The Sign of the Beaver

For thousands of years, the area now called Maine contained a loose confederation of Algonquian-speaking peoples known today as the Wabanaki groups. One of these, the Penobscot group, is featured in The Sign of the Beaver.

Around the year 1200 CE, Norwegian traders visited the area, and by the early 1600s, French and English villages formed. These colonists, along with shifting alliances of Indigenous groups, fought on and off during the American Colonial period, all the way through the War of 1812. Indigenous populations suffered from European diseases and overhunting. Many Wabanaki clans moved to Canada, while others who remained struggled to survive, including the Penobscot group. (Today, the Penobscot people own a small reservation on the Penobscot River that includes more than 2,000 Indigenous residents.)

The battle that caused much of the strife was the French and Indian War between France, England, and Indigenous groups during the 1750s and 1760s. Atrocities were frequent, and by 1768—the year in which The Sign of the Beaver takes place—European colonists and Indigenous peoples nursed many grudges.

The novel’s Beaver clan relies on beavers as a source of food and bone tools. Beaver pelts were prized in Europe, where they were made into hats. Beavers also have special scent glands called castor sacs that contain castoreum, which they use to mark their territories. Castoreum was, for a time, prized as a pain reliever and food flavoring; it’s still used today in perfumes. Fur trappers killed so many beavers that they became scarce; this severely harmed local Indigenous peoples.

Having fought the French and their Indigenous allies in the French and Indian War, American colonists were battle-tested. This emboldened them to rebel against the British government a few years later in 1775. Colonists were also known for their excellent rifles, which improved on muskets and were deadlier at a greater distance. These rifles helped fur trappers hunt more efficiently, which led to a drop in the animal populations that fed Indigenous peoples.

Colonists brought European cultural and religious traditions that clashed with Indigenous people’s practices and beliefs. They often regarded Indigenous groups as “barbaric,” their music and religions unseemly. These views ignored Indigenous people’s advanced hunting and forest-management techniques, as well as their orderly governance.

Indigenous people often regarded colonists as people with no understanding of the woodlands and concerned about their technology which lay waste to nature and animals alike. This along with chronic warfare and unfair treatment bred resentment among the Penobscot group and other Wabanaki people. Amid this instability is Matt Hallowell, the novel’s well-meaning protagonist, who carries the burden of other settlers’ negative reputation.