Changes in the Land Indians Colonists and the Ecology of New England eBook William Cronon
Download As PDF : Changes in the Land Indians Colonists and the Ecology of New England eBook William Cronon 
Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize
Changes in the Land offers an original and persuasive interpretation of the changing circumstances in New England's plant and animal communities that occurred with the shift from Indian to European dominance. With the tools of both historian and ecologist, Cronon constructs an interdisciplinary analysis of how the land and the people influenced one another, and how that complex web of relationships shaped New England's communities.
Changes in the Land Indians Colonists and the Ecology of New England eBook William Cronon
Perhaps it is appropriate that this book review be done at this particular time; since it is so much about the convergence of cultures in early America and how the use of resources changed as a result. This is especially important as we pause for the holidays and the bounties that are so much a part of the American experience.William Cronin has been a leading figure in the study of the environmental history of the American West for a generation. This book is one of the reasons why. It is an elegant study, at once entertaining and enlightening as well as seminal in its characterization of the New England frontier and the relationships of the native population to the English immigrants in their homeland.
Cronin’s thesis is straightforward. As he characterized it: “the shift from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes—well known to historians—in the ways these peoples organized their lives, but it also involved fundamental reorganizations—less well known to historians—in the region’s plant and animal communities. To the cultural consequences of the European invasion—what historians sometimes call ‘the frontier process’—we must add the ecological ones as well” (p. xv). So true, but that insight was lost on many earlier historians who had previously studied native/English interactions. What Cronin offers is a well-researched, effectively-argued, and finely-honed explanation of this situation.
Chapters on the landscape and its changes over time, the different natures of agriculture among the native and English populations, ownership and patterns of use, and the interactions of both communities bring this together in a useful manner. Accessing standard historical materials as well as works in archaeology, anthropology, plant and animal science, and climatology Cronin synthesizes a major historical episode in a new way.
His greatest conclusion, at least from my perspective, harkens back to the “frontier thesis” of Frederick Jackson Turner. Turner asserted, and I believe Turner was correct that this was the case, that the broad expanse of land available dominated the thinking of Europeans coming to America and prompted a structuring of the American experience along a specific path. Cronin makes the case that this European path was uniquely destructive to the New England ecology. “They assumed the limitless availability of more land to exploit,” he wrote, “and in the long run that was impossible” (p. 169). Ultimately, Cronin noted, “the people of plenty were a people of waste” (p. 170).
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Changes in the Land Indians Colonists and the Ecology of New England eBook William Cronon Reviews
While knowing all on this subject is impossible, the insights gained through following the ecology back to the human influence that created the conditions that can be detailed or inferred makes the changes that occur and the reasons for them more astonishing than any other history I've read. I was lead to this book by reading 1491, which takes a crack at the history of all of the Americas after contact with Euros. I there were the kind of records available that allowed Cronin to piece together his amazing chronology of the colonial northeastern North America for the rest of the Americas, we would have a much better idea of how the original occupants of these continents shaped the land, the flora and fauna, and the cultures of which we only have remnants of history. Cronin's book provides a different way of understanding what happened. It is one of the most revealing books I can recall on any topic. Very fun to read, and sometimes I had to slow down and read very carefully to make sure I was understanding what his research implies.
This is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. It is absolutely packed with important information and insightful analysis. If you are interested in ecology, Native Americans, history, anthropology, economics and the law you have a lot to learn in this book. Cronon describes how the Native Americans lived before the Europeans came and how their hunter-gatherer lifestyle shaped the land and forests. The colonists found land that was far from being wilderness. He discusses the misunderstanding between their concept of how to use the land and the Europeans' concept of land as real estate that was rightfully owned by whoever could "put it to good use" as laid out in Genesis in the Bible. I could go on and on.
I only picked this up in support of the author after I read a bit about his role in the recent Wisconsin protests and the repercussions he faced therefor. I didn't actually expect to like the book. It sounded like a dry, academic study of a topic I wasn't much interested in. I couldn't have been more wrong. This book is not only fascinating and illuminative of a much overlooked and misunderstood period in history, but it is also relevant to aspects of today's political and economic struggles.
Admittedly, the book gets off to a slow start. The first section explores what we are able to know about New England ecology before and during the colonial period, and the limitations on how we know it. The first chapter of the second section is an exploration of the diversity of New England ecology, both between the general northern and southern regions, as well as among the various "patchworks" of ecological areas within the two regions. These sections form a necessary base for the remainder of the book, but they are rather dry and academic.
But beginning with the chapter "Seasons of Want and Plenty", Cronon gets into the real meat of his argument the differences between the ways Indians vs. colonists used the land and the fundamental incompatibility of the two.
