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Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England

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I found this book very compelling, and would highly reccomend it for anyone interested in ecology, land ownership, or New England. Below is a recap of the most important points I took away from Cronon's book:

The main point William Cronon explains in Changes in the Land is why the landscape of New England differs in 1800 at the start of the industrial revolution from 1600 prior to the arrival of the first Europeans, clearing up some misconceptions about this change along the way. He first emphasizes that the common conception of New England as a dense primeval forest is not wholly correct. Understanding of early New England ecology is based on journals and reports of the Europeans who first visited and settled there, whose viewpoints were not those of scientists but rather of farmers, trappers, and merchants. Because of this, descriptions of New England were based on what Europe was not, and tells as much about conditions of England of that time as they do of new England. Europe was disease-ridden, crowded, cold (with firewood being a luxury), but civilized. New England was thus described as a healthy, rat-free, dense forest just waiting for the touch of God via man's hand to tame it. While these points were true, New England was also a diverse area with landscapes varying from the dense forests of northern New England, the open glades of southern New England, the seashore to the salt marshes.

The Indians recognized this diversity of their land, and in order to utilize the wide variety of natural resources available, a mobile lifestyle had to be adopted. A nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle does not lead to accumulation of goods because one's possession must be carried on one's back. In turn, status within a tribe was not garnered through collection of goods, but through kin relation and prowess of the hunt. The lack of emphasis on ownership extended to the land. While a tribe could have or give rights to a particular use of an area of land for the duration of its use (for example for one harvest), land ownership was not as all-consuming and permanent as the European definition of it.

Europeans ventured to a new land, but kept their old ideas of ownership and commodity alive. To them, the Indians lack of settlement and "improvement" on the land represented a laziness of the Indians. Thus, the only land that truly belonged to the Indians was the land women planted crops. This excluded the much larger Indian ranges of land where hunting, trapping, and gathering was done, so that "English colonists could use Indian hunting and gathering for expropriating Indian land" (56). As land available for Indian usage disappeared, the Indians had to adopt a more sedentary life that interacted with European demands and economies. Because resources were abundant, and labor was scarce (the opposite situation of Europe), policies were adopted that maximized labor with no regard for resources, leading to wastefulness of the forest for lumber, fuel, and clearing of the land. An example of this was `driving a piece' "in which lumberers cut notches in a row of small trees and then felled a larger tree on top of them, thus cushioning its fall so as to protect it from shattering" (111). The early settler's wastefulness even horrified fellow Westerners in Europe, causing an observer to write of Americans, "their eyes are fixed upon the present gain, and they are blind to the future" (122).

Besides the decline of trees and the animals that habituated in them, the effects of deforestation were felt strongly in the climate. The forest provided a buffer against extreme conditions. Without it, summers were hotter, winters were colder, and the ground froze deeper. The water-holding capacity of the land was reduced, causing greater run-offs and flooding, and finally resulting in dry soil and erratic streams that were dry for much of the year. Despite the changing negative conditions, the mind-set of resources equaling commodity caused colonists to "understand what they were doing in almost wholly positive terms, not as `deforestation,' but as `the progress of cultivation'" (126), which is still the mindset that exists in many today.

At one point in my life, I read every single thing ever written on the Puritans; I was preparing for a dissertation that took me a year to prepare for, only to find somebody else published almost exactly what I was working on a month before I sat down to write. To this day, I have an inordinate fondness for books on the Puritans that mystifies my friends. Like all fans, I know everything there is to know about the subject at hand. So my joy in discovering "Changes in the Land" was in finding a book that told me much that I didn't know about the Puritans. William Cronon, a student of my favorite colonial historian Edmund Morgan, has come up with an excellent mix of ecology and anthropology, history and theology. The development of New England as a land separate from the Indians, and from their uses of the land, is one which resonates throughout American mythology. From the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving (wherein their wholesale adoption of Indian agriculture kept them starving) to the wholesale abandonment of New England farms in the early 1800s due to their miniscule returns, Cronon covers all the bases. A truly fine read for anybody wishing to know more about the history of ecology, the dynamics of invasion, or the Puritans themselves.

Make no mistake about it. An interdisciplinary interpretation of history is here to stay. Thanks to farsighted historians like Dr. William Cronon and his ethno-ecological study of New England, circa 1600 to1800, entitled Changes in the Land, an enlightening perception of colonial times in New England is depicted by a well-documented mix of anthropology, ecology, sociology, biology, and environmental history. The actual text of the book comprises 171 pages with no less than 35 pages of notes, and an innovative bibliographical essay encourages further study. Cronon clearly states his thesis and purpose for the book in the preface, "the shift from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes" (vii). Cronon not only evaluates the reorganization of people but also stresses the effects of changes on the New England plant and animal populations. With political and military history kept to a minimum, an intriguing analysis compares the ecological histories of the New England Indians to the European settlers and reveals the resulting environmental alterations incurred. There were basic ethno-ecological differences between how both cultures viewed the earth. The New England Indians perceived the natural world with reciprocal sustenance (63) for 10,000 years (33), but the colonists envisioned commodities and wealth in what the earth could provide (75). Within the short period of two hundred years, the environment of New England could not sustain the few Indians who survived the diseases of the Europeans, because the land, plants, animals, and even the climate had changed (169).

