Signs of an Earth Democracy in Lucasville Ohio

Signs of Earth Democracy in Lucasville, Ohio:

Looking at the History of a Small Midwestern Appalachian Town toDetermine the Future Potential of a U.S. as an Earth Democracy.

by

Kurenn Sisler

California Institute of Integral Studies

2008

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Introduction

The current global market economy excludes many people from

their fair share of the earth’s common resources through the act

of privatization. As common vital resources, such as water,

become scarce or inaccessible, many people suffer. Wars result,

as people begin to fight each other for the natural resources

that make human life possible. Renowned Indian physicist and

committed environmental activist Vandana Shiva suggests that many

of today’s religious and ethnic conflicts are rooted in the

dominance of the market economy – a capitalist, cash-based global

system that produces, distributes and consumes goods solely

guided by the desire to make a profit. She proposes that a

market economy is the natural opposite of a sustenance economy – for

a sustenance economy is rooted in its ability to sustainably

produce, distribute and consume the resources necessary to

support human life. While sustenance economies are usually local

efforts, Shiva proposes that they are at the heart of a new type

of global system that would sustainably connect the world. She

calls this system – which promotes sustainable and equitable use

of the earth’s resources, mandates pervasive respect for all

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beings, and pledges a united effort to ensure peace and

compassion across the globe – an Earth Democracy. In Earth

Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace, Shiva reviews the efforts made

by indigenous people in India and other “non-developed” nations

to resist the competitive profit based market economy and to

campaign for and promote the establishment of a modern day Earth

Democracy instead.

As a resident of a “developed” nation whose founding was

based in the market economy, which Shiva finds antithetical to an

Earth Democracy, I have been interested in finding out whether

communities in the U.S. were also capable of joining Shiva’s

Earth Democracy reform, or whether they were too deeply

entrenched in market capitalism. I chose to explore the history

of Lucasville, a small Midwestern Appalachian town in the heart

land of the U.S., where I grew up, in order to see if it had ever

embodied principles of an Earth Democracy. If traces of an Earth

Democracy were found in Lucasville, then perhaps they existed in

other communities across the U.S.A. If this were to be true, then

the U.S.A. might one day be a part of a global Earth Democracy.

One’s Economy is One’s Culture

3

According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the

word economy comes from the Greek word oikonomia. Oikonomos means

“household manager” and oikos means “house.”1 Merriam-Webster

defines economy as the “management of household or private

affairs…” and also as an organized “system…of interaction and

exchange.”2 Shiva argues that to be “part of a home…is to have

access to life.”3 The sustenance economy contributes to an Earth

that serves as a home for all beings. However, the dominant

market economy does not include everyone in the sharing of goods

and resources of our home planet.

Economics is the study of economies – how materials and goods

are produced, distributed and consumed.4 In his book, Reframing

Development, Third World scholar and advocate Gustavo Escobar

locates the sphere of economics within the domain of cultural

discourse.5 Most simply stated, an economy is a cultural

creation and its structure and texture reflects cultural values

and priorities. Since there is a diverse spectrum of human

1 Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition, s.v. “economy.”2 Ibid.3 Shiva, 13.4 Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition, s.v. “economics.”5 Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 58-59.

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cultures, it can be postulated that there is also a diversity of

culturally constructed economies.

The actual practice of an economy – or the way in which a

culture utilizes its ecology – is determined by the culture’s

ideology. Perceptions of land and cultural definitions of

appropriate land use reciprocally influence a culture: they help

determine appropriate social and economic interactions and they

reflect and embody the value systems of the people. Religion is

also a force in this amalgam, for religious beliefs affect a

culture’s ideology and its economic practices. Religion is also

affected by the changes in a cultural worldview. In this paper,

cultural ideology, economy, and religion are considered

inseparable parts which have been woven together in one dynamic

whole. Therefore, Shiva’s concepts of market economy and

sustenance economy are interchangeably referred to as market culture

and sustenance cultures.

Vandana Shiva identifies three basic economies: the nature,

sustenance, and market economies. Nature’s economy dictates how

nature sustainably produces and distributes its “goods and

services – the water recycled and distributed through the

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hydrologic cycle, the soil fertility produced by microorganisms,

the plants fertilized by pollinators.”6 Shiva states that the

nature economy is the economy on which the other two economies

depend.7

The other two economies named by Shiva are the sustenance

economy and the market economy. According to the Merriam-Webster

Online dictionary the word market denotes either a concrete area

of trade, buying and selling, such as a farmer’s market, or the

act of buying and selling goods.8 Shiva, also, identifies two

types of markets: the abstract market and the concrete market.

According to Shiva, the concrete market involves “real people

buying and selling real things they have produced or directly

need.”9 In this market, people’s needs are met. In the

abstract market, real goods and services have been replaced by

figures, statistics, and symbols, and human beings have been

replaced by machines. People exist to serve the market rather

than the market existing to serve the people. The abstract

6 Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (Cambridge: South End Press, 2005), 16.

7 Shiva, 16.8 Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, Merriam-Webster Online 2007-2008

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/market> (12 April, 2008).9 Shiva, 18.

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market economy is the dominant economic practice found in the

world today.

The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines the word

sustenance, as the “means of support, maintenance, subsistence”

and as “the act of sustaining.”10 Merriam-Webster also adds that

to engage in sustenance is to be “supplied with the necessaries

of life.”11 Therefore, a group of people who incorporate the act

of sustenance into their daily lives, practice what Shiva calls a

sustenance economy. “In the sustenance economy,” explains Shiva,

“people work to directly provide the conditions necessary to

maintain their lives.”12

Both the sustenance and the market economies rely on

nature’s economy. However, the sustenance economy interacts with

nature’s economy in a more balanced manner than the market

economy does. In a sustenance economy, the earth and its bounty

are valued for the persistent and cyclic nourishment they

provide. However, in a market economy “people’s needs are

substituted for by greed, profit, and consumerism.”13 10 Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, Merriam-Webster Online 2007-2008

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sustenance > (12 April 2008).11 Ibid.12 Shiva, 17.13 Ibid., 18.

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Since a sustenance culture bases its existence on the interdependent relationship

between the earth’s provision of resources and peoples’

livelihoods, it makes an effort to ensure that the nature economy

thrives and continues. However, when making a profit and the

accumulation of money are more highly valued than the

sustainability of life, life inevitably suffers. In modern

market cultures, for instance, the value assigned by the market

economy to the abstract cultural construct of money often

obscures society’s total dependence on nature’s economy. A

market culture is therefore capable of significantly exploiting

the earth and its species without regards for the devastating

biologic and physical consequences which occur since in this

system the accumulation of capital is the supreme goal – and

since only the relentless pursuit of money ensures dominance in a

competitive market world.

In her book Earth Democracy, Vandana Shiva reviews some of the

repercussions of the globalism found in contemporary market

society. She gives several examples of market generated

development projects that have harmed people and the environment

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in sustenance cultures of India. While large dams were designed

mainly to provide irrigation for modern agricultural practices in

the third world, they have been responsible for the displacement

of between 40 and 80 million people.14 These people have lost

their homes, their livelihoods and the resources necessary for

their subsistence. Designed to produce high yields for

international non-Indigenous markets, monocultural agricultural

practices, such as the planting of eucalyptus trees in India,

have resulted in scarcity for the locals. Eucalyptus trees are

an invasive species that are not native to India; they absorbed

large quantities of water in the areas where they were planted

and have disrupted the local ecosystem and induced water scarcity

for local inhabitants.15

The privatization of common resources is required for the

continual growth of the market economy. This contributes to the

marginalization of the many and the prosperity of the few.16 The

privatization of common, natural resources such as water and

14 World Commission on Dams, Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making, The Report of the World Commission on Dams, November 2000, www.dams.org.

15 Shiva, 43; Angana P. Chatterji, The Politics of Sustainable Ecology: Public Forest Lands Reform in Orissa (Ann Arbor: UMI, 2000), 36.

16 Shiva, 20; Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living (New York: The Modern Library, 1999), 23.

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seeds has not eradicated global poverty and hunger; instead it

has impoverished small farmers and the communities that depend on

them.17 As common resources are stolen, small farmers and other

indigenous inhabitants find themselves ensnared in the market

economy net. They are forced to live by the rules of the market

culture and its economy; all too often, like other indigenous

peoples, they are unwillingly driven towards an alienated life in

the slums of modern urban market society.18

Proponents of global development and the market economy aver

that international development projects and a free market economy

will reduce poverty and enhance the lives of everyone around the

globe.19 Many indigenous cultures, small farmers and communities

in India and other “developing” nations of the Third World

disagree with this statement. They have witnessed the negative

effects of a market culture on their local resources and cultural

identities. They resist the spread of global corporatism,

rejecting its privatization, consequential exclusion and

17 Shiva, 94; Vandana Shiva, Water Wars: Privatzation, Pollution, and Profit (Cambridge, South End Press, 1997), 24-25.

18 Roy, 20.19 Amy Chua, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and

Global Instability (New York: Anchor Books, 2003), 8; Shiva, Earth Democracy, 29 & 30; Esteva, 3-4 & 23.

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depravity.20 They defend their sustenance economies which

Vandana Shiva believes embody the tenets of an Earth Democracy.

In Shiva’s global vision of Earth Democracy, life for all

beings is stressed. In the global vision generated by corporatism

and capitalism individual profit is stressed. A perpetual class

division results and many people are dispossessed in order to

support and maintain the wealth of a few. Shiva believes that in

order to ensure that the life of all beings on the planet

continues, one must practice the tenets of an Earth Democracy.

These tenets promote and value the health and well being of all

life on the planet, and Shiva has developed ten Earth Democracy

principles.

1. All species, peoples, and cultures have intrinsic worth

2. The earth community is a democracy of all life

3. Diversity in nature and culture must be defended

4. All beings have a natural right to sustenance

5. Earth Democracy is based on living economies and economic democracy

6. Living economies are built on local economies

7. Earth Democracy is a living democracy

20 Shiva, Earth Democracy, 2 & 4.

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8. Earth Democracy is based on living cultures

9. Living cultures are life nourishing

10. Earth Democracy globalizes peace, care, and compassion 21

In my opinion, the second, third and fourth Earth Democracy

principles are the embodied core that support the rest.

Therefore this paper focuses on the following three principles:

2. The earth community is a democracy of all life

3. Diversity in nature and culture must be defended.

4. All beings have a natural right to sustenance.

Simply put, an “earth community” that “is a democracy of all life,” is

a community that practices inclusion.22 Unlike representative

democracies today which are subordinate to the dictates of the

market economy, an Earth Democracy includes everyone in communal

or societal decisions. Everyone includes humans of all classes,

races, sexes and sexual orientations. It includes the young and

the old, the able-bodied and the disabled. Furthermore, as

indicated by the term earth, the earth – and its plants, animals,

water, and resources – must be considered when one is deciding

how to live. Rather than having a select few make assessments,

21 Shiva, Earth Democracy, 9-11.22 Ibid., 9.

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draw conclusions and then act accordingly, all within the local

ecosystem and the relevant neighboring, interconnected ecosystems

should have an active honored voice.23

A community that defends “Diversity in nature and culture” is a

community that honors biological and cultural diversity.24

Biological and cultural diversity are essential to the healthy

functioning of an ecosystem. Different beings act as interlocking

blocks, which join in the task of holding existence together. For

example, in the tropical forest the fig tree provides fruit for

“about 75% of all the mammals and birds in the Amazon forest.”25

But these trees can’t produce the fruit integral to the survival

of tropical forest species without the help of agaonid wasps,

which pollinate the trees.26 When a piece of the composite is

missing, life begins to falter. A culture that understands and

honors this is a culture that values biological and cultural

diversity. It is a culture that survives and thrives.

Lastly, a community that believes “All beings have a natural right

to sustenance,” is a community that practices sustainability, 23 Shiva, Earth Democracy, 6.24 Ibid., 9.25 Jenny Tesar, Shrinking Forests (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1991), 23.26 Tesar, 23; Gilbert Waldbauer, What Good Are Bugs?: Insects in the Web of Life

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 4.

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equitability and balance.27 The sustainable use of resources

relies on conservation practices and the conservation of

resources results in a regenerative cycle of earth’s provisions.

In an Earth Democracy where all beings are valued and included,

the natural cycle which generates abundance is understood and

supported. The resulting abundance is sustainably harvested and

distributed equitably.

A community that observes all three principles and which

practices sustainability, equitability, diversity, and inclusion

is enacting the principles of an Earth Democracy. A culture that

practices living as an Earth Democracy is a culture that

practices and values living as a sustenance economy, rather than

a market one. It understands that the sustainable and equitable

use of resources supports life and sustenance rather than

mindless profit-based growth.28 Lastly and most importantly, a

sustenance culture that adheres to the Earth Democracy principles

is a culture that uses as many local resources as possible.29

27 Shiva, Earth Democracy, 9.28 Shiva, Earth Democracy, 18.29 Ibid., 10.

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Shiva contends that her vision of an Earth Democracy is an

antidote to a world where market greed justifies and promotes:

dispossession of the many for the benefit of the few;

unquestioned acceptance of resource depletion and species

extinction as unfortunate and inevitable effects of human

progress; and life in a world where humans must relentlessly

compete against one another in a perpetual fight for resources

and survival.30

As one of the youngest nations in the world, the USA’s

founding principles are market principles. This makes me

question whether notions of an Earth Democracy could ever take

root in America today. Are there American communities that

consciously or unconsciously practice Earth Democracy principles?

If they do not currently practice these principles, do they

possess the potential to transition from a market economy to a

sustenance economy at some time in the future?

