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Our Maine Ancestors:
European Explorers in Maine |
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By the late 15th century, Europeans were following the paths sailed centuries earlier by the Vikings and by Basque whalers and fishermen. Some explorers searched for the Northwest Passage to China and the Spice Islands. Some had heard tales of Norumbega, a legendary city of gold near present-day Bangor. New England’s real wealth, however, lay in furs, fish, and trees.
Furs
The last quarter of the 16th century saw a rise in European-Native interaction because of a fashion craze in Europe—felted beaver fur hats became very popular. The fur trade brought many more Natives into contact with Europeans and their culture. An Indian-Basque pidgin developed for commercial use.
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Native people near Castine, Machias, and Augusta provided furs to Europeans in return for iron and copper items—spearheads, arrowheads, guns, and ammunition. In Europe and Asia during part of the sixteenth and all of the seventeenth centuries, North American beaver pelts were in high demand for fashionable hats and other clothing. Note the images of beaver on this early Dutch map.
Fish
In the fifteenth century, as European fishermen ventured farther and farther west in pursuit of fish, they discovered plentiful supplies of cod and other fish that could meet Europe’s growing needs.
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Penobscot Bay’s early fishermen dried their catch on islands. Captain John Smith and his men fished from Monhegan in 1614, and Smith wrote highly complimentary descriptions of Maine. By 1622, Monhegan and Damariscove Islands had established fishing villages. Fish were Maine’s primary trade product until the mid-eighteenth century.
Trees
In 1609 Henry Hudson harvested a white pine tree from the Camden area for his ship Half Moon, anchored in Penobscot Bay. Hudson’s mast is believed to be the first taken from Maine.
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The first cargo of masts was shipped to England from the Piscataqua River in 1634. Over the next few decades the British Navy grew desperate for mast trees, as their wars with the Dutch cut off their Baltic supply. Maine’s stands of massive white pine were officially claimed by the English in 1685, after King Charles II appointed Edward Randolph as Surveyor of Pines and Timber. Trees of the right size were reserved for England and marked with the King's Broad Arrow.
As settlement increased in Maine throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, trees provided lumber for housing and boatbuilding. Maine’s abundance of rivers, streams, and tidal inlets provided water power for cutting wood. Dams built for sawmills were harmful to fish—and thus to Native food supply.
French and English
English and French explorers came to New England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with different objectives, and formed different relationships with Native people. The French were less interested than the English in permanent settlement and agriculture. They utilized the skills of Indian guides to help them make maps and traded extensively for furs. From their bases in Nova Scotia the French sent Natives down the New England coast on fur trading trips. Many French Catholic priests and monks lived in Native villages. When conflicts arose, it was natural for the Indians to side with the French against the English, who had been gradually appropriating native lands.
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