When Matt and his father build their cabin in the remote Maine forest, Matt uncritically accepts that it’s his family’s right to be there—his father bought the land from undescribed “proprietors,” who in turn bought the land from local Native tribes. However, when Matt ends up relying on the local tribe for food in exchange for teaching the chief’s son, Attean, to read, Matt slowly begins to reevaluate his beliefs about white superiority. But while Matt is eventually able to acknowledge that Attean is intelligent, knowledgeable, and a fellow human who deserves respect, he’s never fully willing or able to move away from his belief that he, as a white settler, is entitled to the land. This creates a lot of tension in the novel. For instance, Attean’s grandfather, Saknis, insists that Matt teach Attean to read so that Attean will know what future treaties say and won’t be tricked into signing away his tribe’s land. But these reading lessons take place in Matt’s cabin, on land that Attean’s tribe once called their own. And though Matt feels bad when he realizes this—and though he thinks Attean has a point when Attean asks how a person can own something like land, air, or water—Matt pushes these thoughts aside as too uncomfortable. Later, when Matt’s family arrives at the cabin and Attean and his tribe have permanently moved west, Matt wishes he knew where Attean was and that he’s okay—but he again discards these compassionate thoughts and focuses instead on what’s next for his family and the other white families settling nearby.
Additionally, Matt teaches Attean to read using the novel Robinson Crusoe, which features the titular protagonist enslaving several native people. Matt thinks of himself as a stand-in for Crusoe as he works to “tame” the wilderness and teach Attean to read, so he’s shocked when Attean points out how offensive certain parts of the novel are in their portrayal of Native people. Ultimately, though Matt concedes that Attean has a point, he never fully rejects European attitudes toward nature or indigenous peoples. Matt’s habit of simply deciding not to think critically about the various issues with colonialism that Attean raises may speak in part to Matt’s youth and immaturity. But it also highlights how pervasive the settler-colonial mindset is, suggesting that in this context, learning about Native customs and befriending Native peoples isn’t enough to change settlers’ selfish desire for land.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Colonialism, Land Rights, and Entitlement ThemeTracker
Colonialism, Land Rights, and Entitlement Quotes in The Sign of the Beaver
He was still proud of that gun, but no longer in awe of it. Carrying it over his shoulder, he set out confidently into the forest, venturing farther each day, certain of bringing home a duck or a rabbit for his dinner. For a change of diet he could take his fish pole and follow the twisting course of the creek or walk the trail his father had blazed to a pond some distance away. In no time he could catch all the fish he could eat.
“The Indians has mostly cleared out of these parts,” Ben told him. “What wasn’t killed off in the war got took with the sickness. A deal of ’em moved on to Canada. What’s left makes a mighty poor living, game gettin’ so scarce.”
“Where do they live?”
“Round about.” Ben waved vaguely toward the forest. “They make small camps for a while and then move on. The Penobscots stick like burrs, won’t give up. They still hunt and trap. No way to stop ’em. Never got it through their heads they don’t still own this land.”
“Attean learn,” he said. “White man come more and more to Indian land. White man not make treaty with pipe. White man make signs on paper, signs Indian not know. Indian put mark on paper to show him friend of white man. Then white man take land. Tell Indian cannot hunt on land. Attean learn to read white man’s signs. Attean not give away hunting grounds.”
“Nda!” he shouted. “Not so.”
Matt stopped, bewildered.
“Him never do that!”
“Never do what?”
“Never kneel down to white man!”
“But Crusoe had saved his life.”
“Not kneel down,” Attean repeated fiercely. “Not be slave. Better die.”
Matt opened his mouth to protest, but Attean gave him no chance. In three steps he was out of the cabin.
Now he’ll never come back, Matt thought. He sat slowly turning over the pages. He had never questioned that story. Like Robinson Crusoe, he had thought it natural and right that the wild man should be the white man’s slave. Was there perhaps another possibility? The thought was new and troubling.
“Let me go on,” he pleaded. “It’s different from now on. Friday—that’s what Robinson Crusoe named him—doesn’t kneel anymore.”
“Not slave?”’
“No,” Matt lied. “After that they get to be—well—companions. They share everything together.”