30 Indeed, in her book Water Wars, Shiva argues quite convincingly that many of the wars identified as ethnic wars are fueled mainly by the fight overcommon resources. Shiva, even points to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine as stirred by the desire to dominate the Jordan River and the waters of the West Bank. Shiva, Water Wars, 72-72.

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In order to shed light on these questions, I have focused on

a small rural Appalachian town in the Midwest. I have chosen the

section of the U.S. that is so often referred to as the heartland.

Regarded by some as the national heart, it stands as a place with

the potential to impact the rest of the U.S. Unlike coastal

states which are often sites of change and flexibility since

their borders are open to a variety of cultures, landlocked

states are often less open to change and slower in changing. If

change can occur here it could prove to be prodigiously

cataclysmic, for what resides in the heart of America can

influence the rest of America’s body.

The notion that the Ohio country is the heartland of the

U.S. was shared by indigenous inhabitants in the area. Prior to

the time that Euro-American settlers named the Midwest the

heartland, the Shawnees of southern Ohio viewed their land as the

heart of the earth. According to the Shawnee prophet, the Great

Spirit told the Shawnee people “That the earth had not yet a

heart as all men and animals had & that he would put them, the

Shawnees, at Shawnee river [sic] for the heart of the Earth.”31

31 Colin Calloway, The Shawnees and the War for America (New York: Penguin Group, 2007), 6.

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The area of the heartland that I explore as a case

supporting the probability of Earth Democracy’s existence in

America is the small Ohio town of Lucasville. The Ohio country

where the Shawnees once practiced a sustenance economy is a

pivotal place. Many of the dominant cultural beliefs in America

today had their beginning here. It was here that the two very

different economies – the sustenance economy and the market

economy – clashed. Whoever won the heart of America here,

determined the future body of America. In the short term, it was

the market culture that won, and the market culture eventually

removed the Shawnees from the Ohio Valley. However, the question

that remains is whether the heartland of America can ever return

to pumping a culture of sustenance or if it must forever beat to

the rhythms of the now-dominant market culture anthem.

This paper explores the history of Lucasville, Ohio, a small

rural Appalachian town in the heart of America. It reviews the

elements and characteristics of the community during pre-

settlement, early settlement, and later development stages,

exploring their resonance with the fundamental principles of

Shiva’s Earth Democracy: sustainable and equitable use of

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resources, reverence for and protection of biological and

cultural diversity, and the inclusion of everyone in communal

decisions and distribution of common resources.

Literature Review

The Shawnee

I begin my discussion of Lucasville by reviewing information

about its indigenous inhabitants. Most mainstream research on

the Shawnee nation centers on military and political action and

limits its focus to the Shawnees’ prominent role in providing

Native American resistance to colonist expansion. For instance,

literature on the Shawnee often spotlights the charismatic leader

Tecumseh and his ability to form one of the last confederations

of warriors for the purpose of stopping colonist encroachment.

Wanting to widen the scope of Shawnee literature, Gregory Scott

provides a detailed account of Shawnee diplomacy from 1662 to

1789 in his dissertation titled, “A people of consequence: The

Shawnee, 1662-1789.”32 Yet his account is only an extension of

other historical research dealing strictly with Shawnee diplomacy

and military action. His focus does not include Shawnee cultural

32 Gregory Scott, “A People of Consequence: The Shawnee, 1662-1789,” (PhD diss., Syracuse University, 2007).

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customs.

Research dedicated to Shawnee social customs and economic

practices is limited. Joanne Mattern’s The Shawnee Indians33 and

Elaine Landau’s The Shawnee34 are two books written on the

lifestyle and customs of the Shawnee before European colonialism.

Both provide a basic list of facts regarding the history,

culture, and religion of the Shawnee. Similar to the many

historians before him, Colin Calloway provides a more extensive

account of Shawnee history in his book The Shawnees and the War for

America.35 Unlike the other historians, he contextualizes his

extensive account with cultural analysis. Calloway’s examination

of Shawnee and Euro-American cultures enables the reader to

better understand how different worldviews affected the decisions

and actions of both parties as they encountered each other during

times of peace and times of war.

All three of the above texts offer useful information

regarding Shawnee culture. However, the information they provide

is limited and does not strongly support the argument that the 33 Joanne Mattern, The Shawnee Indians (Minnesota, Bridgestone Books, 2001).34 Elaine Landau, The Shawnee (New York: Franklin Watts: Division of

Grolier Publishing, 1997).35 Colin Calloway, The Shawnees and the War for America (New York: Penguin

Group, 2007).

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Shawnees practiced Vandana Shiva’s Earth Democracy principles.

On the other hand, Barbara Mann’s dissection of Iroquois culture,

in Iroquoian Women: The Gantwoisas,36 supports the idea that the

Shawnees observed some Earth Democracy principles, and my

research suggests that some of Mann’s research findings on the

Iroquois can be applied to the Shawnee. One of the parallels I

found between the Iroquois and the Shawnee was that the Shawnee

practiced the gift economy which was also used by the Iroquois.

They may have also practiced Iroquoian environmental conservation

techniques such as crop rotation and forest management.

Mann focuses on the Iroquois and never directly compares the

Iroquois and the Shawnee. Mann does indicate that the gift

economy – a reciprocal giving away of belongings that generates

an egalitarian community37 – of the Iroquois extended beyond

domestic relations and that “all original peoples of the

continent were aware of, and in contact with, each other through

coast-to-coast Gifting networks.”38 She argues that some Native 36 Barbara Alice Mann, Iroquoian Women: The Gantowisas, vol.4 of American Indian

Studies ,ed., Elizabeth Hoffman Nelson and Malcolm A. Nelson (New York: Peter Lang, 2000).

37 Mann, 232-233.38 Ibid., 234. Mann uses the word “Gifting” when referring to the

Iroquois’ economic distribution. To stress that it is an economical system I refer to the American indigenous system of “Gifting” as “gift economy.”

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American trails, in addition to the hunting and war trails,

developed because of intertribal reciprocal gift giving. One of

the longer gift giving trails followed the Ohio River, and the

Shawnee lived directly north of the Ohio River in the mid 18th

century.39 Calloway may not use the term Gifting, as Mann does

when referring to the Iroquoian economy, but he does state that

“Shawnees measured wealth in gifts given.”40

The Iroquois and Shawnee creation myths include a female

creator who leaves the sky or the above world in order to place

the earth – its land and seas – on the back of a turtle.41 The

Iroquois called her Sky Woman.42 The Shawnee called her Our

Grandmother.43 When Sky Woman fell from Sky World she brought

with her the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash.44 The Shawnee

creation myth does not have Our Grandmother falling from the Sky,

with the Three Sisters clutched in her fist. Still, the main

crops planted by the Shawnee were corn, beans, and squash.45

39 Ibid., 234-235.40 Calloway, xxvii.41 Mann, 185-186; Schultz, 10.42 Mann, 185-186. 43 Landau, 23; Mattern, 19; David M. Lucas, “Our Grandmother of the

Shawnee: Messages of a Female Deity” (lecture, November, 2001), 3, 10. 44 Mann, 185-186.45 Mattern, 5; Landau, 11; Calloway, 14.

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In both the Iroquois and Shawnee cultures, the women planted

the seeds and harvested the crops. Women also gathered fruits,

berries, and nuts.46 The Iroquois women were called Keepers of the

Fields, and the Iroquois men were called Keepers of the Forest. As

Keepers of the Forest, Iroquois men hunted, cleared trees for

farming, and maintained a forest husbandry.47 Shawnee men

contributed to the Shawnee “food supply by fishing and hunting

deer in nearby woods [emphasis added].48 Shawnee men also cleared

forests for planting.49 Both cultures observed the above gender

roles flexibly and interchangeably. Women may have led the

technical and ceremonial rituals of farming, but men helped.50

Mann argues convincingly that the Iroquois men managed the

Forests as a “park” of domesticated animals.51 None of the

Shawnee sources I used mention that Shawnee men engaged in forest

management. Nevertheless, the abundant game found within their

designated hunting grounds may indicate that Shawnee men utilized

the same forest management techniques as the Iroquois did. When

46 Calloway, xxvii & 14; Landau, 11.47 Mann, 219.48 Landau, 12. 49 Calloway, 15.50 Landau, 11. 51Mann, 219.

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discussing the Iroquois men’s practice of animal husbandry Mann

writes, “It is a great error to insist that the Iroquois (and other

woodlanders) [emphasis added] had not domesticated animals, simply

because their form of domestication did not resemble the European

form.”52 The Shawnee were also a woodland tribe.53

Farm plots in both cultures were on common yet divided land.

For instance, Shawnee families “had rights to fields, but the

fields were grouped together and planted collectively.”54 Among

the Iroquois, women allocated land to the clans for farming. Yet

all women tended to the tribe’s common plot which provided food

for ceremonial purposes.55

The Iroquois employed an agricultural conservation technique

called crop rotation. They “rotated … along regular circuit

every fifteen or twenty years,” in order to allow farmed land to

“lie fallow,” so that it could continue to produce in the

future.56 Crop rotation is not specifically mentioned or

discussed in Landau’s, Mattern’s, or Calloway’s work on the

Shawnee. Still, all three sources note that migration was an 52 Ibid., 192. 53 Mattern, 7; Calloway, 4.54 Calloway, xxix.55 Mann, 217.56 Ibid., 218-219.

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integral part of Shawnee culture.57 When the Shawnees lived in

southern Ohio they followed a seasonal migratory pattern. They

travelled south in the winter and returned to their northern

villages in the spring.58 This well documented migration pattern

may be a sign that the Shawnee followed a crop rotation route

just as the Iroquois did.

The sources I’ve cited which discuss Native American tribes

are secondary sources written by people who are not Native

American. Calloway’s content is based on European and colonial

primary sources rather than Shawnee or Native American primary

sources. In his narratives, quotes and actions accredited to the

Native Americans are retrieved from first hand accounts given by

Europeans and Euro-American colonists. In these accounts, Native

Americans are depicted as signing peace treaties or engaging in

land negotiations. These events were constructed by Europeans

and Euro-American colonists to document Native American

relinquishment of their “ownership” of the land. Since many

indigenous accounts indicate that most Native American peoples

viewed the land as an independent spiritual entity which could

57 Calloway, 2-3; Mattern, 7; Landau, 9-10.58 Mattern, 7; Landau, 9-10.

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not be owned by any one, these negotiations may have had quite a

different meaning for the Shawnees and other indigenous groups.

For instance, Shawnee chief Kekewepellethe, is quoted as

exclaiming, “God gave us this country, we do not understand

measuring out the lands, it is all ours.”59 It is also quite

possible that the tribes were not handing over or selling land to

the colonists but offering their consent to share lands with the

colonists and other tribes.

Early Lucasville

The resources employed to identify the social and economical

practices of early Lucasville were found in the Portsmouth Public

Library’s History and Genealogical Department. The main sources

I utilized were the History of Lower Scioto Valley, the History of Scioto

County, and Nellie Yeager’s memoirs.60 Their chronological

proximity to the events being discussed and analyzed lends them

credibility. However, they are also influenced by the patriotic

59Calloway, 81. Before the arrival of the first Europeans, who were Christians, the Shawnees referred to their creator Kohkumthena, “Our Grandmother.” It can be presumed that the term, “God,” entered the Shawnee vocabulary after exposure to the Europeans.

60 History of Lower Scioto Valley, Ohio (Chicago: Inter-State Publishing Co., 1884); Nelson Evans, History of Scioto County (Evansville, IN: Nelson Evans, 1903);Nellie Yeager, Lucasville Lore by Nellie Yeager Bumgarner, ed. Dr. Robert Emerson French(Signature Press, 1995).

25

and Euro-centric sentimentality of a young country that was not

as tolerant and diverse as society is today.

As a resident of early Lucasville, Yeager is a definite

primary source. However, her writings about early Lucasville

were written in her later years. They rely on memory and exude

traces of nostalgia. Her depiction of Lucasville is partial, for

she experienced Lucasville as someone belonging to the evolving

merchant class. Her experience does not represent the majority

of Lucasville citizens during her time. Lastly, her writings

were assembled and edited by her son to be given to her as a

birthday gift. Yeager may not have possessed any intention of

publishing her writings but may have written them to validate her

life experiences in Lucasville, which would have impacted her

accuracy in depicting the town.

All three sources listed above are biased, for the writers

were not only residents of the area but were writing as advocates

for the area. They were motivated by a desire to depict the

positive aspects of Lucasville, Scioto County and the Scioto

Valley. In summary, as inhabitants of Lucasville and Scioto

County these authors offer potentially biased opinions along with

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their direct experience and observations.

Earth Democracy

Vandana Shiva’s Earth Democracy: Justice Sustainability and Peace is

the main source of reference framing this historical analysis of

Lucasville’s economic and social practices. An eminent

environmental activist known across the globe, she has dedicated

much of her time to examining the negative consequences of

corporate globalization. In Earth Democracy she offers an

alternative methodology of globalization that connects different

regions and cultures of the world through conscious

interdependent compassion. In Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution and

Profit, Shiva contends that modern day wars are the result of

resource scarcity induced by corporate privatization of common

resources rather than the result of ethnic and religious

conflict.

