This is a book review of sorts from a graduate history course at UMass called Agrarian Societies. One of the requirements was a weekly written report for class discussion, this one on William Cronon's beautiful book Changes in the Land. Cronon is the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor Emeritus of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"My teaching and research specializations focus principally on the environmental history, landscape history, and historical geography of North America, concentrating mainly on the United States with a secondary interest in Canada. I am committed to history that makes the past come alive for public audiences, both in the form of written storytelling and the many new media that have become available in this digital age. My current projects include a book on The Making of the American Landscape and a history of Portage, Wisconsin since the last Ice Age."
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-Kevin Delaney, Sherborn History Center Board member
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Cronon, William. Changes in the Land. New York: Hill & Wang, 1983.
The first thought that occurred to many British colonists upon arrival in New England was one of sheer abundance. Sailing through the Grand Banks off the coast of Nova Scotia which teemed with fish "almost beyond beleeving," and into New England's natural harbors, unending forests of old growth timber including Eastern White Pine, Oak, Chestnut, Hickory, and Elm, towered up to 250 feet tall and 5 feet thick over them. Coming from a land where centuries of environmental exploitation resulted in mass deforestation, early settlers were too often easily convinced that this "land of plenty" would greatly facilitate survival. Colonists' letters back to the old country regularly allude to this abundance of natural resources, a land where a man could kill a dozen turkeys in half a day, fifty ducks in a shot, and "Beares...Deere...Also Wolves, Foxes, Beavers, Otters, Martins, and a great beast called a Molke(moose) as bigge as an Oxe." (P.21-23)
These migrating Europeans also encountered the Eastern Woodlands Indians upon arrival, who posed a perplexing contradiction for them. Firstly, how did they get here? There was no mention of them in the Bible - maybe they were the lost descendants of Ham, Noah's half brother who was believed to be the father of the Egyptians (they noted how inhabitants had some similar physical attributes). Others thought they were once the residents who fled from Atlantis. A third conception, later espoused by Thomas Jefferson and more scientific in perspective, was that these people were relatives of Asians. The dark eyes, black straight hair, wide cheeks, and subtle epicanthic eyefolds led to this conclusion, which has been proven by subsequent anthropological research. In any event, the European perspective was one of relative dismay, for how could a people live so much like "paupers" of the old world here? The early colonial mindset was that if the Indians could live off the bountiful land without any apparent effort, then they certainly could, given their obvious technological superiority.
What early colonists failed to realize was that the Americans Indians did, in fact, have a highly evolved and efficient approach to land maintenance. The Europeans could not easily see what kind of management was taking place, other than the existence of a few scattered corn fields here and there. In New England, the central conflict which was to result from the two distinct cultures was Indian mobility versus British fixity. American Indians had developed a finely tuned system for survival that relied upon movement, thus adapting themselves to the periodicity of the abundance. For example, in northern New England, Native Americans moved to where they could catch the smelt that arrived in March, then to the streams and rivers which provided Alewives and Salmon in April, ocean fishing (Cod) and migrating bird's eggs provided May's sustenance, and the fall brought the reverse bird migration, and bountiful nuts and berries (it is interesting to note that Indian month names reflect the food source of that month).
Southern New England Indians were a bit more sedentary than their northern cousins, relying on "swidden cultivation" in addition to the gathering of wild foods. Farming, by nature, requires longer term stays in a given area. Without the use of iron plows and tools, how did the American Indians deal with forest clearing? Agriculture, by and large, was the women's responsibility, but the men began the process by girdling trees, whereby they stripped off a wide swath of bark from the perimeter of the tree, ultimately killing it. An area of two to three acres was girdled and then set afire, burning off the undergrowth and adding nutrients to the soil. Women then planted multi-fields, consisting of maize (corn), beans, and squash/pumpkins. This unique method allowed for agricultural symbiosis, for the corn stalks acted as the bean poles, and the leafy squash plant kept the soils moist and inhibited weed growth. After two to three years of such production, they repeated the process, moving to another area and allowing the previous land to recover. These recovery areas themselves attracted game to the resulting meadows.
The European concept of land use contrasted that of the Indians in several fundamental respects. While the American Indians believed in a more communal approach to land ownership, the British arrived with the concept of private property. In their view and according to the Bible Genesis 1.28, ownership was determined by the ability to 'subdue the land'. In their minds, the Indians were not evidently doing this, and therefore the land was theirs for the taking/purchasing. While the land contained unlimited resources, the British believed that it still needed to be improved through the tilling of the soil, erection of farm buildings, and the setting of fences.
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The English chopped down trees which they left to rot or burn for cordwood (an average family burned 40 cords per year!). They tagged and chopped down many of the mighty pines for ship masts, frequently using "driving a piece" methodology, whereby they cut and set down dozen smaller trees to break the fall of the larger prize. They opened up permanent arable and pasture lands, rapidly changing the geographical appearance and altering the soils. The ground dried out without the primeval shade, and the snow, which normally melted slowly and soaked into the ground, ran off causing erosion and flooding.
The English permitted their livestock, especially pigs, to run wild in the forest to fatten up, their brands indicating possession upon recapture in the fall. The Indians, however, never needed fences around their fields, which were devoured by the free roaming sows, and they ultimately, with persuasion, began fencing as well (later ordinances required pigs to be ringed through their noses to inhibit rooting out crops).
Changes in the land resulted from the unconscious introduction of several European plant and animal species as well. Weeds became a more widespread problem with the dandelion, stinging nettles, and plantain, which the Indians called "Englishmen's Foot" because it grew uncontrollably wherever they set foot. Animals like the rat, house mouse, the cockroach, the black fly, and the Hessian fly were stowaways on colonial-bound ships.
Disease was certainly the most devastating passenger to the Americas, for which Native American Indians had no natural immunities. The first recorded epidemic took place in 1616, when chicken pox ravaged up and down Cape Cod. The small pox arrived as well, resulting in a horrendous epidemic in 1633, leaving 95% death rates in villages struck. These catastrophes greatly facilitated the Puritanical mission, for lands were being opened up due to both mortality and the resulting social upheaval in Native American communities.
Such drastic changes resulted from the cultural, physiological, and biological collisions between two (or more) fundamentally distinct cultures. It was, and is, a dynamic process that in many ways continues to this day as our earth shrinks and exchanges between disparate and isolated groups increase rapidly.