French Aristocrats/Refugees in the Adirondacks?

Among all of Schneider's talk about settlers struggling in the Adirondacks, his mention of Castorland, the exclusive community for French aristocrats, stuck out in bizarre juxtaposition to his previous descriptions. As Steph mentioned in her blog post, French aristocracy seems complete out of place in the Adirondacks, which is exactly why this passage surprised me. While this is not a really significant part of Adirondack history, it stuck out as an unusual instance in which people were not trying to necessarily make a living like other settlers in the Adirondacks but they were refugees from France, who were escaping imprisonment, and even death, during the French Revolution due to their aristocratic affiliation and status. In 1792, Pierre Chassanis, a French nobleman, purchased 600,000 acres to build this community on. The Castorland corporation planned to build two cities complete with houses, markets, churches, roads and bridges.

Up to this point, we've seen settlers mostly come from surrounding areas, drawn in by promises of fertile land and natural resources. However, it seems as if the primary concern for the French aristocracy wasn't for farming but rather for escaping potential execution. It seems hard to believe that there is a connection between the Adirondacks and the French Revolution, but there was, even if it was short lived. The Adirondacks have seen such a wide range of cultures, people, intentions, successes, and failures.

Although this community was ultimately a failure, the corporation entered the land with the same hope and optimism as so many other settlers. This is manifest in the commemorative coin that the corporation produced. On one side is Cybele "who personified the earth as inhabited or cultivated," (105) and on the flip side was the goddess of agriculture, Ceres. Ceres was a goddess first worshipped by the Ancient Greeks, but here we see her altered to include Adirondack imagery including a maple tree and a beaver. Through this imagery, we see the aspiration of the French corporation to make the Adirondacks as great as the civilizations of classical antiquity, and although the addition of local symbology to a pagan and classical goddess seems odd, it really expresses the romantic and utopian opportunity that the Adirondacks seemingly held to these refugees and to many other settlers.

The History Before the History

History did not begin when Europeans mistakenly stumbled upon North America.

Literature about early settlement in the Adirondacks makes little mention of the people that inhabited the northeastern region before "western civilization" took hold. To their credit, books point out that natives in fact existed, and they traded with the Europeans before dying off in great numbers. However, their accounts paint a dim picture of the people that were once intimately connected with this land.

There is a long, rich history that has helped to shape and set the foundation for wilderness culture as we experience it today. This history began with natives, who survived in the Adirondack wilderness before it became American property.

The Iroquois was a league of indian tribes who controlled a large stretch of land that included much of the Northeast, the Great Lakes area and bits of the south. These tribes banded together between 1450 and 1600 in order to quell their incessant skirmishes and feuds. Once the peace treaty was established, the Iroquois tribes became the foremost power in the region.

The downfall of the Iroquois can be directly attributed to the Europeans, although their descent from power was not instantaneous. At first, the indians and the Europeans traded goods. The Dutch, French, and English capitalized on the native peoples' hunting acumen and knowledge of the area. The natives purchased weapons, among other western tools, textiles, and vestments.

Eventually, the Iroquois and other native peoples developed a dependance on European goods. The tribes therefore fought to keep their hold on the fur trade, which served as the main link between the tribes and European goods. Ultimately, the pressure for control of the land was so great that native tribes all but annihilated each other. The remaining natives were decimated by disease and ultimately pushed out of their homelands by European settlers.

Yield

One of the most interesting things I found in the Terrie reading was this pervasive sense that humans are apart from (and in most cases, superior than) the natural world around them--and even worse, that during the time that the Adirondacks were being settled, people didn't even realize this humans-over-wilderness complex. For the settlers coming to populate the wild north country, the Adirondacks represented "both a resource and an obstacle to their own prosperity" (Terrie, 29). People viewed the forest they migrated to as a means to achieve the not-yet-named American Dream and used the land as a tool for human progress. At first, these early settlers didn't so much work with the land as they worked to make the land fit their needs--as seen by their insistence upon farming the mostly infertile soils and by physically and visibly altering the landscape. According to Terrie, "every family's goal was to secure a good living by eliminating at least that part of wilderness around their home farm" (Terrie, 42). The people of this time (and many today as well) viewed the Adirondacks equally as a land of opportunity for human gain and, unfortunately, as an unnecessary and begging-to-be-changed "impediment to personal comfort, material success, and cultural advancement" (Terrie, 42). Both of these viewpoints feed into the idea that humans are entitled to using (and abusing!) the landscape for their own personal advancement, an interesting thread in the Adirondack narrative considering Terrie's discussion of land ownership. When considering whether the poor migrants actually working the land or the fat-cat but entirely absent men who laid financial claim to the land should technically own the lots, Terrie asked what I found to be an incredibly probing question relevant to more than just land ownership: "who should control the land--those living on it or someone else?" (Terrie, 25). Ultimately what this question made me think of is who, as in what beings or forces of nature, should control the land? Should humans be allowed to manipulate nature to their advantage or should we learn to live with the land rather than on top of it? To me the answer is clear and points to a solution of successful integration and cohabitation instead of a completely one-sided urbanization in some parts and pure wilderness in others approach--a proposal much easier said than done. If nothing else, however, I think today's reading serves as an important reminder that people and their landscape will never successfully thrive together as long as humans expect the land to "yiel[d] to civilization" (Terrie, 42).

Agrarian Idealism in the Adirondacks

In reading both the Schneider and Terrie books, I was struck by the idea of the American dream in the Adirondacks. Families moving up to the North Country with the hopes of finding fertile farmland seems like a precursor to westward migration and the gold rush era in California. Unfortunately, it seems most families experienced hardship rather than success in the Adirondacks, much like those who journeyed to California to mine for gold.