The Ohio Country

In the eighteenth century, Euro-American settlers labeled

the land west of the Appalachian Mountains the Ohio Country. This

area encompassed most of Ohio, as well as some of eastern

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Indiana, western Pennsylvania and northwestern West Virginia.61

Many battles took place between the French, the British and the

Native Americans for the Ohio Country.62 Lucasville’s present

state of deterioration does not reflect the fact that it was once

a highly prized piece of land. Its rich soil and copious animal

life attracted many people to the Ohio Country, and it was

considered by the colonists as the gateway to the west.63

It has been recorded that the Iroquois were initially

unwilling to share the hunting grounds of the Ohio territory with

the Shawnees, and that they drove the Shawnees away.64 Although

the Shawnees were excellent and experienced travelers who

migrated east, west and south, many were unable to forget the

land of the Scioto Valley, and they returned once the Iroquois

61 Ohio Historical Society, “Ohio Country,” Ohio History Central: An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History, 2007, http://wwww.ohiohisotrycentral.org/entry.php?rec=780 (accessed September 23, 2007).

62 Ohio Historical Society, “Ohio Country”; Ohio Historical Society, “French and Indian War,” Ohio History Central: An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History, 2007<http://www.ohiohisotrycentral.org/entry.php?rec=498 (accessed September 23, 2007); Ohio Historical Society, “American Revolution,” Ohio History Central: An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History, 2007<http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=464 (accessed September 23, 2007); Ohio Historical Society, “Shawnee Indians,” Ohio History Central: An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History, 2007, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=631 (accessed September 23, 2007); Calloway, 23.

63 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 42, 60-62, 111; Calloway, 22.64 Ohio Historical Society, “Shawnee Indians”; Landau, 28; Calloway,

12.

28

had left. On their return to what they considered ancestral

lands in the 18th century, the Shawnees discovered that the

European colonists of the east coast were inching westward with

formidable determination.65 At first the Europeans – represented

primarily by the French and the British – appeared to be

interested only in trade and in the formalities of establishing

land ownership.66 They initially displayed no agenda to displace

Native Americans from their lands.

The colonists, on the other hand, were in the Americas to

stay.67 All classes of the colonists viewed the lands of the

west as lands of opportunity – and by this they meant economic

opportunities. The wealthier colonists wanted to buy land in

order to sell it and make a profit. Working class colonists

believed that the land west of the Appalachians offered them the

opportunity to own their own land, increase their wealth and

status, and improve their lives – all according to the strictures

of a market economy.

Some speculators like George Washington saw access to the

65 Calloway, 12-13, 22.66 Landau, 28-29. 67 Landau, 32-33.

29

open country west of the Appalachians primarily as a profitable

enterprise.68 According to historian Howard Zinn, wealthy

citizens living on the East coast desired western settlement in

order to implement a lower class buffer between themselves and

the Indians.69 Taking advantage of the lower classes’ poverty,

the government offered land in the Northwest Territory – land

that was fought for in the American Revolutionary War – in return

for military service.70 The poor colonists were given credits by

the U.S. government and used them to pay for Ohio territory land.

Eighteenth century Euro-American colonists relentlessly

pursued ownership of the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Neither the British Empire nor the Native Americans could stop

them. The American Revolution was partly fought by the colonists

to protest the British Empire’s decision to designate the

Appalachian Mountains as the natural boundary between Native

American settlements in the Ohio country and the encroachment of

the colonists.71 Once the British were defeated, the colonists

68 Calloway, 44; Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present (New York: Harper Perennial, 1995), 83 &125.

69 Zinn, 8770 Ibid., 77, 84.71 Ohio Historical Society, “Ohio Country,” & “American Revolution”;

Calloway, 35, 44.

30

sought to settle in the Ohio Country west of the Appalachians.

Violent exchanges ensued between Native Americans residing in the

area and the frontier colonists who were moving to the west.72

The Shawnee tribe proved the most resilient in their refusal to

leave the land.73

As they came to understand that the colonists’ definition of

peace meant the loss of their land, many Shawnees, with the

notable exception of Tecumseh and his confederation of warriors,

signed the treaties constructed by the colonists.74 The 1795

Treaty of Greenville ended the Indian wars of the 1790’s.75 One

year later the first successful colonial settlement was made in

the area that came to be called Lucasville, Ohio.76 The

following years, from 1796 to1800, “showed thousands of people

seeking homes in the new country. They came from all the

Atlantic States.”77

A Brief Introduction to Lucasville

72 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 35. 73 Calloway, xxxvi & 18; Ohio Historical Society, “Shawnee Indians.” 74 Calloway, 43, 106-108. Tecumseh was one of the last Shawnee warriors

and one of the most renowned Native American warriors to forge a confederationof multiple Native American tribes to protect Shawnee and other Native American lands from colonialist take over.

75 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 37.76 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 398; Evans, 406.77 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 38.

31

Many frontier colonists sought land that they could own and

farm. The lands north of the Ohio River where the Shawnee

villages had been established, contained fertile soil and

abundant resources. Land situated along the Scioto River, in

what is now called the Scioto Valley, was particularly ideal for

farming. Nurtured by occasional floods from the Scioto River,

the “soil [was] unsurpassed in fertility and durability by any

other...”78 Evans claimed in the late nineteenth century – a

hundred years after the first permanent settlement in Lucasville

– that Lucasville was, “without doubt the best of all the

townships for agriculture.” 79

Lucasville’s soil was so rich and alluring that it was said

to be the site of the first permanent settlement made by the

colonists of Scioto County. After hearing about this ideal

farming land, Hezekiah Merrit traveled to Scioto County from

neighboring Adams County, in order to settle in a valley between

the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.80 Other colonists

78 Ibid., 112.79 Evans, 405.80 Lynn A. Wittenburg, “Lucasville Known as Corn-fed Town: First

Successful Settlement of Whites in Scioto County,” Portsmouth Daily Times, July 11, 1931, 2.

32

followed his lead. In 1819, John Lucas named the area Lucasville.81

As an attractive agricultural settlement, Lucasville “promised to

be a large town,” until the decision to build the Ohio Canal on

the west side of the Scioto River was announced. Since

Lucasville was situated on the east of the Scioto River, many

disgruntled residents left and “the population dwindled until it

was predicted that the place would be abandoned.”82

While the placement of the canal in 1825 caused a

significant population decrease, it was stated by Evans that

Lucasville was “one of the best business locations in the

County,” and that “Great quantities of lumber and cross ties

[were] shipped from it.”83 Evans boasted that Lucasville had

“excellent farming country” that enabled “a good healthy trade

for the merchants.”84 In fact, at the time Evans wrote History of

Scioto County there were several hotels, four general stores, a

flour mill, two blacksmiths, two wagon makers, an undertaker, and

three physicians in Lucasville.85 81 Evans, 406; History of Lower Scioto Valley, 400.82 Evans, 406.83 Ibid. The construction of the Ohio Canal “commenced in 1825. The

historical account provided by Evans in the History of Scioto County was published in 1903.

84 Ibid.85 Ibid.

33

Today, Lucasville is a small unincorporated town in southern

Ohio. It has no police station and no mayor, although it does

have a post office that closes before the average work shift ends

and a library shaped like a barn. Lining highway 23 are four gas

stations, one which recently has posted a sign on notebook paper:

“Out of gas.” Within about one block of each other are two

dollar stores augmented by a business section consisting of a few

private businesses, some private restaurants and two chain

restaurants, Wendy’s and Subway.

Diversity is not a word that can be used to accurately

describe Lucasville, for ethnically and religiously, it is a very

homogeneous town. Approximately 97% of the Lucasville population

is Caucasian, and about 82% of the 1600 people now residing there

were born in Ohio. While 17% of the residents were born out of

the state, none of its current inhabitants were born outside of

the U.S.86 When I used the Yahoo Yellow Pages to look up

churches in Lucasville, I was presented with nine Baptist

Churches – in a town that has only two traffic lights. During my86 Epodunk, “Population Overview,” Epodunk: The Power of Place, 2007,

http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/popInfo.php?locIndex=17050 (accessed September 17, 2007). Epodunk, “Place of Birth,” Epodunk: The Power of Place, 2007, http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/birthPlace.php?locIndex=17050 (accessed September 17, 2007).

34

undergraduate studies, my Religious Studies professor asked that

students to make a field trip to a religious institution that lay

outside the parameters of the student’s own faith. I went to a

Catholic Church, for it was the only religious institution other

than a Protestant church within a 50 mile radius.

“Wealth” is another word missing from the Lucasville

lexicon. Since only 13% of the population, twenty-five years of

age or older, has pursued an education beyond the high school

level, the average household income in Lucasville is about

$25,000.87 There are no recycling organizations like the ones

commonly found in wealthier cities in the San Francisco Bay area.

I left my hometown of Lucasville mainly because of its lack

of diversity. I wanted to learn about other cultures and

religions not just by reading about them but by being around

them. Currently I live in the San Francisco Bay Area which is a

very diverse area. Initially, I lived in San Francisco, but

since I had grown up in a small rural town, I yearned for a more

peaceful and isolated existence. I subsequently moved to a

87 Epodunk, “Lucasville Community Profile,” Epodunk: The Power of Place, 2007,http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=17050#Educ (accessed September 17, 2007).

35

cottage in Orinda, California, one of the wealthier towns of the

East Bay.

I receive many benefits from living in this area: I earn

money through occasional house sitting jobs and I enjoy many of

the resources that money makes available. But I find that I grow

tired of monotonous and ostentatious wealth. I long for the

class diversity of Lucasville, where lower class residents and

upper class citizens mingle freely with the predominant middle

class. And although I enjoy the liberal thinking found in the

Bay area I still miss my people. Even though the East Bay scenery

is gorgeous I miss the Appalachian country side.

Perhaps it is the history of the area pervading the hills

around Lucasville that calls to me. Its past as an agricultural

settlement and sustenance economy informs me that liberal

thinking may be wrong. It is not necessarily the wealthy coastal

towns and cities of the world which most embody the promise of

Earth Democracy. These settlements are often the most dependent

on the mechanics of contemporary capitalist societies. It is the

small towns of the heartland which are the least dependent on

market economies. In my opinion, these locations offer us the

36

best venues for meeting the promise of enacting an Earth

Democracy in the United States.

I believe that Lucasville is such a town. Even though it has

not exhibited much diversity or taken proactive environmental

measures in contemporary times, Lucasville has, throughout its

past, exhibited signs of an emergent Earth Democracy. These signs

include: local use of common resources; subsistence living;

reciprocity; and attunement and connection to biological

diversity.

The History of Prior Settlement

It is important to understand that Lucasville has a long

history during which it was a sustenance economy. In fact, it

could be said that it has been a sustenance economy much longer

than it has been a market economy. Archaeologists believe that

the first settlers of Scioto County were the ancient mound

builders. The Adenas are thought to have inhabited the area from

500 B.C.E. to C.E. 100 and denizens of the Hopewell culture are

estimated to have lived in the area around 100 B.C.E. to 500

C.E.. 88 These tribes constructed several ornate mounds in the 88 Calloway, 4; Ohio Historical Society, “Portsmouth Earthworks,” Ohio

History Central: An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History, 2007,

37

shape of “huge humans, birds, or serpents, sometimes as burial

sites, sometimes as fortifications.”89 They are also speculated

to have been a part of an expansive trading network that reached

as far as the Gulf of Mexico.90 The Shawnees are said to have

first inhabited southern Ohio around the late 1600s. They left

because of confrontations with the Iroquois. They returned in

the mid 1700s.91

All the native tribes living in this area are believed to

have lived within the framework of a sustenance economy.

Lucasville, although it was not then known by this name, is

therefore deeply grounded in the concept of indigenous land use

and sustenance economy. Although the colonists eventually

http://wwww.ohiohisotrycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2222 (accessed September 23, 2007). Although no mounds have been found within the parameters of Lucasville, the mound builders still may have resided there during their existence. Lucasville, in particular, is part of the lower Scioto Valley thatwas home to the Shawnees. Unlike the mound builders, evidence does clearly indicate that the Shawnees were living in and around what is now called Lucasville. For instance, Shawnee arrowheads have been found in the bottom lands and farm lands. And standing high above Lucasville, Haystack Hill once served as a scouting post for the Shawnee tribe. Irene Preston, “Clay Diggingsand Mounds of Our Area,” in Lucasville, Ohio Sesquicentennial, 1819-1969, ed. Alice KentMcKenzie (Lucasville, 1969), 4.

89 Zinn, 19.90 Zinn, 19; Calloway, 4.91 Calloway, 4, 6, 12-13; Ohio Historical Society, “Shawnee Indians”;

Landau, 15.

38

removed the Shawnees and settled in the area, the sustenance

economy persisted for the next century.

Sustenance and Market Economies Meet in the Ohio Country

A culture that practices a sustenance economy prioritizes

having a balanced community that consists of the entire local

ecosystem: land, water, vegetation, animals and humans. As a

result, the land – and its bounty and inhabitants – are

respected and cared for in an egalitarian way so that the earth’s

ecosystem, or nature’s economy may continue to operate in a

regenerative and reliable cycle that perpetually renews itself.

The market culture, on the other hand, prioritizes the individual

growth of financial assets, regardless of the effects that the

pursuit of this growth has on earth’s nature economy and the

sustenance of all beings.

As participants in a booming market culture, the first

European explorers were initially uninterested in settling the

Americas. They searched for riches, in the form of gold, silver,

and miraculous cures for old age.92 Initially, the first

European colonists in the Americas came only to enrich the

92 Zinn, 2, 11, Jack Weatherford, Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988), 10-15.

39

imperialistic coffers of the mother country. For instance,

Spanish officers and merchants resided in Peru in order to

operate mines serving Spain.93 The French engaged in the

exploration of North America primarily as fur traders, not as

permanent settlers.94 Eventually, for reasons based mainly on

their own low social and economic status or their religious

marginalization and persecution, the European colonists sought

life in a new land.95

At first the Native Americans welcomed the white

strangers.96 The land belonged to no one group as everyone

shared the land and its resources. But as the numbers of

colonists grew, the Native Americans began to understand that the

colonists were interested not in sharing the land but in

enclosing and privatizing it. Land, for the Euro-American

frontier colonists, was a symbol of status and wealth. In

93 Weatherford, 5; Calloway, 20. According to Calloway, many “raids,” into the Ohio Country made by Europeans and colonists in the “late eighteenth century” occurred because the “Shawnees were rumored to have silver mines…” Calloway, 20.

