The Sign of the Beaver

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

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

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

The novel’s Beaver clan relies on beavers as a source of food and bone tools. Beaver pelts were prized in Europe, where they were made into hats. Beavers also have special scent glands called castor sacs that contain castoreum, which they use to mark their territories.