help illustrate why land sales proved so attractive for Native leaders despite their negative long-term consequences, which seem so obvious in hindsight. In 1659, Umpanchela had purchased a variety of items on credit from Pynchon. The fur trade had been a source of great wealth for valley communities as recently as the early 1650s, and Umpanchela doubtlessly hoped to pay his debt off quickly. But by 1659, changing circumstances—renewed tensions with the Mohawks, often-violent competition with the Mohegans to the southeast, and rapidly declining regional beaver populations—emerged to stymie the trade.23 Umpanchela carried his debt over into 1660 and, in a gamble that the beaver trade would bounce back, ordered even more items from Pynchon. The variety of items purchased by Umpanchela—several fathoms of cloth, shirts, coats, breeches, knives, and even wampum—suggest he may have been acting as a middleman in the regional fur trade. Pynchon, however, was not convinced that Umpanchela would be able to make good on his climbing debt and demanded that the sachem mortgage three parcels of Norwottuck planting land as collateral. In December of 1660, Umpanchela departed upriver on a high-stakes trading venture to the Sokokis at Squakheag, while Pynchon gloated in his account book: “If I am not paid in Bever when he comes from Heakeg all his land is to be mine.” In the end, Umpanchela was unable to obtain enough pelts from the Sokokis to clear his accounts, and the Norwottuck lands transferred to Pynchon to be resold and incorporated into the English town of Hadley.24
While land sales offered immediate benefits to valley Indian communities under growing pressure from both their English and Native neighbors, this strategy also brought important long-term drawbacks. Land sales slowly undermined a village’s capacity for growth. As Indian populations in the valley gradually rebounded from the smallpox epidemic of the 1630s, the women farmers of the new, consolidated villages had to plant crops on ever more acres. Without the agricultural lands which had been sold to the English, these farmers were unable to allow their fields to lie fallow or to shift cultivation to outlying fields when those nearest villages began to lose their fertility.25
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