94 Landau, 28-29. 95 According to Zinn, the majority of colonists who came to America

during the “colonial period,” were servants. Those who achieved their freedomdid so by either serving their time or escaping. Zinn, 46.

96 Calloway, 17 & 30. Speaking to the British at Fort Pitt in 1760, theShawnee Missiweakiwa regretted having given the British “land to sit down uponand plant corn,” since more and more Europeans continued to crave more land.

40

contrast, land for the Native Americans symbolized life, and as

indigenous peoples they wanted to continue to live on the land

that provided them with physical, cultural, and spiritual

sustenance.97 The cultural worldviews of the market and

sustenance economies confronted each other in the Ohio Country,

and the results of this struggle determined which culture and

economy would dominate America for the next four centuries.98

The frontier colonists represented the market economy and the

Shawnees represented the sustenance economy.

The market economy accepted and encouraged great disparities

of wealth. This baffled the Native Americans. Native American

visitors to England observed a culture of extreme opposites

juxtaposed to each other and they were “amazed that, among the

Europeans, some people were fat, engorged on every sort of

commodity, while … their other half … were dying, famished, and

poverty-struck, on the very doorsteps of the rich.”99 Where

there was excessive wealth, there was also excessive poverty.

Where there was indulgence, there was malnourishment. Most

97 Ibid., xxviii. 98 Calloway, xxx-xxxii & xxxvii. 99 Mann, 206.

41

astonishingly, to the indigenous world view, was the Europeans’

casual acceptance of such cultural imbalance.100

However, the colonist’s European culture had not always been

a market culture obsessed with capital growth. At one time

European culture had also functioned as a sustenance culture. In

fact, every culture existed once as a sustenance culture, for, as

Merchant indicates, “From the obscure origins of our species,

human beings have lived in daily, immediate organic relation with

the natural order for their sustenance.”101 This should not,

however, be taken to mean that there is a natural and inevitable

progression from sustenance cultures to market ones, or that

sustenance cultures alive today are in a state of primitive or

latent cultural and economical development.

Over the course of its socio-economic evolution, Europe

experienced times when earth-based sustenance economies were the

dominant mode of organization. Some Europeans lived in direct

contact with nature up through the early 1500s, when the

enclosure of the commons started to occur.102 Before this time,

100 Ibid.101 Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution

(San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1990), 1.102 Merchant, 1.

42

communities were organized around lands held in common and most

people lived in communities where local resources were shared and

used for sustenance purposes. Beginning with the Middle Ages and

continuing thereafter, this began to change. Common lands were

enclosed and privatized for the purpose of individual profit.103

Although living in a hierarchical feudalistic society is not the

same as living in an egalitarian sustenance economy as many

Native Americans did, it could be argued that Europeans at this

time were more aligned with the concept that common resources

should be available to all, and less aligned with the principles

of privatization and individual economic growth.

Writing of this period, Calloway asserts that “common

grazing lands were divided up, and strips of arable land were

consolidated into large fields, where improved methods of farming

could be applied more efficiently.”104 As a result, many

commoners were stripped of their land. “In the Highlands of

Scotland, clan lands were being turned to large-estate sheep

farming that brought higher rents and increased profits;

103 Calloway, xxviii; Shiva, Earth Democracy, 19-20.104 Calloway, xxxviii.

43

clanspeople were being turned off the land.”105 As clanspeople

sought land elsewhere, they looked for land that was abundant and

“untouched.” The emigrating dispossessed took these new concepts

of land as a privatized commodity with them. Since land not

legally owned in their culture was vulnerable to others’ claims,

they brought to the new country the desire to name and claim land

as their own.

As Calloway writes about the land, “Finding it in vast

quantities, they treated it as a commodity: They measured it in

acres and square miles, bounded it with markers, and bought and

sold it for money.”106 Several land companies formed. First

there was the Virginia Company, then the Ohio Company, and

finally the infamous Scioto Company. Unlike the Ohio Company,

which was a shareholder company, the Scioto Company was based

“solely and simply [on] land speculation.”107 The story of the

Scioto Company’s dealings is a clear example of the greed that

marks a market economy. A representative of the company went to

France to sell parcels of land in what is today the state of 105 Calloway, xxviii. Similar to many indigenous cultures, certain

Europeans were victims of the market economy, displaced from their lands, and excluded from resources on common grounds which were privatized for profits.

106 Calloway, xxix. 107 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 31.

44

Ohio. The French people who purchased the land traveled to

America to only discover that the Scioto Company never owned any

land to be sold. Finally, the U.S. government intervened and

issued a grant to the deceived French buyers for a piece of land

in the southeastern region of what today is called Scioto

County.108

While the colonist’s identity was strongly defined by the

amount of monetary wealth that one possessed, Native Americans’

identity was defined by one’s relationship to the land. Since

they were a sustenance economy, “they drew both physical and

spiritual sustenance from it, understood that human action could

upset things, and maintained a relationship with the nonhuman

inhabitants and forces in the physical environment.”109

The Shawnees lacked the concept of land ownership and

privatization. Since land belonged to no one, it could not be

bought, sold, divided or fenced. In fact, even if the Shawnees

had practiced land ownership they still would have had no

motivation to sell it. “Money, they said, was of no value to

them, and they would never consider selling the lands that

108 Ibid., 30.109 Calloway, xxviii.

45

provided sustenance for their women and children.”110 Instead,

they suggested that the money the colonists were offering them

for the land be given to impoverished colonial settlers

struggling to stay alive. The Shawnees argued,

We know these settlers are poor, or they would never

have ventured to live in a country which has been in

continued trouble ever since they crossed the Ohio;

divide, therefore, this large sum of money, which you

have offered to us, among these people...and we are

persuaded, they would most readily accept of it, in

lieu of the lands you sold them.111

Different Economies, Different Cultures

Before the introduction of the market economy by Europeans

settlers and colonists, the Shawnees, who were the indigenous

inhabitants of southern Ohio, lived in alignment with principles

of a sustenance economy. The two different economies were based

in the different cultural structures and historic conditions of

each group. After several encounters with the colonists, the

Shawnees became aware that the European colonists brought with

110 Ibid., 100.111 Calloway, 100.

46

them a new culture and a new way of living with the land and

everything on it – specifically other humans, animals and plants.

New scientific theories arising in eighteenth century Europe

deeply impacted the worldview of European colonists. In

particular, new theories of human evolution help explain the high

value placed on the market economy. According to these theories,

human life began in the “savage” era when humans hunted and

gathered for their subsistence. In the barbarian stage of

development, they herded and domesticated animals. Finally,

according to this theory, humans stood at the threshold of

civilization, once they had adopted the practice of

agriculture.112 However, not until adopting “commerce and

manufacturing,” did humans reach the highest level of

civilization.113

These beliefs were believed to be universal and to the

educated eighteenth-century Europeans or Euro-Americans it was an

incontrovertible truth that all human development had occurred in

this order. The movement from “primitive” hunter gatherers to

more “civilized” farmers and then to industrialized practitioners

112Calloway, xxxi; Mann 194-195.113 Calloway, xxxi.

47

was seen as encompassing inevitable stages of human evolution.114

Even today, many Americans, especially those of European descent,

view the market economy as the final stage of human progression.

If it is not seen as inevitable, they at least feel that it

provides the most efficient and satisfactory way to live.

To be civilized, according to the tenets of European

culture, meant living in a market culture. Sustenance cultures

were either “savage” or barbaric. The Shawnees and other Native

American tribes were categorized as “savage” since they only

hunted and gathered for their subsistence. It was believed that

they were unable to conceive of a higher level of existence.115

Ironically, the Europeans were unable to see the Shawnees as

“civilized,” due to their own biased beliefs in their

“infallible” chart of human progress.

Religion also plays a part in this cultural and economic

interaction. The Shawnees’ spirituality guided their social and

ecological relations; in a similar fashion, the European

Christianity promulgated its own particular beliefs about the

appropriate relationship between the settlers and the land.

114 Mann, 194.115 Ibid., 195.

48

Shawnee spirituality incorporated principles of conservation and

sustainability for the sustenance of all, while the Christian

religion allowed the Europeans to manipulate the land in an

overzealous and non-conservative manner. The Europeans viewed

the land – its masterful scenery and abundant resources – as the

work of God. Since God created these resources and created man

to rule over them, the failure to utilize these resources to

their full capacity was to waste them. Wasting what God had

created for man would be a disgrace to God and a rejection of his

order.

For Christian Europeans of this era, America was a land made

by God. Its resources were designed to be used by those to whom

God’s plan had been revealed – “civilized” Euro-American

Christians. Backed by their religion, Euro-American colonists

considered it their duty to “civilize” the land and its

inhabitants. According to this logic, human development was

bound to occur; it just occurred more slowly, if at all for those

who were not European. While it was the religious and cultural

duty of Europeans to assist non-civilized, sustenance cultures,

it was also their duty to use the lands that God had ordained for

49

them, rather than for the original indigenous non-Christian

inhabitants.116 Writing approximately a century after the 1796

settlement in Lucasville, the History of Lower Scioto Valley reflects on

the work accomplished by frontier colonists in their attempt to

civilize the Ohio country formerly inhabited by the Shawnees:

“Energy and perseverance have peopled every section of her wild

lands, and changed them from wastes and deserts to gardens of

beauty and profit.”117

The colonists achieved this transformation not only by

felling the trees, but by cultivating every inch of arable land

and excavating as many of the resources as they could find. They

also embarked on a campaign to rid the earth of those natural

inhabitants who were antithetical to the image and goals of

European civilization and who had become ghastly creatures in the

European imagination. According to the History of Lower Scioto Valley,

while “a few years ago the barking wolves made the night hideous

with their wild shrieks and howls, now is heard only the lowing

and bleating of domestic animals.”118 Indirectly equating the

116 Calloway, xxxi - xxxii.117History of Lower Scioto Valley, 55. Note, that the “garden of beauty,” is not

only an ecological transformation but an economical transformation.118 Ibid., 55.

50

“savage” Indian with the wolf, the text continues to reflect on

the progress made by the pioneers,119 who eliminated both the wolf

and the Native American: “Only a half century ago the wild whoop

of the Indian rent the air where now are heard the engine and

rumbling trains of cars, bearing away to markets the products of

our labor and soil.”120 A compact and dense statement, the text,

foreshadows, ironically, the destiny of an America as a market

economy, where there are fewer “gardens of beauty,” and more

“gardens of profit.”

When the Europeans arrived in America they did not find a

wasteland but a land of plenty. To the European this land of

plenty was a result of God’s bounty and the Native American’s

“savage” ignorance. The colonists could not comprehend that the

Shawnees were not wasting the land but conserving it. One

example of this conservation is found in the Shawnees practice of

119 From this point forward I use the word pioneer only when paraphrasing information from the History of Lower Scioto Valley. I believe it potently communicates the Euro-American view at the time of European exploration and colonial settlement that the American lands were uninhabited and that the frontier colonists were the first brave souls to “conquer and civilize the wilderness”. Since the History of Lower Scioto Valley was published in 1884, the use of pioneer also demonstrates how this belief continued to be held by Euro-Americans at least a century after colonial settlement of the Ohio Valley.

120 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 55.

51

crop rotation. This method involved planting crops in diverse

agricultural sites. This allowed tilled land to experience a

fallow period during which promoted regeneration. As a result,

the Shawnees avoided desertification of the land and sustainably

managed a healthy, fertile agricultural environment. Future

generations could return to formerly cultivated land to continue

the cycle of agricultural rotation.121

Many Euro-Americans regarded Native American land as a

chaotic wilderness that was wasted on Indians. Initially, the

new “untamed,” land was wildly arrayed with forests and foliage,

for as the History of Lower Scioto Valley indicates: “Not a tree had yet

fallen before the ax of the white man.”122 Trees covered the

Scioto River bottoms before their transformation into cultivated

fields, and the History of Lower Scioto Valley honors the committed labor

of the pioneers who cleared the forests for cultivation. While

agriculture was seen as the first step toward complete

civilization and123 the History of Lower Scioto Valley valorized the

121Mann, 218-219.122History of Lower Scioto Valley, 74. To be more accurate, one could

say not such a considerable amount of trees had fallen until at the hands of the white man, since Shawnee men cleared trees to make available space for thewomen to farm.

123.History of Lower Scioto Valley, 75.

52

pioneer, the text did express regret for the loss of “forests, so

wantonly mutilated and destroyed.”124 However, it also

acknowledged that the disruption of the beautiful land was an

inevitable step toward progress, since it was the clearing of the

forests that opened the way for civilization.125

For the most part, Europeans and colonists did not entertain

the idea of living sustainably and prudently. In contrast to

the Shawnees’ ability to see the interconnected relationship

between the earth, its species and human well being, the

colonists “slaughtered game wastefully, felled trees with fire

and axes, tried to hold land they seized as private property, and

seemed to hoard wealth for its own sake.”126 In their defense one

might note that in addition to the dense forests, “game was so

bountiful it was inconceivable that its supply might be finite.”

The History of Lower Scioto Valley also describes the iron ore and coal

deposits in the area as “inexhaustible.”

This supported the colonists’ religious views. Why would it

be otherwise, since the omniscient God of Christianity had

124 Ibid., 76.125 Ibid., 75-76.126 Calloway, xxx.

53

created the world and everything in it? Would he not have

anticipated the number of people who would populate the earth, or

at least managed the population with his powers in order that the

amount of resources he had already installed within the earth’s

terrain would meet the populations’ needs?

