Papers presented by Joseph Yauch since 2019

2024 Providence, Rhode Island

"Felling Native Forests, Defending Native Sovereignty: Industrial Lumbering Companies and Penobscot People in 19th-Century Northern Maine"

Abstract:

Business history meets environmental, labor, and Native history in this project. This paper investigates relationships between industrial businesses, natural resource extraction, colonial governance, and Native sovereignty in the 19th-century United States, using northern Maine as a case study. How did Penobscot people (the region’s Native inhabitants) navigate the economic, environmental, and political transformations that industrialization generated? By situating Penobscot River Watershed (PRW) lumbering companies within the larger Native and colonial history of the PRW, this paper argues that Penobscot people took advantage of industrialization as workers, suppliers, and even landlords for lumbering companies. Even though lumbering companies cut down unprecedented numbers of trees from Penobscot homelands and incentivized the State of Maine to seize more Native land, 19th-century Penobscots were able to harness this economic process to earn competitive wages, receive widespread praise for their skill as laborers, continue practicing their economic principles, and make their territorial sovereignty part of the regional economy. Thus, this paper illustrates the subversive potential of industrialization. Rather than an inherent tool of the colonial ruling class, industrialization is a discrete force that subaltern groups can use to challenge oppressive governance. This project relies on three categories of sources to observe the nuanced relationships between industrial companies, natural resource extraction, the colonial state, and Penobscot people. State documents (land treaties, census data, legislative records) set the legal and political scene of the 19th-century PRW, corporate records (payrolls, correspondences, ledger books) demonstrate how lumbering companies treated Penobscot people and PRW forests, and Penobscot oral histories and folklore highlight their unique economic and cultural perspectives. Fusing these sources allows this paper to harness the analytical methods of Native, environmental, and labor historiographies under the broader mantle of business history, painting a holistic portrait of the 19th-century PRW in the process.

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