These changes seemed very subtle at first. In order to trade for metal utensils, the Indians killed more and more beaver (83). In this way the Indians started to view nature, or their environment, as a commodity instead of a gift to be shared (92). Cronon does not assume that the Indians had no effect upon their native environment (viii) nor that the colonists came to a pristine wilderness (11). What Cronon does enumerate is how the two sets of ecological relationships, Indian and colonist, came to live upon the same land (15). Early in the affiliation, the European settlers came to disrespect the Indians, because although the Indians lived in a land overflowing with natural "wealth," the Indians looked like the poor back in Europe (54). Marshall Sahlins is quoted by Cronon, "there are in fact two ways to be rich, [. . .] Wants may be `easily satisfied' either by producing much or desiring little" (79-80). The indigenous residents of New England desired little, while the European colonists seemed economically motivated to produce much from the land and introduced the Old World concepts of value and scarcity, using cost as the only constraint to consider (81) (168).

Unfortunately, neither the land nor the Indians could withstand the monumental alterations to come: an Indian "money" system in the form of wampum (97), epidemics which wiped out entire villages (85-90), the severe reduction in native animal populations (98-101), domesticated animals that grazed wildly on indigenous plants and even ocean clams (128-150), deforestation (109-126), the surface of the earth responding more drastically to climatic changes (122-123), flooding (124), the "drying up of streams and springs" (125), land ownership and pastoralism replacing shared land conservation (137-141), soil depletion (147-152), and the introduction of weeds and migrant pests (153-155). The New England landscape went from forests and freedom to "fields and fences" (156). This book vividly correlates the significant and divergent relationship between the New England Indians, the colonial settlers, and the environment they could no longer share. Changes in the Land by William Cronon, winner of the 1984 Francis Parkman Prize, serves as a fine academic example in cross-curricular historical documentation.

I have never read a book that explains the complex interactions between Native Americans, Europeans and their environments quite so well. It is the common sense conclusion that results when you consider the written records of the day, the pollen records available, and the ecology of the New England landscape today. The first time I read it, I found myself saying 'of course' over and over again. Of all the books I've read on the ecological history of this country, this is the ONE I recommend most.

What Cronon does with this book that is quite ground-breaking is to understand the events surrounding the arrival of colonists in the new world not in terms of colonists arriving in a pristine, untouched wilderness. Instead he carefully shows how the Native Americans had been shaping their environment quite significantly for hundreds of years before contact with europeans. He also shows how the idea of the commodity shaped the differences between "Western" and "Native" land use practices.
The book is immaculately researched and thouroughly footnoted. It is a must read for anyone interested in the history of New England or even just in how people interact with their eco-system in general.

Changes in the Land is a combination of Indian ethnography, anthropology, biology, ecology and the Indian-White relations in New England from 1600-1800. The main purpose of this book is to explain the changes in landscape before and after the Europeans arrived.

Cronon was able to provide an examination of the three-way relationship between the Indians, Europeans and the environment. He was able to show how they interact with one another and he explained the Europeans' lack of understanding on the ecosystem. He was not bias in his explanation, and "blamed it all" on the Europeans because the Indians were, on their part, participated in the trade willingly, and thus, were thrown into the European market economy. However, he did explain that this whole process was initiated by the Europeans.

Cronon did an excellent job in explaining the complex relationship between the Indians, Europeans and the environment. It is not possible to study the Indian-Europeans relationship without including the environment in their interaction which a lot of historians tend to do.

Cronin has done with this work that is so often missing in todays historical books. He has been able to tell a tale from both perspectives of the story correctly. Cronin covers the coming of the Whites to New England and the ramifications to the Indians. His narrative explains how the misunderstanding between the two races eventually led to fall of the Indians. Cronin's brilliance is that he is able to show how the indians changed their way of life voluntarily which helped excelerate their downfall. Cronin also uses the metaphor of the environment to explain the differences in thinking between the two races. This book is not a fast read, but it is certainly worth the effort.

I grew up in New England, and reading this book changed the way I looked at the world. Stone walls in the woods are commonplace, but of course, they were once fences around plowed fields. When the settlers arrived the birds darkened the skies with their numbers and one could walk across rivers due to the abundance of fish. It's one thing to lament enironmental loss, but when one sees clearly how it all used to be, the loss is even sadder.

This is a seminal history of the transition period between Native Americans and the colonists in New England and how it effected the land. It makes it easy to picture what walking through the woods and fields would be like in the 16th through 18th centuries. Even if this sounds boring -- it's not! It is sure to please anyone who loves the natural world and especially those who live in New England.

This is a ecological history of New England from 1633 to 1855. What began as heavily forested land abundant with wildlife, was slowly and inexorably domesticated and exploited. By the 1840s, Henry David Thoreau comments that New England is now a tamed, emasculated country. What would he think of New England today?