It is important to keep in mind that the Shawnees were not

creators of a utopian society. Although they were a sustenance

culture who embodied many of the principles of an Earth

Democracy, the Shawnees were not completely pacifist. They

defended their land, families, selves and cultures through

violence. Moreover, not all Shawnees agreed with each other.

Even though the Shawnees are known for their tenacious

determination to defend their lands and their culture, not all

Shawnees agreed to fight to the death. Some wanted peace and

were willing to assimilate and agree to the colonists’ terms.127

Ohio Country, A Zone of Interaction

Not every single encounter between the Shawnees and the

colonists resulted in violence. Although the worldviews of the

Shawnees and colonists “…collided head-on in Kentucky and the

127 Calloway, xxxvi.

54

Ohio country,”128 and resulted in atrocious violent acts committed

on both sides, an exchange of customs and values also occurred.129

The Shawnees and the colonists crossed paths, intermingled and

were not always bitter enemies. Because frontiers are “zones of

interaction,” there were never clear demarcations between

cultures.130 “White people sometimes lived in Indian villages,

Indians and whites often intermarried, and they regularly

borrowed from each other’s technology and culture.”131 The

Shawnees adopted many white people into their tribe. Oftentimes,

the white captives of the Shawnees chose to remain Shawnee, as

exemplified by the Shawnee warrior Blue Jacket.132

Native Americans taught the colonists how to survive in the

new land. Colonists learned how and where to hunt, what crops to

plant, and how to dress.133 The first settlers of Lucasville

depended on corn, a crop grown by the Shawnees, and corn proved a128 Ibid., xxx.129 Ibid., xxxiv-xxxv.130 Ibid., xxxiii.131 Ibid., xxxiii.132 Blue Jacket was born Marmaduke van Sweringen. Calloway, 87 He was

taken captive and adopted by the Shawnee when he was seventeen. Landau, 37 Blue Jacket chose to stay with the Shawnees and became a pivotal and dedicatedwar chief in the fight against the Europeans. In conjunction with Miami war chief Little Turtle, Blue Jacket led the Northwest Confederacy in the late 1700s, a few decades before Tecumseh formed another confederacy of warriors. Calloway, 87.

133 Calloway, 49.

55

staple crop of Lucasville for many years. Similarly, Native

Americans learned about and adopted European technologies as

well, such as “guns...cloth, iron cooking pots and utensils.”134

According to Calloway, “Travelers from the East often said they

saw little difference between backcountry settlers and

Indians.”135

Evidences of an Earth Democracy Exhibited by Colonists Settling

in the Ohio Country

When the first Euro-American colonists settled in the Ohio

country, the market infrastructure of the east had not yet been

established west of the Appalachians. Frontier colonists relied

on farming, hunting and gathering for subsistence, and money had

no purpose. While the eastern colonists regularly consumed

delicacies imported from Europe, the frontier colonists, who were

the ancestors of many current residents of the Ohio country,

lived according to a sustenance economy and relied upon local

common resources. The tea and coffee that was consumed by the

eastern colonists were too expensive for the frontier colonists

to obtain, so the colonists went into the surrounding environment

134 Calloway, 29.135 Ibid., xxxv.

56

in search of sassafras root, spicewood, and sycamore bark to make

warm beverages.136 Sugar, too, was a luxury rarely seen by the

colonists, and they searched the local environment for the

naturally available substitute – honey. “Bee hunting,” involved

waiting patiently near a flower for a bee to appear and then

following the bee in what was called a “bee line,” to its hive.

The frontier colonist would then cut down the tree to retrieve

the honey. Using this technique “several gallons” of honey was

said to have been collected “from a single tree.”137

In order to survive in this new terrain that could not

support the “civilized,” modern infrastructure of European and

east coast colonial culture, the early frontier colonists looked

to the Shawnees of the Ohio country as their model. Observing

the Shawnees, the frontier colonists learned how and where to

hunt, what crops to plant, and what types of clothing to wear in

their new environment.138 Following Shawnee custom, the colonists

dried pumpkin to last them at least half of the year. Corn, the

staple diet of the Shawnees, became the staple crop of the Scioto

136 History Lower Scioto Valley, 45.137 Ibid., 50.138 Calloway, 49.

57

Valley. A 1931 Portsmouth Times newspaper article on the history

of Lucasville claims that Lucasville was at that time the “heart

of one of the richest corn belts in the world.”139 In addition to

subsisting mostly on corn, the colonists also depended upon wild

game. They hunted “turkey, prairie chicken, squirrel,” and even

consumed opossum when other game were lacking.140 Venison was a

common food eaten by the early settler because of the dense deer

population.141 Following Shawnee custom, the colonists also

dried pumpkin to last them at least half of the year.

The colonists used local resources to design appropriate

clothing for meeting the environmental and climate needs of their

new home. They learned from the Shawnee to use deer skins for

moccasins and bear skins for “robes.” Bear skins also served as

“carpets,” and “bed-clothing.”142 When the frontier colonists

could not find what they needed in the surrounding environment,

they turned to bartering. Peltries often served as currency,

139 Wittenburg, “Lucasville Known as Corn-fed Town,” 1. 140 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 45.141 Ibid. Supposedly the Scioto River was called the Scioto by the

Shawnees because of the abundance of deer hair in the river. The Shawnee wordScioto meant “thick hair.” Lucille Moulten, “Indian History” in Lucasville, Ohio Sesquicentennial, 4.

142 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 46.

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accepted by “tax collectors and postmasters.”143 Well into the

20th century, bartering continued in Lucasville, at Brant’s

general store. “Butter, eggs, live chickens, and even railroad

ties were exchanged for store-boughten items.”144

It can be argued that Euro-American frontier bartering

resembled the gifting economy of the Shawnees. The gift economy

depended on the mutual act of giving away what one temporarily

possessed – and all resources were seen as temporary

possessions. This way, “Mother Earth’s bounty” could be evenly

circulated and distributed.145 While both the bartering system

and the gift economy circulated “earth’s bounty,” they did so for

different reasons. Participants in the gift economy worked

together to ensure the well being of all community members by

giving away what they “owned.” Someone who did not abide by the

rule of gift giving and had more than others in the community was

stigmatized for being selfish and greedy. However, the bartering

system can be seen as a receiving economy, for it operated on

143Ibid., 53. Peltries are animal skins with fur.144 Nellie Yeager Bumgarner, “Brant’s Village Store,” in Lucasville Lore by

Nellie Yeager Bumgarner, ed. Dr. Robert Emerson French (Signature Press, 1995), 61.

145 Mann, 230.

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personal interests rather than the interests of the whole

community. Two parties involved in the act of bartering were not

giving away what they owned to ensure the well being of the other

party, but were interested in meeting their own needs. Still,

the act of bartering required no money. It posed a lesser risk

of developing into an obsession with profit and growth. It

offered a greater chance of supporting the development of a

classless society.146

Although the colonists relied on local resources for

subsistence and survival, they did not use the local resources

sustainably. As declared earlier, the European worldview

conceptualized earth as man’s receptacle of “inexhaustible”

resources, generously provided by God to man. The plundering of

land was an inevitable result of progress: “These forests so

wantonly mutilated and destroyed, have been the necessary

servants of the citizens of the valley, by supplying them with

fuel, bridge, fencing and building materials...”147 Frontier

146 Not all early settlers forfeited the idea of profit in the frontier.Before travel through the Appalachian mountains became a reality and before the invention of the steam boat, some colonists would build a flatboat, load it with their crops and float their way down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where they would sell their goods. History of Lower Scioto Valley, 103.

147 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 76.

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colonists also hunted local wildlife into extinction, and certain

animals followed the Shawnee westward, never to return. The

cougar, the black bear, the buffalo, and the wolf, are no longer

to be seen in Lucasville or the surrounding Scioto Valley.148

Even though they did not live sustainably, the frontier

colonists responded to the environmental challenges by becoming a

tight knit community that was sustained by a variety of social

and economic support networks. Scioto Valley colonists organized

house raising bees, quilting bees, corn husking gatherings, and

hog killings. These events supported diverse social and economic

agendas, including community building, courtship, proficient and

effective farm work, and increased household productivity. In a

house raising bee, settlers from “miles around” gathered to

assist a new settler in erecting a cabin.149 The quilting bee was

a two part event held by women. In the day portion of the

quilting bee women worked together to create a quilt for one

particular homestead. This was the pragmatic part. In the

evening, in the social part of the event, the men would arrive to

148 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 71-72.149 Ibid., 49.

61

usher in a night of dancing and games.150

Corn husking, which took place annually, was an event that

illustrates efforts to combine economic productivity and social

networking into one activity. In order to make husking corn an

enjoyable and entertaining activity, a couples’ game was created.

At the corn husking event a man chose a woman to be his corn

husking partner. When the woman “found a red ear she was

subject to a kiss from her partner; when a gentleman found one he

was allowed to kiss his lady partner.”151 After completing the

job of husking “the “old folks” would leave, and the remainder of

the evening was spent in the dance and in having a general good

time.”152 Hog killing, or preparing hogs for the market, on the

other hand, was exempt from amusing games. Nevertheless, working

together for the benefit of each other’s survival, promoted

strong social bonds among the colonists, and this contributed to

the general bonds of the community.

These social amusements offered a break from dull and

difficult labor and hardship. The early settlers supported each

150 Ibid., 55.151 Ibid.152Ibid.

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other emotionally, physically, and economically; simultaneously

they turned individual efforts into joint economic productions.

According to the History of Lower Scioto Valley, the pioneer was a

selfless individual who exhibited an unadulterated hospitality

and was always willing to be of service to both neighbors and

strangers. According to the History of Lower Scioto Valley: “The

traveler always found a welcome at the pioneer’s cabin.”153 This

cabin was not only a shelter for the owner but a refuge for any

soul of European ethnicity searching for shelter and food.

New settlers were eagerly and hospitably welcomed to the

neighborhood via a communal house building, called a “raising

bee.” Local inhabitants of the area travelled long distances to

assist new arrivals in constructing their cabins at designated

sites.154 “If a new comer came in too late for “cropping,” the

neighbors would supply his table with just the same luxuries they

themselves enjoyed, and in as liberal quantity, until a crop

could be raised.”155 The already settled neighbor received

similar hospitality and generosity. The pioneer shared the best

153 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 49.154 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 49.155 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 50.

63

of his crops and the best of his hunt with his neighbor. “If a

deer was killed, the choicest bits were sent to his nearest

neighbor, a half dozen miles away, perhaps.”156

Unlike the Shawnees for whom gift-giving and sharing were

cultural norms, the frontier colonists’ hospitality was more of

an exception to their culture than its founding ethos. It is

probably true that frontier settlers exhibited hospitality more

consistently than their eastern counterparts did, and it is

certainly true that the hardships of the frontier united

communities. However, supportive involvement in the welfare of

one’s neighbor was not constantly enacted. Acting as if their

hospitable duty had been completed when the final nail was

hammered into the newcomers’ cabin, the pioneers offered a

“hearty shake of the hand and a wish you well” to the recipients

of their generosity.157 While they occasionally reconvened

throughout the year in annual corn huskings, quilting bees, and

hog killing events, unlike the Shawnees, the colonists did not

interact with or help each other on a daily basis. Usually

frontier colonists lived too far apart from each other to provide

156 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 50.157 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 49.

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consistent assistance to one another on a daily basis. While

they occasionally supported each other, they generally aspired to

achieve survival by relying on their individual, strong-willed

survival skills, a worldview that was valorized by European and

Western culture. Still, I believe that these particular people,

who still lived via a sustenance way of life, were more united

and connected than their descendents are today.

It’s very likely that the frontier colonists’ camaraderie

was based on empathy and hardship. They realized they would be

more successful surviving in their in their new environment

working together than if they obstinately stood alone. The dual

factors of temporary separation from their own culture’s market

economy and close proximity to and reliance on the Shawnee

lifestyle in the Ohio country ultimately resulted in a partial

return to a sustenance economy. In this economy individually

owned property was commonly shared, people worked together to

survive, and common resources were used, although not

sustainably.

Honoring Cultural Diversity, Practicing Inclusion

Many colonists and Europeans learned, traded, and interacted

65

with indigenous Native Americans. Others assimilated into Native

American society. However, since the majority of colonists

belonged to a competitive market culture, they were not willing

to share the lands north and south of the Ohio River with the

Shawnees. The ethnocentric beliefs of Euro-American society

meant that many colonists were not content until savagery, as

embodied by the Shawnees and other Native American tribes, was

completely obliterated. These ideas were supported by Euro-

centric scientific notions of human development and by the

experience of settlers on the frontier. Colonists settling west

of the Appalachians had proved through their manners and dress

that civilization was not immune to regression when placed in

proximity to “lower” stages of human development. Therefore,

savagery had to be eradicated. If the “savages” could not be

completely removed physically from the earth, then they would

have to be indoctrinated into “civilization.” They would have to

become part of a market economy.

According to the colonists’ Euro-centric world-view the

market culture was superior to all other forms of human

organization. Since market culture was identified as the supreme

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accomplishment of a higher civilization all other forms of

cultural economic expression were excluded and discouraged.

Shawnee men were therefore encouraged by the colonists to pick up

a hoe or work in the mills. In Black Hoof’s town of Wapakoneta,

Ohio, some Shawnees accepted assimilation in order to be able to

remain on their homeland.158 In order to stay in Ohio at least

until the 1830 Removal Act, the Shawnees of Wapakoneta had to

“learn to plow fields and tend cattle instead of hunting” and the

women had to “learn to spin and weave instead of farming.”159

Since it disallows differences in economic and cultural

choices outside of its domain, the market culture practices

intolerance and exclusion. Colonist women were not as involved

in social and political affairs as Native American women were.

