Baskets Articles

In order to survive in the new world of European conquest and settlement, Indians were forced to find ways to eke out livings, and for many of them making and selling baskets and related handcrafted objects became a livelihood as well as a way to maintain some independence. Many Indian basketmakers were also skilled makers of chair seats, mats, brooms, and scrub brushes as well as wooden trays, bowls, and spoons. Ironically, just when Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) described the local Natick, Massachusetts, Indians in her novel Oldtown Folke as a "roving, uncertain class of people, ... hanging like a tattered fringe on the thrifty and well-kept petticoat of New England society," the Indians were actively making and selling the brooms, mats, scrub brushes, and newly woven chair seats that allowed Americans to maintain "well-kept" houses.