Erasure – A History Covered and Uncovered in Cape Ann, Massachusetts
On May 30, our second day of sabbatical, we went whale-watching in Gloucester, MA, a lovely seaside town in Cape Ann, a rocky peninsula in northeastern Massachusetts, on the outskirts of Boston. Gloucester is America’s oldest fishing port and the fishing industry is still a major part of its economy today. Cape Ann also includes the towns of Essex, Manchester-by-the-Sea and Rockport.
The story that is commonly told about this region of the country begins with its Puritan settlers, most notably William Jeffreys and William Allen, who along with a few others were recorded to be the original “proprietors” of the town. This, of course, means landowners, those who laid first claim to a land that was said to be almost devoid of indigenous inhabitants. As Manchester historian Darius Lamson wrote in his 1895 in and definitive History of the Town of Manchester, Essex County, Massachusetts, “the country was practically unoccupied when the white man first set foot upon its shore. The wilderness…was but a hunting ground and battlefield to a few fierce hordes of savages.” This story was repeated by many subsequent historians until it became commonly held “fact.”
In reality, when the first settlers arrived Cape Ann was home to the Pawtucket, an Algonquian-speaking people who were descended from the first people to occupy northeastern North America (the area now known as New England) after the end of the Ice Age. For context, the term Algonquian refers to a language group, from which many different related languages and dialects emerged, in much the same way that Latin spawned many of the European languages spoken today.
Records and journals of the earliest European inhabitants of the Cape Ann area “uncover” the true story. French traders and Spanish fishermen came to this area to find a thriving Native American population, and infrastructure that included roads, forts, farms, and cemeteries. The indigenous people had also diverted streams, drained beaver ponds, and dug canals. Causeways they built created paths between the water and the land that are still in use today.
The indigenous peoples and the colonists lived side by side for many years, and the colonists even aided the Pawtucket in defending their territory from another native group, the Tarrantines of Maine. However, as the European population grew, so did their desire to own the land. Beginning with King Philip’s war in 1675 and continuing forward, many indigenous people were killed or forced into slavery. Those who survived were exiled with the adoption of President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830.
When speaking of the recovery of this history, I used the word “uncover” purposefully, because as the colonists made land deals with the Pawtucket, or took over land from those who were killed, enslaved, or forced to leave, they favored land that already had infrastructure – fields that were already cleared, established roads, existing fortresses. Often new infrastructure was build right on top of existing infrastructure, erasing it or hiding it in plain sight. The fact that this history has been covered over with a narrative that says, “they were never there,” has been blamed by local historian and anthropologist Mary Ellen Lepionka on the practice of Erasure, defined as “the modification or distortion of the historical record to downplay events or remove facts that people are not proud of, are prejudiced against, or wish to conceal… Example: Indians had no civilization and mysteriously disappeared.”
In recovering this erased history, there has also been an interest in understanding how the Pawtucket people managed the resources of the land and the sea. The Pawtucket fished the same waters, using nets and constructing a series of weirs (or low dams) across the Little Good Harbor River, which let fish in as the tide came in and trapped them as the tide went out. They used spears for flounder, skates, cod, bluefish, and seabass. They also employed hooks and lines to catch deep sea fish, such as anglerfish and swordfish.
Evidence that the Pawtucket harvest all kinds of shellfish remains intact because of the shell heaps, called middens, that remain on river islands across Cape Ann. These are not small shell heaps. Wheeler’s Point in Riverview is what is left of a shell midden that was 10 or 12 feet high over the entire peninsula where houses are now.
Even with their extensive use of the natural resources around them, the Pawtucket and their ancestors operated sustainable fisheries for thousands of years. Their methods of protecting the environmental resources they relied on have become a topic of interest among modern environmentalists seeking a more sustainable future for the seafood industry in Cape Ann and other places. What methods did the indigenous peoples use to ensure the viability of these resources for future generations?
The Pawtucket paid careful attention to their oyster and mussel shoals. They regularly removed dead or diseased shellfish. They also removed species that threatened the health of the shoals, such as starfish, crabs, and gastropods. They collected only the largest oysters and mussels, allowing the others to grow. In terms of their fisheries, similar practices were in place. They had quotas, restrictions against overfishing, which were even more stringent during spawning season. They did not harvest the young fish, but rather allowed them to grow and replenish the fish population.
Modern environmentalists have much to learn from the Pawtucket and their stewardship of the resources of the Cape Ann region. As the story of their presence and effect on the land is uncovered and shared, we may gain insight into best practices going forward, so that we are protecting the land for the sake of future generations.