The colonist woman was vital to the survival of her family, but

her culture did not allow her to have any say in what occurred

politically. Issues of war and peace, such as whether or not

the colonists were to fight the British, the French, or the

Native Americans, were decided exclusively by the men. 158 Calloway, 111 & 117.159 Ibid., 117. The remaining Shawnees in Ohio at Wapakoneta accepted the

terms of the Indian Removal Act and departed for a Kansas reservation. “The Shawnee in History,” The Official Website of the Shawnee Tribe, http://www.shawnee-tribe.com/history.htm (accessed April 12, 2008).

67

The Shawnee women, on the other hand, played a vital role in

deciding whether or not to go to war. They served their

societies as peace and war chiefs. Usually they were peace

chiefs – counterparts to the typically male war chief. As a

peace chief the Shawnee woman could veto the war chief’s decision

to go to war. Yet she could also assume the role of war chief.160

In addition to holding leadership roles in the political sphere,

Shawnee women held leadership roles in the religious sphere as

well. As a shaman, the Shawnee woman “cured the sick and oversaw

religious rituals. A shaman was a highly respected member of the

community.”161 Colonist women, however, were not allowed any

leadership positions in the Christian church.

Because of the colonists’ patriarchal framework, women’s

subordination pervaded all realms of life: politics, family,

religion and the market. In spite of this, women were integral

members of the community, and their contributions were vital to

the functioning of the sustenance economy that was the basis of

the frontier settler’s life. A few years before the Seneca Falls

conference and a century before women’s studies received public

160 Landau, 19; Calloway, 16.161 Landau, 24.

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attention, History of Lower Scioto Valley dedicates a small section in

its “pioneer” eulogy to the importance of the woman in the

survival of the “pioneer” family. Entitled, “women pioneers,”

the text admits the androcentric partiality of other historical

texts documenting “pioneer” life. However, it attributes most of

the woman’s glory to her role as helpmate and cheerleader of the

male “pioneer”:

Much has been written of the old pioneer and his

struggles in the early years of his life, heavy trials,

misfortunes, and ultimately his success, but little has

been recorded of his noble companion, the light of his

cabin, who cheered him in his misfortunes, nursed him

in sickness, and in health.162

While History of Lower Scioto Valley praises her undying devotion and

support for the more real and important work of the male pioneer,

the text does acknowledge the specific work performed by the

“pioneer” woman: “spinning and weaving, cutting and making, not

only her own clothing, but the garments of those who were of her

household and her loving care.”163

162 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 57.163 Ibid.

69

A division of sexual labor surely existed for the colonists.

Both the man and the woman were indispensable to the survival of

the family. For the most part, women and men’s roles were

impenetrably separate. According to Euro-centric evolutionary

theory, women’s biologic nature meant that they should be

restricted to the domestic realm, while men were to be active in

the outdoors and the public realm. A sexual division of labor

existed as well for the Shawnees; however, their sexual division

of labor was flexible and interchangeable. Although women led in

the agricultural sphere, men assisted. Also, as has been

demonstrated, both Shawnee men and women performed the same

important political and religious roles.

Biological Diversity

An Earth Democracy includes non-humans of all species as

well as people of different genders, ethnicities, classes, and

sexualities in its communal activities and decisions. It also

includes non-humans. In the Shawnee worldview the world and all

its creatures were endowed with spirit. Non-humans – animals,

plants and other earth resources – were treated with respect

since all creatures shared the earth equally and together enabled

70

each other to live. The animals gave their life for the

sustenance of the Shawnee; and the Shawnee provided sustenance

for the animals. The result was a continuous, cyclical

interchange of reciprocal, interdependent care that was essential

to the survival of all.

Writing of the Iroquois, Mann suggests that they managed

their forests as a park for animals they wished to hunt. The

hunt for the Shawnees was not a spontaneous, unorganized pursuit,

but a year long organized commitment. “The men [the forest

caretakers] consciously created and maintained what amounted to

nature preserves, habitats particularly attractive to this or

that type of game, by planting selected types of ground-cover.”164

In other words, the Iroquois provided desirable bait to keep the

animals near. The hunting grounds were sustainable, humane forms

of husbandry, where animals ran free as opposed to being pinioned

behind a fence. While I currently lack evidence of how the

Shawnee lived with the animals they hunted, Mann’s description of

a tribe that lived within the same area, grew some of the same

crops, had similar roles for women and who shared some of the

164 Mann, 192.

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same economic traditions such as gift giving, suggest an

intriguing possibility that deserves more research.

Locked behind their fence of European ethnocentricism, the

colonists saw the plentiful hunting grounds of the Ohio Valley as

evidence of the Christian God’s omnipotence. They could not

conceive that this abundance was due to the conscious sustained

efforts of indigenous Native Americans. In contrast to the

Shawnees, the colonists conceptualized the various beings of the

world as living within a hierarchical value system. In this

stratified world humans were superior to animals, and one could

not respect an animal, for it could never achieve a state of

intelligence and civilization. Animals were biologically

relegated to the station of savagery, and in the colonists’ world

view, animals existed solely to serve the needs and purposes of

human beings.

As a result of this belief, the Shawnees and the colonists

approached hunting very differently. A Shawnee hunter honored

the animal he killed for it had made a voluntary sacrifice to

sustain the life of the people. The colonists killed animals

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without ceremony, without remorse and without reservation.165

While the technical hunting skills of the Shawnee transferred

easily to the frontier colonists, their emotional and spiritual

approach to hunting was ignored by the colonists. Since it was

based on their human centered religious worldview, the colonists’

act of hunting was wasteful and excessive. Many of the animals

initially encountered by Euro-American settlers are no longer

present in the Ohio valley.

The colonists’ worldview, which denied spirit to the non-

human world, also regarded “wilderness” as antithetical to

civilization.166 Unlike the order inherent in civilization –

which was established and maintained by educated Euro-American

men – the wilderness bred chaos. The wilderness – which

included the forests and other natural habitats beyond the walls

of civilized towns – was the home of the savage and the beast.167

Nothing significant had happened within it, for before “the first

165 Calloway, xxx. 166 Ibid., xxxi.167 Not only did chaos and wilderness exist externally to civilized man’s

establishment of order, but it lurked inside its borders, internalized in the female body. The European cultural perspective of nature as dark, chaotic wilderness applied to women as well. If left unsupervised her beastly, savagenature could debase the purity inherent in civilization. Susan Griffin, Womanand Nature: The Roaring Inside Her, (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1978), ix-xi,9-16.

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white man entered within the limits of the Scioto Valley, it was

a dark unbroken wilderness. The silence of its continuous forest

was broken by the piercing cry of the eagle, the howling of wild

beasts and the whoop of the savage.”168

Since the wilderness stood next door, protective and

anticipatory measures had to be taken by the entire community.

“When it was reported that a panther had been heard or seen in

any district, the whole country turned out for a hunt, each man

hoping to be the fortunate one to give it the death shot.”169

Similarly, frontier colonists protected their livestock and their

families by organizing group wolf hunts. The desire to kill

wolves was fed by their reputation as demonic beings as well as

by the bounty that was given for killing them. Adult wolf scalps

were rewarded with two dollars and scalps belonging to wolves

under six months warranted one dollar.170 Before long, motivated

by fear and money, the colonists eliminated the frightful wolf

howls piercing the night.

For “civilized” people, the killing of “domesticated”

168 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 71.169 Ibid.170 History of Lower Scioto Valley, 51, 71-72, 120 & 122.

74

animals may have been seen as necessitating better treatment.

According to the History of Lower Scioto Valley, when early colonists

killed hogs to be dressed for the market, they killed them

humanely. “It was considered a disgrace to make a hog squeal by

bad shooting or by a shoulder-stick, that is, running the point

of the butcher-knife into the shoulder instead of the cavity of

the breast.”171

Violations and Observances of Earth Democracy Principles in the

Ohio Country

The colonists clearly lived in ignorance of some Earth

Democracy principles. They actually violated the Earth Democracy

principles, 2, 3, and 4, which mandate that the protection and

care be given to humans, non-humans and all the diverse species

living on the planet to ensure their inclusion in a community’s

life. If the settlers had viewed “the earth community” as “a

democracy of all life,” then land negotiations would have been

constructed jointly with the Shawnees; peaceful relations would

have been a goal and diverse views would have been met with

compromise. The settlers would have included both sexes in

171 Ibid., 52.

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decision-making that affected the human community and they would

have practiced sustainability to enable the survival of non-human

life in the earth community over successive generations.

The colonists violated the third Earth Democracy principle

of cultural diversity by striving to physically and culturally

eliminate the Shawnees. Reverence for biological diversity was

ignored when certain animals were targeted for death, while

others were hunted to extinction because they were too desirable.

By exhausting local resources, denying resources to particular

groups, and frightening animals away, the colonists violated the

fourth Earth Democracy principle which states that “all beings

have a natural right to sustenance.”

However, frontier colonists in the Ohio Country did observe

certain characteristics of an Earth Democracy. They relied on

local resources for food and clothing, and what they could not

directly obtain from the natural environment was bartered for.

These examples are tenets of sustenance economies rather than

market economies. Local resources were also distributed in a

system somewhat analogous to the gift economy of the Shawnees,

even though the circulation of common resources excluded the

76

Shawnees. While a true Earth Democracy would have shared with

all peoples, colonist settlers near and around Lucasville

demonstrated equitable use of resources within the limits of

their own cultural boundaries – partially observing the fourth

Earth Democracy principle.

Since the Ohio country was a frontier open to change, some

colonists did adhere to the fourth Earth Democracy principle in

their relations with the Shawnees. Affable exchanges between the

colonists and the Shawnees existed along with the hostile ones.

However, the brief times when some colonists observed the third

and fourth Earth Democracy principles, which honor cultural

diversity and the sharing of common resources, were unfortunately

outweighed by the many violations of this principle that the

colonists committed.

A Socially Integrated Lucasville

Prior to the dawn of the market economy in the 1950s,

Lucasville exhibited several signs of an Earth Democracy. Nellie

Yeager, who was born in 1895, was a resident of early Lucasville.

She notes that “Lucasville was the loveliest place…in all this

77

world, to be born,”172 and her memoirs depict a more socially and

ecologically interconnected Lucasville than is found today.

During Yeager’s childhood, Lucasville had several crucial

meeting places that were the sites of important social networks.

Two of these were general stores which supported Lucasville

families living on small private farms. Both were owned by

Yeager’s family or extended family. The larger one belonged to

her uncle, J.H. Brant, and the smaller one belonged to her mother

and father. Brant’s General store was a center of activity where

people met, shopped, and exchanged news. It was also a central

place where bartering occurred. From 1895 to 1943, “Cash was so

scarce…customers often bartered. Butter, eggs, live chickens,

and even railroad ties were exchanged for store-boughten

items.”173 The customers who purchased items with money did so

from owners whose doctrine was “to give customers their full

dollar’s worth.”174 As fellow members and farmers of the

Lucasville community, the Brants were considered honest.

172 Yeager, “Loveliest Place to be Born,” in Lucasville Lore by Nellie Yeager Bumgarner, ed. Dr. Robert Emerson French (Signature Press, 1995), 22.

173 Yeager, “Brant’s Village Store,” 61.174 Ibid., 63.

78

According to Yeager, they were genuinely concerned about the

community’s welfare.

In addition to being a site of bartering activity, Brant’s

general store served as a hub of social activity and as a much

needed resting place. Farmers commiserated and residents

communicated. Yeager states that J.H. Brant’s son, Clyde, who

was the second owner of the store, placed a bench outside of the

store to entice customers to stop and stay awhile. Called the

Whittler’s Bench, it was placed “in front of Brant’s big store

window.” Here people whittled wood that was often given to them

by Clyde. People without a whittling knife could always find one

in Brant’s store along with the necessary high quality tools “on

sale at bargain prices.”175

Although whittling was predominantly a social activity of

males, it was open to both genders. In one edition of the

Whittler’s Gazette, Clyde mentions introducing a visiting Girl

Scout troupe to whittling. Of course he sold them the tools they

used to get started.176 The store was demolished in the “great

175 Ibid.176Yeager, “Brant’s Village Store,” 63. Clyde Brant, “Girl Scouts From

Middletown, Ohio, Buy 17 Knives and Start Whittlin,” in The Whittler’s Gazette,1936 September, 4.

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fire of 1943,”177 and Yeager wrote that “Lucasville has never been

the same since the big fire.”178 Perhaps this was because after

the “great fire of 1943,” there was no general store that served

as a central site for popular gatherings and information

exchange.

Brant’s general store was not the only place that served to

connect early residents of Lucasville. The Town Hall, which was

built in 1883 and torn down in 1982, was a place in which poor,

working class and middle class members gathered to be

entertained.179 It was the site of vaudeville shows, social

dances, holiday celebrations, singing schools, oral dictations,

talent shows, and dinners commemorating Lucasville soldiers. 180

Other communal areas included the Grain elevator and the

Milk Gap.181 The Lucasville Grain Elevator was seen as “a

socially significant and economically important feature,”182 where

members of Lucasville gathered and “swapped stories, gathered

177 Yeager, “Brant’s Village Store,” 61.178 Ibid., 64.179 Yeager, “Childhood Memories of the Old Town Hall,” in Lucasville Lore by

Nellie Yeager Bumgarner, ed. Dr. Robert Emerson French (Signature Press, 1995), 25.

