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Bradley Gills <bgills@charter.net> Arizona State University My dissertation, "Mining the Forests: American Indians and the Lumber Industry in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, 1860-1940," explores how the Ojibwe of northern Michigan responded to the massive influx of lumbering enterprises in the nineteenth century and how their participation in the timber industry shielded them from paternalistic federal policies designed to turn them into settled agriculturalists. The early establishment of heavily timbered land allotments and the addition of wage labor to their traditional seasonal round of subsistence - centered on berry picking, maple sugar, hunting, and fishing - allowed the Ojibwe to maintain a blend of traditional and modern economic support and thereby resist efforts to "civilize" them. I examine as well how the advent of forestry policies intersected with federal Indian policies. Federal officials implemented policies on both fronts under the assumption that agriculture naturally followed deforestation with little consideration for climate and soil quality. The climate and soils of northern Michigan, however, simply would not support sustainable agriculture, and the Ojibwe's maintenance of traditional subsistence behaviors served them well as attempts to farm the cutovers continually failed. This story, while unique in its particulars, is redolent of the challenges and successes Indigenous communities have navigated in America for centuries, and continue to face today. This project makes a significant contribution to studies of Native America as well as the history of American forestry, conservation, and natural resource exploitation. The socioeconomic milieu confronting the Ojibwes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - replete with the standard trappings of extractive industries such as company towns, migrant laborers, and seasonal fluctuations in employment - resembles the challenges faced by Native groups across the Americas where mining, fishing, large-scale agriculture, lumbering, and other industries have threatened to overwhelm them. Too often, historical studies in this vein focus on measuring the destruction of Native communities, thereby marginalizing the resilience and cultural persistence many have exhibited. My dissertation provides a lens through which these themes may be reconsidered, and emphasizes the agency Michigan Ojibwes asserted in response to expanding markets and hegemonic federal policy initiatives. |
| Web Page: | http://www.bradleygills.com |
| List Affiliations: | Emeritus Review Editor for H-AmIndian Reviewer for H-CivWar |
| Interests: | American History / Studies Anthropology Australian and New Zealand History / Studies Educational Technology Ethnic History / Studies Native American History / Studies |
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Bio: Ph.D. Candidate in American Indian History, Arizona State University; Comprehensive Examinations passed with distinction and advanced to candidacy, May 2001. Fields: American Indian history, early U.S. history, Indigenous resistance and religion in South Africa and America. Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude), 1998 Michigan State University Major: History Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude), 1998 Michigan State University Major: Anthropology Publications: Review of Elizabeth M. Tornes, ed., Memories of Lac du Flambeau Elders (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 2004) in The American Indian Culture and Research Journal Volume 29, no. 3 (Fall 2005) "Pioneering," "Michigan," and "The Timber Industry" in Paul Finkleman, ed., The Encyclopedia of the New American Nation (Forthcoming, Charles Scribner & Sons) "Review of the Native American Document Project," for The Public History Resource Center, Vol. 9 (January, 2003) "The Doolittle Committee" and "The Trail of Tears" in Donald Fixico, ed., Treaties With Native Americans: Encyclopedia of Rights, Conflicts, & Sovereignty (Forthcoming, ABC-CLIO Press) Papers Presented: "The Ojibwe, the Lumber Industry, and the Failure sof Federal Indian Policy in Northern Michigan," D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History, "Brown Bag" Colloquia, April 20, 2005. "'They Worked in the Woods': Ojibwe Lumber Workers and Wage Labor in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, 1880-1930," Great Lakes History Conference, Grand Rapids, Michigan, October, 2004. "'Splendid Ambitions,' The American Indian and Cherokee Identity," Western History Association, San Antonio, Texas, October 2000. |
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