Mill Talk: Contested Currents: Rivers and the Remaking of New England

presented by author Zachary Bennett
The early history of New England is a tale that usually takes place on the land or sea. Zachary Bennett's new book Contested Currents argues that this actually misses the real center of that story: the region's many rivers. Waterways like the Charles River sustained Algonquian peoples for eons and were central to the success of English colonization projects. Rivers were the primary energy source, and, like pipelines or data centers today, people fought over who could access them and how they could be used. New England's many Indian wars were waged on rivers. Colonists found that overfishing or damming a river was a more effective method of dispossessing Indians than predatory land deals. Early industrialists employed these same strategies to push white farmers into a developing market economy. Bennett will show how this early, largely forgotten history helps us properly understand the significance of the dam removals and fish restoration projects underway on the Charles today. By uncovering the violent story behind the first dams to cross American rivers, Contested Currents uncovers a new story about the origins of capitalism and the environmental movement in America.