People moving to the Adirondacks were lulled by reports of an agricultural paradise.  John Brown’s names for his proposed towns encouraged optimism and hope for idealist communities. Instead, they found mostly barren and rocky soil. As I was driving through the park today, I tried to imagine what the land I was seeing now was used for 200 years ago. It is definitely evident that the Adirondacks are not quite the agricultural strongholds of the Mohawk and lower Hudson valleys. Open fields and meadows now populated with dense brush are all that remain of former farms in many spots. It will definitely be interesting to keep learning about the history of the Adirondacks and other, more successful industries there.

The American Dream in the Adirondacks

A recurring topic that we have addressed in class is the notion that the history of the Adirondacks is defined by the narratives of those that inhabit it. Contested Terrain gives us brief glimpses into the lives of many of the park's earliest settlers and these collective stories provide a broader picture of the struggles and rewards of pioneering the Adirondacks. While reading, I thought of the possibilities that the early Adirondacks provided and imagined the horizon of opportunity that lay before its inhabitants if only they could dream it. The notion that they could aspire to be anything in the Adirondacks seemed, to me, to be the perfect example of "The American Dream."

The notion of an "American Dream" is something that is explored by many writers including F. Scott Fitzgerald in his book The Great Gatsby. While reading Contested Terrain I found many parallels between the early settlers of the Adirondacks and Jay Gatsby. Like Gatsby, these settlers were dirt poor, but had the desire for a grander life and the will to make it happen. One of the things that makes The Great Gatsby such an influential novel is that it defines what it is that makes America unique from the rest of the world; the "American Dream" is an idea that seems to be validated by the lives of these early settlers. The men of women who first moved to the area, "generally poor, hardworking laborers with no capital," (24)  were able to use the opportunities that the land provided to cultivate livings as farmers, store owners and entrepreneurs. 

We have discussed, in class, how the narratives of the Adirondacks address a larger theme about what it is to be American; what makes us unique from the rest of the world. The way in which the Adirondack landscape provided its inhabitants both with obstacles and boundless opportunity is a notion that has been present all throughout American history, from its founding, to the roaring twenties when The Great Gatsby was set to the present day. These opportunities encapsulate not only what it is to be an Adirondacker, but also what it is to be American.

46 Peaks

In two weekends Hamilton's outing club will send upwards of one hundred and fifty students into the Adirondacks in an attempt to summit the 46 tallest peaks in NY state. 46 peak weekend has been a Hamilton tradition since 1995 which means that this year will mark the 20th anniversary of the event if my math is correct. The sign ups for the event are tomorrow and from what I have heard the trips fill up extremely quickly. I hope to participate this year if fate allows and the weekend was definitely on my mind as I was reading Contested Terrain this morning. On page 42 I came across a passage that I believe connects deeply with the nature of the event. (No pun intended) Discussing the settlers' perception of wilderness, Terrie comments "...it (the wilderness) was a feature of a landscape they came to love. In this respect it was associated with home, family and shared experiences, including both the trials endured while establishing new communities and the individual pleasures of exploring and getting to know the forests and lakes" (42). Terrie encompasses not only why over one hundred college students feel the urge to conquer these mountains, but also one of the major reason why the Adirondack Adventure program and Outing Club in general have been so successful over the years. Though I do recognize the tremendous impact we have had on the Adirondack park over the years due to these events, for the sake of this post I am going overlook that aspect in order to focus on this relationship between college student and wilderness.
You would be completely justified in arguing that our relationship with the wilderness as Hamilton College students is inherently different from those original settlers. But I would like to assert that the concepts of home, community, family and shared experience are sought by most if not all human beings. Though during Adirondack Adventure and 46 peaks weekend students are only immersed in the "wilderness" for a matter of days, the driving force behind their decision still centers in a search for personal exploration as well as shared experience with fellow members of the Hamilton family. I believe that even on a small scale the wilderness allows us to have a genuine feeling of self sufficiency and creates situations where we often have to rely on those around us. I would really be interested to hear any other opinions on why events and programs that involve very brief exposure to wilderness are so successful in fostering a sense of community and home.

Who Told It Best?

The word, "narrative", comes up in our understanding of the Adirondacks quite frequently.  The way we understand a place such as the Adirondacks best is through narratives of the land and people occupying it.  This becomes clear from hearing stories about experiences in the Adirondacks, whether it be one of the original settlers, an urban dweller escaping city life, McKibben, or any one of our peers.  Even the Atlas tells a cohesive narrative about land usage in the Adirondacks through use of comprehensive graphs detailing mineral deposits.  As Terrie references towards the end of our reading in response to the seasonal sporters who came to resort-like places in the Adirondacks, 

"This is not to say that one of these sets of perceptions was somehow superior to or more genuine than the other.  The point is that the development of a culture of tourism added a complex new narrative thread to the story and nature in the Adirondacks." (40)

But this raises the question, "How do we decide what to do about the Adirondacks?"  In evaluating things such as laws, land usage, animal population regulations, what narrative do we believe?  What narrative is the most pervasive? Where do we put the most trust in?  There lies points of contention between any two narratives.  The one that stood out in my mind the most was concerning the deer hunting in the 1800's.  The settlers hunted deer without reserve; it was crucial for their sustenance.  However, environmental laws prohibited the hunting of the certain type of deer commonly hunted.  How do we deal with the differences between those two lifestyles?  It seems to make sense to commonly default to the benefit of the inhabitants of the land, but there would lie heavy implications to the frequent hunting and cutting down of trees if everyone was left to their own devices.  How can we rectify the infinite points of contention between the narratives that comprise our image of what is the true Adirondacks?