Commerce by a Frozen Sea: Native Americans and the European Fur Trade

Chapter 6: Property Rights, Depletion, and Survival

Chapter 6 Property Rights, Depletion, and Survival We are part of the earth and the earth is part of us. The earth is not his [white man’s] brother, but his enemy—and when he has conquered it, he moves on. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which coursed through the trees carries the memories of the red man. —Ted Perry, 1972, falsely attributed by many to Chief Seattle T he phrases ‘‘the earth is part of us’’ and ‘‘the earth is sacred’’ are powerful and emotive. These extracts from a speech widely believed to have been delivered by Chief Seattle in 1854 as his people were moving off their ancestral homeland were in fact written in the 1970s by Professor Ted Perry of the University of Texas as part of a film script.1 The producers of the film credited the words to Chief Seattle, and the text came to symbolize how Native Americans and Europeans treat the environment: the first being part of the earth and the other a conqueror of the earth. As Vine Deloria, Jr., expressed the contrast: ‘‘The Indian lived with his land. . . . The white destroyed his land. He destroyed the planet earth.’’2 Shepard Krech has explored the history of what has been called the ‘‘ecological Indian,’’ tracing the origin of the view that aboriginal peoples in North America were better guardians of the land than the European Property Rights, Depletion, and Survival 151 settlers.3 He illustrates through a series of examples that not only Europeans but aboriginals as well could degrade their environment and decimate animal populations. Jared Diamond in his book Collapse describes how aboriginal societies, from the Anazasi and Mayans to those on Easter Island, virtually disappeared.4 Changes in weather and environment, increases in population, as well as warfare and trade played different but interrelated roles in their destruction. And, in each case, growth and collapse occurred prior to any European contact. As both Krech and Diamond demonstrate, environmental degradation and the extinction of animal populations were not due solely to the actions of Europeans. Environmental historian William Cronon, in his major work Changes in the Land, describes the complex set of relationships that governed the way native peoples treated their surroundings. He shows how natives altered the environment in ways that promoted different types of wildlife and affected crop growth. One widely used method was burning undergrowth to open up forest areas. This practice also promoted grasses, which in turn led to greater populations of large game, such as deer, which were a major source of calories and protein. Expanding the area of meadow land is one example of how aboriginals increased their food supply by altering their environment. And so, as William Cronon illustrates, natives changed the land, and changed it purposefully. The juxtaposition of native peoples as stewards of the land with the evidence we presented in Chapter 4 showing that Native Americans in the hinterlands of Hudson Bay depleted the beaver is further indication that a more nuanced interpretation of aboriginal behavior is needed. The depletion of the beaver is also inconsistent with the view of many historians that native consumers were satisficers in that they were content with a modest level of consumption. The rising prices of beaver pelts in the eighteenth century meant that fewer pelts were needed to get the same quantity of goods. If demands by native groups had been limited in this way, the beaver populations should have been maintained rather than depleted. Calvin Martin in Keepers of the Game began his explanation of why natives overexploited the beaver by dismissing economic factors.5 Depletion , according to Martin, was not due to economic incentives; rather, it could be traced to aspects of native cultural and spiritual life.6 He claimed that ‘‘the mutually courteous relationship between man and animal’’ had broken as a result of the various epidemics that had assaulted native communities after they came in contact with Europeans.7 The measles, influ- 152 Chapter 6 enza, and smallpox epidemics that devastated native communities led to profound readjustments, including the depletion of their resources. Shepard Krech and other ethnohistorians have disputed Martin’s interpretation and analysis.8 Thus the question remains...