I learned in school that the Indians had no system for surveying land, nor even a concept of land ownership. In fact, I learned, they didn't even believe land could be owned, and out of ignorance or for sport they would often sell the same parcel to different colonial groups, or to the same group multiple times. Cronon explodes the fallacy in that understanding. Indians did indeed have an understanding of land ownership, it's just that their understanding was fundamentally different from the colonists' understanding. Indians tended to own the land in common with their tribes, and various land use rights were recognized between and within the tribes. The right to hunt on certain land, for instance, could be sold - even sold to different parties - while still maintaining tribal ownership of the land itself.
But to the colonists, however, land ownership included all rights thereto and accrued to the individual owner thereof (although most colonial villages did have common areas of land). Therefore, one of the first acts of each successive group of colonists was to mark the boundaries of their property, generally by the use of a fence, thereby prohibiting any use by any other parties. From the start, the two ways of life were mutually exclusive.
Although the Indians, particularly in Southern New England, did practice agriculture, it was a semi-nomadic form of agriculture that depended on land use more than land ownership. The Indians tilled a particular field only for a few years before moving on and clearing another field, allowing the previous one to lie fallow and become overgrown. The Indians also made great use of controlled burning to clear fields. This prevented the decrease in soil fertility caused by overfarming, as well as creating great areas of borderlands between woodlands and fields, areas particularly hospitable to various berry plants and wildlife used for food and hides. These practices created the conditions for the great abundance of food, trees, and wildlife which so astounded the colonists.
Unlike the Indians who saw this "natural" abundance as simply a means of sustaining life according to the season, the colonists saw each particular resource as a commodity to be owned, used, exploited and sold for profit. Trees, for instance, were in great demand for building houses and ships, fuel for warmth during the long winters, and export especially because of England's tree shortage at the time. The means by which the colonists claimed, harvested and transported these resources, however, ultimately undermined the conditions necessary to supply such resources in such abundance. Trees were rapidly cleared to create fields, thereby leaving a dearth of trees for other purposes. Fields were planted at maximum levels with single crops year after year, thereby depleting soil fertility. Beaver and other animals were hunted to near extinction, at least within New England.
In fact, Cronon argues, this commoditization of the resources of the New World was the beginning of the rise of the capitalist economy in America, even though capitalism as it's understood today didn't truly develop until the Industrial Revolution.
Cronon's book is somewhat slim, but it is dense. It is packed with consideration of how little things impacted the ecology and economy in big and often unexpected ways. The colonists brought many unfamiliar organisms to the New World - seeds that grew to become invasive species, pigs that wreaked havoc with farming and gathering of berries, diseases for which the Indians had no defense. While many of the changes the colonists wrought were intentional, many were not, but the impact was just as great.
In addition to being a sweeping academic survey, Cronon's book is also a masterful narrative. He's not only listing the changes in different plant and animal species and the differences in land use, but he's telling a story of how those changes affected human lives, both the Indians and the colonists. It is a truly engaging account of the causes and effects which form the basis of the earliest history of our country and which still have echoes today.
Cronon was, it seems, a bit of a pioneer with this book. I've recently read several books which explore how advances in anthropology, archeology and ecology have led to enormous gains in knowledge of Indian cultures and have produced radical changes in our understanding thereof, but Cronon helped to set these advances in motion simply by considering and exploring the impact of seemingly small and minor things that most of us take for granted. Highly recommended.
Perhaps it is appropriate that this book review be done at this particular time; since it is so much about the convergence of cultures in early America and how the use of resources changed as a result. This is especially important as we pause for the holidays and the bounties that are so much a part of the American experience.
William Cronin has been a leading figure in the study of the environmental history of the American West for a generation. This book is one of the reasons why. It is an elegant study, at once entertaining and enlightening as well as seminal in its characterization of the New England frontier and the relationships of the native population to the English immigrants in their homeland.
Cronin’s thesis is straightforward. As he characterized it “the shift from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes—well known to historians—in the ways these peoples organized their lives, but it also involved fundamental reorganizations—less well known to historians—in the region’s plant and animal communities. To the cultural consequences of the European invasion—what historians sometimes call ‘the frontier process’—we must add the ecological ones as well” (p. xv). So true, but that insight was lost on many earlier historians who had previously studied native/English interactions. What Cronin offers is a well-researched, effectively-argued, and finely-honed explanation of this situation.
Chapters on the landscape and its changes over time, the different natures of agriculture among the native and English populations, ownership and patterns of use, and the interactions of both communities bring this together in a useful manner. Accessing standard historical materials as well as works in archaeology, anthropology, plant and animal science, and climatology Cronin synthesizes a major historical episode in a new way.
His greatest conclusion, at least from my perspective, harkens back to the “frontier thesis” of Frederick Jackson Turner. Turner asserted, and I believe Turner was correct that this was the case, that the broad expanse of land available dominated the thinking of Europeans coming to America and prompted a structuring of the American experience along a specific path. Cronin makes the case that this European path was uniquely destructive to the New England ecology. “They assumed the limitless availability of more land to exploit,” he wrote, “and in the long run that was impossible” (p. 169). Ultimately, Cronin noted, “the people of plenty were a people of waste” (p. 170).
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