Pollution in Poullaouen

Abstract

Pollution in Poullaouen J. MORTON BRIGGS During the years 1773 to 1776, there occurred in France a series of events that might strike us as oddly anachronistic, events that could be reported today in the New York Times with almost no change. The crux of the business was a case of pollution. It took place in Brittany, the western province thatjuts out into the Atlantic and gives the country the aspect that it is looking seaward. From the ocean often come tempests, and one in 1773 caused a new sort of disaster: runofffrom heavy rains carried debris from a lead and silver mine over adjacent meadows and leached contaminants into nearby streams, wreaking environmental havoc throughout the region. Complaints arose, court cases were filed, and more than two years ofinvestigation and litigation followed. As it happened, the grievants won—at least at first. And not the least piquant aspect of this litiga­ tion was that they were led by a woman, a countess. To look at these events, however, is to immediatelyraise a theoreti­ cal issue. The subject clearly involves what is sometimes called envi­ ronmental history, a field somewhat amorphous in its structure, pres­ ently in what (following Thomas Kuhn) might be called its “pre­ paradigm” period. Scholars have tended to treat environmental his­ tory as an aspect ofeconomic history or as technological history, and even the models of technological history have changed in the last few years.1 In some contrast to those tendencies, Donald Worster has sug­ gested that environmental history has three levels. The first “in­ volves the structure and distribution of natural environments of the Dr. Briggs is professor of history at the University of Rhode Island. He thanks the University of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Foundation for the time and the financial assistance that enabled him to conduct the research for this article. Much of the material is taken from the Archives Nationales in Paris, principally but not exclusively from Folio F/14/8073, and from the Archives Departmentales of Finistère in Quimper, Brittany. Abbreviations: AN = Archives Nationales; AD = Ar­ chives Departmentales. 'See Luis Pablo Martinez, “History of Technology and STS Studies: A Critical Approach,” Science, Technology and Society, Curriculum Newsletter of the Lehigh Uni­ versity STS Program, no. 105 (Fall 1995), esp. p. 3.© 1997 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/97/3803-0004$02.00 635 636 J. Morton Briggs past.” The second “focuses on productive technology as it interacts with the environment.” The third “is that more intangible, purely mental type of encounter in which perceptions, ideologies, ethics, laws and myths have become part of an individual’s or group’s dia­ logue with nature.” Worster makes clear that the challenge lies not simply in identifying these levels, “but in deciding how and where to make connections among them.”2 This program would seem to constitute another definition of cultural history, at least that part of culture that has a “dialogue with nature.” Since “nature” is itself an elusive and historically changing icon, it may be that cultural his­ tory is the broader research program within which environmental history can be subsumed.3 In this study, the natural environment is the climate, geography, and geology of Brittany. The true subject, however, is the connec­ tions between Worster’s levels two and three: the technology of min­ ing, its effects on the surrounding lands, and the various perceptions ofnature held by those involved. The emergence of the idea ofprog­ ress and its specific manifestations add a further complication. Given the range ofWorster’s third level, the analysis can become complex, and we must go to the details to work it out. 2Donald Worster, “Transformations of the Earth: Toward an Agroecological Per­ spective in History,” Journal ofAmerican History 76 (March 1990): 1087-106; quote on pp. 1090-91. Worster’s article, the accompanying criticisms, and his rejoinder are a good summary of historians’ thinking about environmentalism, at least in the early 1990s. A somewhat shortened version of the article is reprinted in Major Problems in American Environmental History, ed. Carolyn Merchant (Lexington, Mass., 1993). ’The word nature is a great catchall and was...