[...] One of the first words Crusoe taught his man Friday was the word master. Luckily he caught that one in time. And it was true, Crusoe and his new companion did go about together, sharing their adventures. Only, Matt thought, it would have been better if perhaps Friday hadn’t been quite so thickheaded. After all, there must have been a thing or two about that desert island that a native who had lived there all his life could have taught Robinson Crusoe.
“Sign show beaver house belong to people of beaver,” Attean explained. “By and by, when young beaver all grown, people of beaver hunt here. No one hunt but people of beaver.”
“You mean, just from that mark on the tree, another hunter would not shoot here?”
“That our way,” Attean said gravely. “All Indian understand.”
Would a white man understand? Matt wondered. He thought of Ben with his stolen rifle. It wasn’t likely Ben would respect an Indian sign. But he must remember to warn his father.
He and Attean had sure enough turned that story right round about. Whenever they went a few steps from the cabin, it was the brown savage who strode ahead, leading the way, knowing just what to do and doing it quickly and skillfully. And Matt, a puny sort of Robinson Crusoe, tagged along behind, grateful for the smallest sign that he could do anything right.
It wasn’t that he wanted to be a master. And the idea of Attean’s being anyone’s slave was not to be thought of. He just wished he could make Attean think a little better of him. He wanted Attean to look at him without that gleam of amusement in his eyes. He wished that it were possible for him to win Attean’s respect.
Wherever he went now, Matt watched for Indian signs. Sometimes he could not be sure whether a branch had broken in the wind or whether an animal had scratched a queer-shaped mark on a tree trunk. Once or twice he was certain he had discovered the sign of the beaver. It was a game he played with himself. That it was not a game to Attean he was still to learn.
“My grandfather not allow beaver people to buy iron trap. Some Indian hunt like white man now. One time many moose and beaver. Plenty for all Indians and for white man too. But white man not hunt to eat, only for skin. Him pay Indian to get skin. So Indian use white man’s trap.”
Matt was puzzled. He had heard that the Indians worshipped the Great Spirit. This Gluskabe did not sound like a Great Spirit. He sounded more like one of the heroes in the old folk tales his mother had told him when he was a child. He decided it would be impolite to ask more. He wondered if the Indians had many stories like that. And how could it be that here in the forest they had learned about the flood?
Matt looked with distaste at the rabbit, almost covered by the bear’s heavy paw, the fur matted and bloody. He would rather not have touched it, but obediently he pulled it out. It was his dinner, after all. And he knew that in Attean’s world everything that was killed must be used. The Indians did not kill for sport.
“Not take me,” he admitted finally. “I not have gun.”
“You’re a good shot with a bow and arrow.”
Attean scowled. “That old way,” he said. “Good for children. Indian hunt now with white man’s gun. Someday my grandfather buy me gun. Need many beaver skins. Beaver not so many now.”
Matt understood now why Attean had defended the beaver dam so fiercely. Was it true that beaver were getting scarce? Matt thought of the village they had just left, how very poor it seemed, how few possessions the Indians could boast. For the first time Matt glimpsed how it might be for them, watching their old hunting grounds taken over by white settlers and by white traders demanding more skins than the woods could provide.
Matt was speechless. He had never dreamed that anything like this lay behind Attean’s carefree life. He had never wondered about Attean’s parents at all, only accepted without question that the boy followed his grandfather and obeyed him.
He was proud that they had wanted him to live with them. But he knew that he could never be really proud, as Attean was proud, of being a hunter. He belonged to his own people. He was bound to his own family, as Attean was bound to his grandfather. The thought he might never see his mother again was sharper than hunger or loneliness. This was the land his father had cleared to make a home for them all. It was his own land, too. He could not run away.
“This land,” he said slowly, “this place where my father built his cabin. Did it belong to your grandfather? Did he own it once?”
“How one man own ground?” Attean questioned.
“Well, my father owns it now. He bought it.”
“I not understand.” Attean scowled. “How can man own land? Land same as air. Land for all people to live on. For beaver and deer. Does deer own land?”
How could you explain, Matt wondered, to someone who did not want to understand? Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a sudden suspicion that Attean was making sense and he was not. It was better not to talk about it.
Afterwards, for the first time in weeks, he took down Robinson Crusoe. Reading by the firelight, he felt drowsy and contented. Life on a warm island in the Pacific might be easier, but tonight Matt thought that he wouldn’t for a moment have given up his snug cabin buried in the snow.
