Idealisms to Blame
To compare the ecosystems of New England before and after the colonists arrived is to compare two different and ecologically distant places. In the early 1600's New England was a seemingly untouched plethora of animals and plant life. The only inhabitants within this land were several Native American Tribes (Cronon pg. 5). Then the colonists arrived with their European ideals, diseases, and unquenchable thirst for profit. Some historians blame the entire systematic deterioration of the lands ecosystems on the colonists. While other historians dare to speculate that the Native Americans, in fact, contributed to the destruction as well. One thing remains invariable: the New England described in the 1600's is unrecognizable when compared to the one of the 1800's. The colonists defiantly had the largest footprint and gave the metaphoric snowball its push towards a means to an end. The colonists' ideology and capitalist belligerence towards commodification forced the land and the Natives to drastically transform. Based upon passages from the historical monograph, Changes in the Land, William Cronon eludes that the "European invasion was the chief agent of environmental change" (Cronon pg. 161). Cronon
In the month of March, the men hunted the rivers for smelt. The land was seen as saleable plots. Theses burnings were being done before the Colonists arrived. Cronon gives the colonists the blame they earned; the colonists were morally and fundamentally at fault for corrupting a virgin ground and people. Some historians claim that the Natives were at fault for letting the situation progress to the level that it did. They did not hunt and farm for profit but rather for preserving their lives. how some have killed a hundred geese in a week, fifty ducks at a shot, forty teals at another" (Cronon pg. writes that the colonists came to New England with certain expectations of wealth and prosperity that forced their surroundings to change. The Native Americans were only interested in what they needed and did not waste anything. They were fishing and hunting faster than the fish and animals could reproduce. Cronon goes on to point out that the English caused the Natives to change from an early village system with hunting and gathering tendencies to one in which they settled in place with crops and domesticated animals.
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