung up the buffalo
clover, and the wild pea vine, with various other indigenous plants and grapes,
supplying the most luxuriant …pastures to the herds of deer and buffalo….”
(Hildreth, 1848, pp.484-485).
I found Hildreth hiding in an article called: References on
the American Indian Use of Fire in Ecosystems:
itcnet.org/file_download/5d76d377-8025-4780-8511-4dc8d0596e45
“And yet we are surrounded by these snake-like effigies in stone that may well simply be, in some places, fuel breaks for low ground fires set by these “Indians,” Sherlock Stones mused. “Quite the mystery, my dear Possum, quite the mystery.”
No comments:
Post a Comment