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Katelyn Damron
- 1. AT WHAT COST? THE DESTRUCTION OF THE COMMONS IN THE CREATION OF PUBLIC LANDS Katelyn Damron
- 4. “A LOT OF PEOPLE TALK ABOUT OVERHARVESTING, BUT REALLY THE MAJOR THREAT THAT NO ONE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT IS CUTTING DOWN OF TREES, EXPANSION OF COMMERCIAL AND RESIDENTIAL HOUSING AND THOSE ARE ALL THINGS THAT HARVESTERS CAN’T CONTROL. AS PEOPLE SELL LANDS, FARMS, FORESTS, THE PLANT WILL CONTINUE TO SEE OTHER PRESSURE OUTSIDE OF HARVEST.”
- 5. "THERE ARE MORE DIGGERS THERE BECAUSE OF THE CULTURE. PEOPLE THERE GROW UP GATHERING HERBS AND DIGGING ROOTS."
- 6. “THIS LOSS OF ACCESS IS ONE EFFECT OF THE INCREASING PRIVATIZATION AND ENCLOSURE OF LAND THAT FOR GENERATIONS HAS BEEN USED AS COMMONS. RURAL POPULATIONS WITH UNCERTAIN EMPLOYMENT HAVE TYPICALLY RELIED ON GARDENING, HUNTING, AND GATHERING FOR GETTING THROUGH HARD TIMES.”
- 10. “ONE OF THE EARLIEST INSTANCES OF THE GOVERNMENT – EITHER STATE OR FEDERAL – REMOVING PEOPLE FROM THEIR LAND FOR THE ‘PUBLIC GOOD’”
- 13. LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE CREATION OF THE PARK
- 16. AT WHAT COST?
- 18. DEEP ROOTS TO THE LAND HERE
- 19. FUNDING FOR WHOSE BENEFIT?
Editor's Notes
- Hi everyone! My name is Katelyn Damron and I’m excited to be sharing my final research with you! I was inspired by Mary Hufford’s work using ginseng in her study entitled “Tending the Commons” that we read as background for Unit One, and I hope to start some interesting discussion about ginseng’s role in notions of commons and community in areas that have been developed for public use.
- Panax quinquefolius, the North American species of ginseng, has been harvested and used on this continent for many centuries by indigenous peoples for healing practices. In the 1700s, the plant, recognized as one similar to that in east Asia, was popularized by a French Jesuit missionary named Lafitau, who essentially opened the door for the harvest and export of the rooted plant that has continued today in mountainous areas of the United States.
- And this opened the door to a long and profitable ginseng trade among white settlers in the mountainous regions of the United States, which continues to this day, particularly in Appalachia and other parts of the American southeast, where it has taken on a cultural as well as economic significance.
- And so with the longevity of this harvesting or hunting tradition is concern over the sustainability of the plant in the wild. And Will Hsu, who is the president of the largest ginseng farming operations in the world, makes the point that when we think about sustainability, we have to think first about development of the land.
- And Mary Hufford focused on this. When she quoted ginseng authorities in West Virginia who said that there were more diggers in 7 of the state’s poorest southern counties, she noted it was because of the culture. But what processes account for its place in cultural heritage in those particular areas?
- And she focused a lot on this in the context of land development for the purpose of extractive industries like coal that have had a detrimental and significant impact on the economic and environmental landscape of the southern mountains. When people experience hard times when they live in mixed rural-industrial areas, they rely upon the land to get them through. And ginseng is an example of this.
- But for the past several decades, coal production and coal employment in the United States has been on the decline. Overreliance on these industries mean that local and state governments are now searching for ways to deal with a decimated local economy and environment. This will inevitably mean land development still, but for different purposes.
- So for a lot of these areas, they are turning to their greatest remaining asset – the beauty of the natural features to draw visitors in. But there’s been some growing concern that funding and infrastructure for tourism does little to help the actual people who live in these areas – essentially an outsider-based exploitative economy once more.
- And while this is pertinent in today’s political climate because of the rapid decline of coal and the decimation of that decline, tourism in the southern mountains is nothing new. The healing springs in eastern now-West Virginia have drawn eastern elites for centuries, and if you’ve been to east Tennessee recently, you know that nowhere else is the tourism economy bustling like there.
- And I’ve focused a lot in my research on an early example as well – the Shenandoah National Park, which was created by the federal government in the 1930s, the creation of which involved the mass displacement of mountain people from eight counties in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia who had worked the land since the days of settlement.
- Like the folks Hufford studied in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia, the people of the Blue Ridge turned to the land in times of struggle. One former park resident, Nettie Lang, recollected that when he wasn’t working in the small copper mine nearby, her father gardened, hunted animals and ginseng, and gathered nuts and berries to supplement the family’s livelihood. She remembers these experiences fondly, though it was hard living in those days.
- Many folks interviewed in the Shenandoah National Park Oral History project mention ginseng, some in the context of medicine or poaching, but most all in the context of economics. These people hunted ginseng in the commons of the woods for so long because they had to, and this continued until and beyond the governmental seizure of the land, a very explicit restriction of access to the physical commons.
- This was a very explicit restriction of access to the physical commons. While the exact legal history of the park’s creation is beyond the scope of this presentation, many residents refused to leave or were unable financially to leave their homes. Many, at the very end, were physically removed from the Park property like this old man here who owned a store and home in the area.
- Those who were unable to leave stayed in a sort of limbo. They filed special permits to remain on their land until the government could build resettlement communities. People were led to believe that good behavior and policing of others’ behavior would mean one could remain on the land, and they were forced to look to the park supervisor as law enforcement.
- This is an example of one of the many letters residents wrote to the superviser Mr. Lassiter requesting permission or protection for doing certain activities to maintain their livelihood. Mr. Davis here apologizes profusely for chopping down wood to keep warm and notes that he has never given the park people any trouble.
- So the question I’m asking is at what cost were these land connections severed? At what cost were people disconnected physically and culturally from their homes? Did the public enjoyment of the land, the opportunities for tourism service jobs, and integration into a 20th century way of life worth the physical and cultural destruction of the Blue Ridge communities?
- The imposition of dependency and displacement in the Blue Ridge affected every cultural land practice, but ginseng was unique in that it is rooted, from its earliest indigenous history and through the modern era, to physical and economic resistance to colonialism, exploitation, and land theft. And when park residents were interviewed in the late 20th century, they carried the knowledge of that tradition with them.
- Despite deep poverty and environmental degredation, people in Appalachia remain deeply rooted to the land and its cultural significance. My uncle, who has a drug felony and so struggles to find work in an already depressed area, sometimes hunts and sells sang as a way to make money. He enjoys that he is able to be connected to the land in this way.
- And people have always needed to make money here. An emphasis on tourism, whether in Blue Ridge Virginia in the 1930s or in 21st century West Virginia or wherever else, prompts directly impacted folks to ask why is there money for tourism but not for us? What will be the effect of a lack of prioritization of the needs of the people who live in the region?
- Aside from the destruction of the physical commons and cultural heritage, a sense of community, as Mary Hufford says, also dies. This has its connection to the mass outmigration of people from Appalachia that heightened in the 20th century via the so-called Hillbilly Highway and which continues today.
- Though, the fate of ginseng as a cultural piece may still be hopeful. Being the subject of books, medical research, TV shows, and folklore fieldwork means that despite the destruction of the physical commons – whether through mountaintop removal or through eminent domain – the idea of the commons as it relates to ginseng remains alive.