180 Ibid., 26-27.181 A grain elevator is usually a building used for the storage and

shipment of grain.182 Yeager, “Reminisces on Old Lucasville, 33.

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shucks for bed ticks, gleaned corn-left-on-the-cobs for their

chickens, and hauled away dry cobs for burning.”183 Another area

where people gathered to socialize and economize was the Milk

Gap. The Milk Gap was a “pasture…where neighbors gathered to

milk their cows.”184 Since Lucasville was dependent on local

produce, the Milk Gap served as an important site where local

dairymen could exchange relevant news and information.

In contemporary Lucasville, there are also places where

people gather to socialize. Parents of school children

congregate at ballgames, for example. But for the most part,

people in Lucasville today do not encounter each other very

often. Living and working in a market culture, they are less

able than their predecessors to live in a socially connected,

interdependent town – and this makes it difficult to be organized

as an Earth Democracy.

Attuned to Nature

Early Lucasville was not only a more socially connected,

interdependent, and interrelated community than it is now, it

183 Ibid., 34.184 Yeager, “My Letter to John Martin,” in Lucasville Lore by Nellie Yeager

Bumgarner, ed. Dr. Robert Emerson French (Signature Press, 1995), 38.

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also demonstrated a more direct relationship with nature. From

the early 1900s, until the 1950s, Lucasville was still an

agricultural society. Sustenance was locally obtained from farms

and from nature, even though merchants were present. Early

settlers of nineteenth and twentieth century Lucasville – up

through the 1940’s and 1950’s – were not only agriculturalists

but occasional hunters and gatherers. Yeager’s memoirs indicate

that she often went into the woods to gather greens to take home

for dinner.185 A newspaper article from the 1950’s includes

commentary from women living in the old Thomas House before it

was torn down to make room for a bank. Speaking of the early

1900s, they state: “In those days we raised most of the

foodstsuff that went onto our table. There were berry bushes and

fruit trees in the yard, and garden vegetables growing [on] our

one-acre lot.”186

Yeager laments the deteriorating consciousness of biological

diversity exhibited by later generations. She expresses

astonishment and disappointment that the youth and adults of 185Yeager, “Journey into a Happy Past,” in Lucasville Lore by Nellie Yeager

Bumgarner, ed. Dr. Robert Emerson French (Signature Press, 1995), 46-47.186 R.F. Jack Appel, “Old Thomas House Gives Way to Progress; Lucasville

Bank to Occupy Well-Known Site,” in Lucasville, Ohio Sesquicentennial, 1819-1969, ed. Alice Kent McKenzie, 35.

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modern day Lucasville no longer had knowledge of plants and

botany. She suggests that this alienation from nature is

detrimental to the well being of the younger generations, stating

that, “children miss so much nowadays mentally, physically, and

spiritually when raised in separation from nature. The fields

and woods and hills gave us pleasure, happiness, and delight as

well as recreation.”187 When she inquires whether or not “deer-

tongues are in bloom,” people “stare blankly” at her and she

exclaims, in frustration, “where can I find one single person who

cares?”188

Violations and Observances of Earth Democracy by Early

Lucasville Inhabitants

If we review their social and economic activities, the

nineteenth and early twentieth century inhabitants of Lucasville

followed more of the tenets of Earth Democracy than contemporary

inhabitants of Lucasville do. For instance, when not tending to

their farms and livestock, residents often gathered in the town.

Brant’s General store, the Grain Elevator, and the Milk Gap all

served as sites for social interaction and economic activities.

187 Yeager, “Journey into a Happy Past,” 46.188 Ibid.

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Since they came together more often, early residents of

Lucasville were able to maintain a socially connected and

involved community. This was a vital prerequisite to forming a

functional Earth Democracy.

Like their frontier colonial predecessors in the late

eighteenth century, inhabitants of Lucasville in the early

nineteenth and twentieth centuries relied on local common

resources for their subsistence needs. Families operated farms

in order to obtain sustenance rather than for profit. And while

individual families owned their own private farms, they often

shared common grounds and resources with each other, as

demonstrated by activities at the Grain Elevator and the Milk

Gap. General stores augmented the produce of the residents’

farms, but they did not exist solely for an individual’s profit.

The owners of the general stores were usually farmers themselves.

They understood that their customers did not possess much money,

and they saw bartering as a normal occurrence which occurred

between the general store owner and his or her customer. Since

making a profit was not prioritized, Lucasville did not follow

the rules of a market economy at this time.

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Lucasville in the nineteenth and early twentieth century

still did not exhibit much ethnic or racial diversity. A 1931

Portsmouth Time newspaper article notes that a freed slave bought

some land and operated a tanning yard in 1813, but it does not

mention how long he lived in the town.189 Except for their well

known intolerance in regards to the Shawnee and other Native

Americans tribes, it is difficult to know whether or not most

citizens of Lucasville – who were of European descent –

respected cultural diversity since there is very little that was

recorded about other ethnic groups. Perhaps the lack of

diversity in the area suggests that cultural diversity and

difference were not honored. The state of Ohio, for example was

a site of significant Ku Klux Klan activity during the 1910’s and

1920’s, even though Ohio was a free state during the American

Civil War. The Klan promulgated an ideology that was opposed to

non-Protestants, foreign immigrants, and people of color.

However, I lack information that directly pertains to Lucasville,

so I can only conclude that Euro-American residents who lived in

189 Wittenburg, “Lucasville Known as Corn-fed Town,” 3.

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Lucasville appeared to respect each other and adhered in part to

the third Earth Democracy principle.

Given the absence of a mayor and a police force, it seems

that Lucasville had little in the way of obvious political or

social hierarchy. Most citizens appeared to work together for

the economical interests of everyone. They at least applied the

fourth Earth Democracy principle to other humans residing in the

town.

The voice of non-human species may not have been considered

in community decision making – although we have no hard evidence

that documents whether Lucasville citizens were environmentally

conscious or practiced sustainability. However, most citizens

had a vested interest in maintaining their environment so that

crops would keep returning. I believe that it can be concluded

that the early residents of Lucasville saw the Lucasville community

as a democracy of human life. They felt that human beings

sharing the town of Lucasville had a natural right to sustenance.

Their practice of the second Earth Democracy principle that

promotes the inclusion of all in community decision-making is

harder to asses given the shortage of information.

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Uranium Enrichment Plant

The building of an uranium enrichment plant in the 1950s,

marked a transformative period for Lucasville and the surrounding

Scioto County. After this event practices which had been in

place since the time of the colonial settlers were finally left

behind. According to Yeager, in 1950 the Town Hall stopped

functioning as a Town Hall.190 The old Thomas House was

demolished in the fifties, and a local journalist noted that,

“the atomic energy plant project in nearby Pike County has dealt

another blow to Lucasville’s tradition.”191 The disappearance of

Lucasville’s historical landmarks marked an irrevocable shift

away from a sustenance culture. Nascent signs of Earth Democracy

in Lucasville were replaced by market economy values of

individualization, alienation and competitiveness. More and more

community members now led individual lives of routine labor in

order to pay their bills and to live a “more satisfying” life – a

life filled with middle class conveniences such as cars, TVs,

dishwashers, computers, etc.

190 Yeager, “Childhood Memories of the Old Town Hall,” 27.191 Appel, 35.

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Lucasville in the 1930s was still based on an agricultural

economy. As the market economy grew, subsistence farming became

a hardship. People in Lucasville and the surrounding area began

to leave in search of jobs that would support them in a cash-

based market economy. Portsmouth, the metropolitan area south of

Lucasville, became a candidate for the federal government’s

atomic energy plant in the 1950s. Local citizens throughout

Scioto County wrote to the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce to

share their concerns about the decrease in the local population

due to lack of employment. They demanded that Portsmouth be the

chosen site for the proposed atomic energy plant.192 The site the

government finally chose as the site of the plant was Piketon, a

town about 14 miles north of Lucasville and 24 miles north of

Portsmouth. This area was chosen not only because land and water

were so readily available, but because labor was also.193 The

192 “An invitation with Proof that the Portsmouth Area (Ohio): And EverySegment of its citizenry Wants An Atomic Energy Plant.” (Portsmouth Ohio, 1952); “Cooperation Gets Credit For A-Plant: Virtually All the Community Joined In Wooing Project,” Portsmouth Daily Times, August 12, 1952, sec. 1. A site for uranium enrichment, the plant, today, is called the uranium enrichment plant.

193Deborah Daniels, “Site selected for uranium enrichment plant in 1952: The plant was completed early in 1956, six months ahead of schedule,” Portsmouth Daily Times, Sept, 26 1999, 8.

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area is economically unstable, as is typical of Appalachia, and

residents eagerly welcomed a uranium enrichment plant.

Times have changed and today there are signs that the

Uranium Enrichment Plant is not so welcome. In the 1980s a

demonstration was held outside the plant, memorializing the

victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.194 At that time, the owners of

the plant indicated that while the plant had originally processed

uranium to produce nuclear weapons for warfare, once the Cold War

era ended, the plant enriched uranium solely for peacetime uses

such as electrical energy.195 The demonstrators refuted this

claim, asserting that the plant had covertly continued to provide

uranium for nuclear weapons.196

Today, a local non-profit organization is leading its own

investigation into the plant’s effects on the surrounding

environment. This non-profit is taking samples from tributaries

194 Hiroshima-Nagasaki/Piketon Vigil Committee, “In Memory of the Victimsof Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all Nuclear Victims, (Piketon, Goodyear Atomic Corp., 1982).

195 Jeff Barron, “Piketon plant celebrates 50 years since completion,” Portsmouth Daily Times, March 31, 2006, sec. AA2; Daniels, “Site selected for uranium enrichment plant in 1952,”8.

196 Hiroshima-Nagasaki/Piketon Vigil Committee, “In Memory of the Victimsof Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

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of the Scioto River and from the groundwater.197 The uranium

enrichment plant has hired its own private company to do the

cleanup on and around the plant. They contend that chemical

levels and run off in the ground water are not sufficient enough

to pose harm and that the limited amount of contamination that

does appear appears on the grounds of the plant and therefore

poses no harm to the citizens of the area.198 Of course, at the

time when plans for the uranium plant were being discussed and

implemented, the potential hazards of chemical plants and uranium

enrichment facilities were not commonly known. There was very

little knowledge in regards to the potential hazardous effects of

different chemicals, and many of the first employees of the

uranium enrichment plant, up through the 1980s unknowingly

handled hazardous material.199 Many were assured by their

197 Josh Hickle, “Study focuses on ground water contamination,” Portsmouth Daily Times, February 26, 2002. sec, C1; Associated Press, “Groundwater,” Portsmouth Daily Times, February 26, 2002, A10; Associated Press, “State plans radiation testing on stream,” Portsmouth Daily Times, July 31, 2005, sec. A3.

198“Groundwater Treatment System in Operation at Plant,” Community Common, November 13, 1991, 12; “Bechtel Jacobs company ready for another safe, successful year,” Portsmouth Daily Times, 28 March, 2003, sec. A3; U.S. Dept. of Energy, “Environmental Restoration Bulletin No. 2: Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant,” March 1992, 3; Martin Poston, “No off-site hazard: Press responds to report on A-plant,” Portsmouth Daily Times, December 5, 1996, sec. A1 & A12.

199 “Fight for ill nuclear workers not over: Compensation appreciated but more is wanted,” Portsmouth Daily Times, November 1, 2000, sec. A12; Kirsten

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supervisors that their environment was safe and that safety

precautions, such as protective wear, were not necessary.200

Today, worker safety and health are top priorities. Many of the

workers who now complain of diseases such as cancer and beryllium

worked before safety and education became important issues.201

At first the plant appeared to be a godsend. It employed

several residents and boosted business as construction workers

flooded the area in order to build the plant. However, jobs are

never secure in a market economy. In the 1990s the Uranium

Enrichment Plant, which was owned and operated by USEC (United

States Enrichment Corps), decided to privatize. It believed that

putting uranium on the market would increase profits for everyone

– from the CEOs to the laborers.202 Yet it appeared that the Stanley, “Plutonium scare felt in Piketon: Residents discuss concerns over living close to Piketon plant,” Portsmouth Daily Times, August 26, 1999, sec. A1.

200 Jonathan Riskind, “Piketon’s heavy toll,” The Columbus Dispatch, October29, 1999, http://www.dispatch.com/newsfea99/oct99/uspill1029.html (accessed November 3 2007).

201 Riskind, “Piketon’s heavy toll,” 6. Another variable possibly responsible for the majority of older employees of the uranium enrichment plant as the primary filers for financial compensation may be time. More recent employees may be more educated and more protected but this may not be aguarantee against exposure to hazardous material that may result in future illness.

202 Daniels, “Site selected for uranium enrichment plant in 1952,” 8; Barron, “Piketon plant celebrates 50 years since completion,” AA2; United States Enrichment Corporation, Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, “Summary and Fact Sheet,” December 1993, 1; “Steps toward privatization continue at Lockhead-Martin: Major employer has 2,500 workers from Scioto, Pike, Jackson and Ross counties,” Portsmouth Daily Times, March 28, 1998, sec. B2.

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only pockets being enriched by this move to privatize enriched

uranium were the higher ups. Around the year 2000, USEC

announced that it could no longer keep the Piketon plant, as the

market seemed adverse to uranium.203

In preparation for shut down, USEC laid off numerous

employees. This action was devastating as the Uranium Enrichment

plant employed most of Scioto County and the Scioto Valley.204

According to Ohio Congressman Ted Strickland,205 about a third of

USEC employees were expected to lose their jobs. Without

enriched uranium as the main source of employment, people would

once again have to leave the area in search of work. For those

with only a high school diploma or a sixth grade education, the

203 Terri Fowler, Plant to Close,” Portsmouth Daily Times, June 22, 2000, sec.A1 & A12; “Legislators: Piketon loss will devastate region,” Portsmouth Daily Times, June 23, 2000, sec. A1.

