3.2 THE NEW ENGLAND FOREST The Seventeenth Century: 1600 - 1730 Listen to Podcast of these Slides 2. Overview Weeks 1 and 2:  Concepts for doing environmental history. How environmental historians describe the process of breakdown of native cultures (Gutierrez, Martin, and Isenberg). Week 3: Concept of wilderness. Human place in nature. Process of forest transformation under colonization. Logging labor. 3. 17th Century Cosmos Great Chain of Being: Microcosm, Macrocosm theory; body, soul, spirit. Lowest: stones, metals, minerals (often thought of as alive). Middle: plants, mammals, rational humans. Highest: Angels (nine levels). God: Empyrean heaven. 4. Mark Stoll Texas Tech University Environmental history. Protestantism, Capitalism, and Nature in America (1997). In Major Problems: "Puritan Perspectives on the New England Environment." (Ch. 3) 5. Anne Bradstreet Poet, 1612-72. Born in England. Came to America with John Winthrop.  Settled in Ipswich. The Tenth Muse, 1650.  Eulogizes nature. Nature is green and beautiful, yet dies. Man grows old, but was made for immortality. 6. Edward Johnson, 1598-1672 Migrated to New England with John Winthrop. Occupation was a joiner. Wonder Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England (1654). Wilderness as a refuge from the Antichrist. "The hideous Thickets in this place were such that Wolfes and Beares nurst up their young, in those very places where the streets are [now] full of Girles and Boys sporting up and down." "Nor could it be imagined that this wilderness should turn a mart for Merchants in so short a space." 7. Cotton Mather Cotton Mather, Puritan Minister. Christian Philosopher, 1721. Scale of nature: orders of angels upward to disembodied mind of God. Newtonian world machine: world as a machine operating by divine law. God's will upholds creation. Farmer adds nitre (saltpeter) to soil; water vapor circulates through heavens. 8. Samuel Willard  Samuel Willard, Harvard vice-president, 1701-7. "A Complete Body of Divinity," 1726. Farmer's place within the Great Chain of Being; within the macrocosm. Heavens distill spirits and vapors onto the earth; earth receives them; farmer tills and manures the ground; creates soil fertility. Seed draws in the spirits, dew, rain. 9. Capital, Labor, and Nature Karl Marx: land, labor, and capital. Labor as the link between capital and nature. One owns only their labor power. Exploitation of nature (natural resources). Exploitation of labor (human resources). Profit through capitalization (entrepreneurs). Alienated versus unalienated labor. Capital from England; labor by colonists; natural resources from the New World. Long distance trade (mercantile capitalism) links the continents. 10. Commodification of Nature Market links: Use value: Exchange value: Commodity: Nature as commodity: Resource:17th cent: Resource:19th cent:   Triangular trade Subsistence Profit Goods, land, money Beaver pelts, white pine masts, naval stores To rise again, gift Timber unfelled, etc. 11. John Denham, Of Old Age, 1669 Resources are gifts of the earth to humankind; reciprocity. "For whatsoever from our hand she [the earth] takes, Greater or less, a vast return she makes. Nor am I only pleased with that resource." 12. Resource Latin: resurgere. To arise again French: resourdre. To arise anew; to spring up as water. English:  Something that lies ready for use or can be drawn upon; wealth, assets, property. Something that a country or state has and can use to its advantage, as in natural resources. 13. John Yeats, Natural History of Commerce, 1870 Resources as "latent elements of wealth." "In speaking of the natural resources of any country, we refer to the ore in the mine, the stone unquarried, the timber unfelled, the native plants and animals." 14. Marketing Nature Transformation from organic (medieval) economy to inorganic (modern) economy. Colonists need manufactured items from Europe: tools; axes; glass windows. Iron: guns, ammunition, spades, kettles Food: sugar, salt, coffee, tea, spices. Clothing: cloth, blankets, stockings, leather goods, hats. Colonists need resources to trade: 4 F's: Furs, fish, forest, farm products. 15. Trade Routes: 1650 Molasses, sugar, rum, wine White oak staves Red oak staves Mast logs Fish 16. Piscataqua River, N.H. Portsmouth, N.H. Mast Landing. By 1700: 90 sawmills; 30 teams of oxen. 3-4 ships with masts per year. Tar, pitch, spars, yards, staves. 17. Saw Mill Technological link between labor and nature. Water power--renewable energy source from snowmelt and rainfall. Mill owner wealthier than most villagers. 18. George Tate House Fore River, in Stroudwater, near Portland, Maine. Mast agent for British contractor. Timber merchant. House built 1755. 19. Maine Lumbering King's Broad Arrow 20. Broad Arrow Policy British Crown, 1691-1729. Retain pines over 24 in. at 1 ft. height. Military supremacy. Forest conservation. Contention between British and colonists. King's agent is Surveyor of Pines and Timber. 21. Maine Lumbering Labor process Bedding the fall Felling 22. Lumbering and Labor Class distinctions:  King's mast agent, timber merchant, foreman, contractor. Lumberers: skilled laborers. Cutters, barkers, swampers, teamsters, drivers, raftsmen, scalers, sawyers. 23. Maine Lumbering Limbing, barking: cutters, barkers  Twitching: swampers, teamsters 24. Maine Lumbering Baulking: teamsters Mast Landing: drivers, raftsmen 25. Forest Capital and Logging Labor Jeremy Belknap, History of New Hampshire (1784-92). "The contractors and agents made large fortunes; but the laborers who spend their time in the woods anticipated their earnings and were kept in a state of poverty and dependence." Creates a class of exploited laborers who live on credit. 26. Forest Capital and Logging Labor Timothy Dwight, Yale President, Travels in New England, 1823. "Those who are lumbermen are almost necessarily poor. Their course of life seduces them to prodigality, thoughtlessness of future wants, profaneness, irreligion, immoderate drinking and other ruinous habits." 27. Forest Capital and Logging Labor Edward Kendall, Travels in the Years 1807 and 1808. "Maine settlers have degenerated into lumberers. The lumberer wanders through the forest, making spoil of the wealth of nature. What nature has planted he enjoys, but he plants nothing for himself." 28. Forest Capital and Logging Labor Karl Marx, Capital, 1860s. Structural split between capital and labor. Laborer is part of the process of appropriating nature for profit. Laborer adds value to the free timber that nature has produced. Alienated labor. The merchant takes the added value and sells it at a profit. 29. Logging Issues Today Richard White, environmental historian, Stanford University. Author of "Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?" (From a bumper sticker in Forks,Washington), in Uncommon Ground, ed. William Cronon, 1995. 30. Richard White Separation between those who labor in the environment and environmentalists. Until now most humans have known nature through the body. Environmentalists know nature through the mind, aesthetics, and recreation. Removal of connection to nature through labor. 31. Intellectuals and Environment Richard White as Professor of Environmental History: My computer depends on electricity; paper. Electricity comes from dams on the Columbia River; paper from trees. Dams depend on rivers, snow, nature. Dams kill fish; paper kills trees. "I seem to alter nothing in nature, but I do not face what I alter; I learn nothing." 32. Questions for Discussion Are there acceptable ways to work in and for the environment that are not elitist? Are unalienated labor and environmentally sustainable work possible? In our society?