Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia by Luke Manget

Abstract

Reviewed by: Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia by Luke Manget Riccardo D'Amato (bio) Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia. By Luke Manget. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2022. Pp. 304. $27.95 cloth) In Ginseng Diggers, Luke Manget uses the Appalachian commons to argue against the idea that top-down extractive capitalism was an inevitable development. He demonstrates that the enclosure of the commons and the disappearance of commons practices was contingent upon several factors. Using ginseng as a lens due to its desirability in an international marketplace, Manget argues that the commons and national markets can coexist in a profitable and sustainable way. Building off previous work on the Appalachian commons, such as Kathryn Newfont's Blue Ridge Commons and Steven Stoll's Ramp Hollow, Ginseng Diggers tracks the use, change, and enclosure of the commons across centuries. Manget uses an impressive range of store business ledgers, writings on botanical medicine, travel journals, and export statistics to track the evolution of ginseng harvesting. Manget begins with eighteenth-century botanists' failures to cultivate the root, ensuring markets relied on wild harvesting. Man-get tracks market networks where individual diggers sold to local stores, which contracted with larger resellers who moved ginseng from commons collection to global markets. By the antebellum period, as ginseng declined beyond the Appalachians, the human-ginseng relationship evolved into a "commons culture." Harvesters and storekeepers developed ginseng conservation practices that were "incorporated into the seasonal routines of rural communities" (p. 61). Diggers waited for ginseng to produce berries before harvesting, while storekeepers refused to purchase young or out-of-season roots. The Civil War eroded these traditions and spread devastation to the region's land and people. Ginseng harvesting provided needed [End Page 65] income to struggling farmers after the war but became less of a subsidiary practice. Mountain families no longer trusted neighbors to observe sustainable harvesting and robust Chinese demand drove rising prices. Prices rose from $0.56 per pound in 1860 to $2.03 per pound by 1883, providing specialized diggers a meaningful income. Some families identified their occupation as "sang diggers" in the 1880 census, acknowledging "the general catchall label 'farmer' no longer applied to them" (p. 155). After the Civil War, commons harvesting saved many rural families from starvation, but overharvesting and habitat destruction from extractive industry made the root scarcer. The rhetoric of overharvesting resulted in numerous enclosure laws during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Landowners seeking to benefit from increased ginseng prices obtained state legislation to criminalize ginseng harvesting on private land. Kentucky was among the earliest, making digging ginseng behind a "lawful fence" a felony in 1902 (p. 188). These efforts, alongside ecological changes, "ultimately led to the physical and cultural reorientation of ginseng from a commons commodity to a private one" (p. 189). The "sang digger" stereotype and portrayals of an ignorant mountaineer who overharvested ginseng framed the digger as the enemy of industrial "progress" and played a role in the enclosure of the commons. Ginseng Diggers is a powerful account of a multitude of topics. It is an Appalachian history, a history of capitalism, and a history of commons usage. Examining ginseng counteracts mythologies of Appalachian isolationism and deconstructs capitalism's self-justifications for enclosure. If commons and national markets can peacefully coexist, we can create alternative ideas to capitalism's current forms. Extractive industry has long been a central theme to the Appalachian historiography. Ginseng Diggers identifies how those industries fought to enclose and supplant the commons in Appalachia. Extraction did not "naturally" replace commons practices and was never an inevitable development. Reconstructing the decline of ginseng commons practices helps us reimagine current extractive practices in Appalachia. [End Page 66] In a region historically plagued by extractive industry, new interpretations of capitalism may be exactly what is needed. For that, Ginseng Diggers is an impressive step forward. Riccardo D'Amato RICCARDO D'AMATO is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Kentucky. His dissertation research focuses on flooding and water utilities in central Appalachia. Copyright © 2022 Kentucky Historical Society