204 “Legislators: Piketon loss will devastate region,” sec. A1; Jeff Barron, “Loss of plant would cost city,” Portsmouth Daily Times, June 27, 2000, sec. A1; Katherine Rizzo, “Strickland says he warned Gore staff,” Portsmouth Daily Times, June 27, 2000, sec. A10; Phyllis Noah, “USEC to lay off 70 employees,” Portsmouth Daily Times,” November 3, 2005, sec. A1; WSAZ NewsChannel 3,“Uranium plant announces closing; 2,000 jobs lost,” June 23 2000, under MSNBC, www.msnbc.com/local/wsaz/67460.asp (accessed September 2007); Sarah Potter, “Positions to be lost at Piketon plant,” Portsmouth Daily Times, March 30,2001, sec. A12.

205Brian J. Overman, “USEC finances under fire,” Portsmouth Daily Times, April 14, 2000, sec. A1. Interestingly, Ted Strickland is from Lucasville and is now the governor of Ohio.

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search would be challenging. The working class people would

become destitute.

The plant CEO William Timbers, on the other hand, was still

excessively comfortable with a salary of 2.48 million. He

reportedly received 325,000 more after the plant was privatized.

When North Carolina Representative Richard Burr asked Timbers

whether or not “his salary would ever be part of the cost-cutting

measures at USEC,” Timbers simply replied, “There are not plans

for that now.”206 In the meantime, people were losing their jobs

as the Piketon plant was shutting down due to financial

difficulties. Privatization proved a benefit for the few and a

hardship for the many. In a quest to deepen their pockets USEC

emptied the pockets of many middle and working class citizens of

Lucasville and the surrounding Scioto County.

Due to the resilient and persistent determination of the

local Labor Union in conjunction with Ohio’s representatives, the

Piketon plant site was finally chosen as a site for the

introduction of new centrifuge technology for uranium

206 Overman, “USEC finances under fire,” A1.

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enrichment.207 The plant was ideally set up for centrifuge

technology, since a previous attempt had been made in the

eighties to convert from gaseous diffusion to centrifuge and the

requisite technology was already partially in place, promising a

new stage for the Piketon Uranium Enrichment plant.

Violations and Observances of Earth Democracy Principles in

Relation to the Uranium Enrichment Plant

The Uranium Enrichment plant stands as a paradoxical

edifice. It was a blessing to this rural agricultural community,

which experienced the pressures of an expanding market economy.

However the production of enriched uranium for nuclear warfare

and the careless exposure of plant employees to dangerous

chemicals clearly violated several Earth Democracy principles.

The development of nuclear weapons functionally denied that the

“earth community” was a “democracy of all life,” and that

cultural diversity was valuable. The negligence committed

against employees which undermined their health and safety,

violated Earth Democracy principles which granted all beings to

the right to obtain sustenance regardless of class, or

207Michael F. Deaterla, “Piketon Wins Uranium Plant: Centrifuge Test Project Awarded By USEC,” The Community Common, March 2, 2003, sec. 5C.

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hierarchical status. Last and most obvious is the violation of

the principle which honors biological diversity, since chemical

toxicity poses a significant threat to the environment. However,

even if the residents of Lucasville and the surrounding area had

been more informed about possible environmental hazards at the

time of the plant’s beginning, it is still highly likely that

they would have eagerly welcomed it. Not only were they living

in an era infatuated with development, many of them were living

in a time of economic hardship, when the plant appeared to offer

the only solution.

In contrast to its violations, the uranium plant inspired

community unity in the face of a common goal. Community members

affected by the decision to close the plant came together with

others to save people’s jobs.208 This is an application of the

fourth Earth Democracy principle – which calls for the sustenance

of all people – as well as the second Earth Democracy principle

which advocates for the inclusion of all people in decisions

which affect the community. Clearly amidst the violations of

208 Lori McNelly, “Local leaders show unity for USEC,” Portsmouth Daily Times, November 14, 2002, sec. A1. Associated Press, “Strickland: Gore wants Piketon evaluated,” Portsmouth Daily Times, June 29, 2000, sec. A1.

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Earth Democracy principles, there is evidence of Earth Democracy

practice in modern times. Perhaps they reflect vestiges of the

past when the design of early Lucasville was more congruent with

Earth Democracy principles.

Other Emblems Ushering in the Market Economy

Even before the physical arrival of the atomic energy plant,

the market culture was inching its way toward Lucasville. The

rise in corporate power was a pressing topic in several issues of

Clyde Brant’s Brant’s Monthly News and Whittler’s Gazette issues,

beginning as early as the 1930’s.209 Brant resented the chain

store and saw it as a harbinger for the disappearance of the

local community general store. This meant the end of the small,

honest, and interconnected community that a general store like

Brant’s supported: while the chain store might be a source of

goods for the community which enabled its members to supplement

agricultural production, it would not replace the communal

gathering, fair dealings whittling, and communal assistance that

the general store provided.

209 O.O. McIntyre, “General Store Proprietor Beats Chain Store Competition and Depression by Advertising,” Brant’s Monthly News, August 12, 1934,1.

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With development, Lucasville became less agricultural and

more devoted to the market economy. A secondary period of

development occurred when the Maximum Security Prison was to be

built in Lucasville in 1970. At the same time a vocational

center was being built. The arrival of these institutions

inspired some people in Lucasville to create development plans

that would move the center of Lucasville closer to the Maximum

Security Prison, high school, and local residential communities.

But this did not occur. The central part of the town remained on

Highway 23, ensuring that Lucasville would remain a more of a pit

stop town.

A community newsletter of the sixties focused on the market

development of Lucasville. In their attempt to improve the

community through social involvement the newsletter authors

demonstrated a basic aspect of an Earth Democracy – prioritizing

the participation of all community members to achieve a common

goal of social betterment.210 However, their goal for union was

mainly motivated by market concerns: they advocated market

210 Lucasville Community Betterment Group, vol. 1, issue 2 of Town Talk, July 1960; Lucasville Community Betterment Group, no. 3 of Town Talk, September1960.

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development and championed individual rights and progress. As

was common of those times, a paranoid fear of communism saturated

the paper’s content.211 The Town Talk committee attempted to

assemble the community in an effort to make Lucasville a

developed and incorporated town, but in the end it was

unsuccessful. There was something about Lucasville that seemed

adverse to a market economy.

Conclusion

Each time I return to my hometown of Lucasville, Ohio, I

notice one remarkable trait that seems to grow more pronounced

with every new visit.212 The town, unlike the many towns of the

East Bay where I currently live, appears to be sparsely

populated. There are residential communities, situated around

the schools and across from the maximum security prison, but for

the most part, the town appears to be typical of many rural areas

or Midwestern towns, where people live on parcels of land which

211 Lucasville Community Betterment Group, ,no. 5 of Town Talk, March 1961.212 Of course, the town has not grown more sparse since my eyes had seen

it last. I have been exposed to other towns and my eyes have become accustomed to seeing compact communities that appear more interlaced. Furthermore, the illusion that Orinda is more of an involved, active town, maybe due to the many non-working mothers walking its streets, who can because oftheir husbands’ wealthy jobs, afford not to work. Whereas, usually, all of the members of legal working age in lower to middle class households of Lucasville have to work.

98

have lots and lots of acreage between them. These layouts do not

easily support an interactive and involved community. Instead of

observing people who pass each other on the sidewalk and stop at

a central meeting place to sit and talk awhile, one sees people

buzzing from one place to another via a car. They stop, only

briefly, to catch up with an acquaintance whom they have

encountered as they complete their errands. Indeed, the owner of

the private restaurant Happy Days, which is located in central

Lucasville, along route 23, says that most of his business comes

from deliveries.213 It appears that people only leave their

houses, encapsulated in their cars, in order to go to work and to

run necessary errands. For the most part, Lucasville citizens

lead individualistic, alienated lives, which are stereotypically

correlated with market economies.

An interactive community clearly exists in Orinda,

California, a small wealthy town of about 17,000 residents whose

average family household income is $117,000.214 Like most of the 213 Ben Fields, “Restaurants thrive in Lucasville”, Portsmouth Daily Times,

June 9, 2000, sec. D2.214 Epodunk, “Orinda Community Profile,” Epodunk: The Power of Place, 2007,

http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=10638 (accessed September 17, 2007). Epodunk, “Population Overview,” Epodunk: The Power of Place, 2007, http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/popInfo.php?locIndex=10638 (accessed September 17, 2007).

99

Bay area, it has created social centers and has offered

educational resources beneficial to community welfare. It has

the means to enable its residents to be economically and

environmentally conscious by providing separate bike traffic

lanes and an organized recycling system. In Lucasville, there is

neither public transportation nor roads conducive to bicyclists

so transportation between two areas necessitates the use of a

car.215 If one wants to recycle, one has to hop in the car and

drive approximately thirty minutes to a recycling center.

Lucasville, however, has not always lacked public

transportation. Before the market economy achieved dominance in

the 1950’s Lucasville had a public bus service.216 And before the

train became a vehicle used exclusively for the transportation of

coal and other resources, passenger trains carried people to

Columbus and Portsmouth.217 As the market economy grew and the

middle class increased, cars in Lucasville became commonly

accessible. No one needed public transportation anymore and it

215 Weather, also is a contributing factor, when it comes to the decisionto drive rather than ride a bicycle. But in order to give the residents of the Lucasville community the choice to practice environmental lives, the town and surrounding county ought to provide a system of public transportation.

216 Appel, 35.217 Yeager, “Childhood Memories of the Old Town Hall,” 28.

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became obsolete. And while public transportation had been

briefly available, it existed out of necessity and not because of

environmental concerns.

One cannot rule out the possibility that the wealthy

residents of Orinda are alienated from each other, even though

they appear to be passing each other more often in the community.

They, too, are members of a market economy. While their money

enables them to buy facilities conducive to community involvement

and betterment, and to live in an environmentally conscious town,

they too may be plagued by the alienation intrinsic to a

competitive market economy. One cannot deny that tensions must

exist among residents who are pressured to maintain a certain

affluent image, demonstrated by the fact that almost everyone in

the community owns a BMW or a Mercedes Benz.

While wealth has led to different social and organizational

structures in Orinda and Lucasville it has not changed the market

economy’s propensity to produce alienated and competitive

individuals. The market economy does not support the development

of interdependent communities of diverse individuals that are

joined in unity. Even though Orinda has some practices that would

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appear to support sustainability – and is located in a

progressive region known for its diversity and openness – it may

be lacking in one crucial element that would help establish an

Earth Democracy in the United States in the future. That one

element is a history as a sustenance economy.

Lucasville, on the other hand, may not be able to be as

environmentally conscious and practical or communally integrated

as other wealthier communities can afford to be. It may not be

able to offer its citizens extensive libraries and community

development centers. Yet it possesses a rich history that

includes living according to the rules of a sustenance economy.

This past should not be romanticized, for as Thomas Moore

indicates, Jung himself advised us not to conceptualize the past

according to naïve notions of the “good ole days.”218 Each era

has its advantages, disadvantages, gifts and challenges. And the

past is always recreated in order to see the present in a new

form that is unlike the past, yet recollective of it.

As anthropology informs us, the present is a historical

genealogy, which put together with past events, makes up the

218 Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994), 231-232.

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image of the present. Not built to fit the market economy suit,

nor wealthy enough to afford a tailor the present town of

Lucasville appears disheveled in the market economy. Compared to

bustling urban areas and suburban towns like Orinda, Lucasville

looks desolate, dilapidated, and derelict. However, according to

the historical accounts of Lucasville referred to in my research,

the town did at one time resemble the intimate organization found

in Orinda and other urban centers. It was a thriving center of

business and social interaction. Yet as an unincorporated town,

it could not withstand the ambitious gusts of the market economy

winds. Perhaps Lucasville’s appearance is a sign that deep down

it doesn’t want to grow exponentially, but longs for a humbler

existence – an existence known to Clyde Brant, the first white

settlers, the Shawnees, and the mound building tribes before

them. Perhaps the arable soil that is so conducive to a

sustenance economy rejected the invasive foreign market economy.

And the obstinate market economy, refusing to leave, desertified

the town. In a sense, the ghost of sustenance living reigns over

the ghost town that is present day Lucasville. Knowing the

values and the benefits of a sustenance economy the ghost of

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sustenance living rejects the purported rewards of a market

economy and refused to accept defeat.

Only three to four generations have passed since people of

Lucasville practiced a partial sustenance economy. The memory of

when people in Lucasville trusted each other enough to barter

still lingers with some current residents. Yet the sustenance

economy is not just a memory. Many residents of Lucasville tend

to vegetable gardens for their consumption. Because Lucasville

is a small town, residents know each other. Family is an

important institution for many and the virtues of honesty and

loyalty once preached by Clyde Brant are valued and practiced by

people in Lucasville today. While many people rely on the

employment provided by the uranium enrichment plant, people are

questioning the plants environmental effects and demanding that

the plant put the health of people working for the plant and

living within its proximity before the profits of enriched

uranium production. In other words, there is potential for

Lucasville citizens to come together and actually organize a

hybrid town where elements of a sustenance economy and market

economy coalesce to produce a town that enables its citizens to

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live sustainably and connected. I see potential for Lucasville

and in its tenacity to hold onto elements of a sustenance economy

and Earth Democracy I see hope for the Midwestern heartland, for

the United States, and ultimately for the world to embrace the

principles of an Earth Democracy.

105

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