James Macon SimonsonHIST 3327Dr. Erica MorinSeptember 11, 2013

Book Review 1

Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill & Wang, 1983/2003.

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

William Cronon thoroughly described the ecological consequences resulting from European

settlement and influences they bestowed upon the Native American way of life. After reading

this book, Cronon provides the reader with a well-rounded understanding of the change that the

New England region underwent and why and how it happened.

Beginning with the Native Americans, the author describes their view point of the land as

something that isn’t meant to be segmented and dispersed into property that can be individually

owned and fenced. Contrary to this Native thought process, the English settlers brought with

them, the ideology of profit via “commodities” or “resources”. The Indians realistically knew

nothing about Europe and the societal norms and livelihood’s that English settlers brought with

them upon their arrival. Cronon repeatedly references the value of timber and fur in Europe, a

society that had to invoke restrictions on its people to preserve the game and wood (particularly

valuable as fuel) because they knew there wasn’t an infinite supply. When the European settlers

landed in America, they brought this knowledge with them and basically saw dollar signs. The

Native Americans couldn’t have possibly known that English settlers perceived this new found

land as an abundant source of massive potential profit. They did figure it out however, but

probably a little too late. The Indians didn’t understand the value of their native land, and the

European settlers knew this and were very eager to exploit this ignorance and found it very easy

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to do so through various means of justification. The Indians lived freely off the land, never

overhunting or overfishing because they lived a leisurely lifestyle. They only took what they

needed to comfortably survive. They lived a somewhat nomadic lifestyle that made yielding

more than what was necessary inefficient. Indians did not inherently partake in a society where

personal assets and various forms of collateral (save wampum) determined status or wealth and

power. The Europeans did. They perceived the vast amounts of timber, like gigantic white pines

unseen in Europe, to be of the utmost value. Also, overtime through trade shipments, the new

colonists recognized the value of furs like beaver pelts, due to their growing popularity as a

fashionable item in Europe. As a result of this recognition of potential profit through hunting and

lumbering, the colonists established an economy that started an ecological evolution in the New

England region.

In the book, Cronon discusses the European colonization of New England up unto the

nineteenth century through several avenues. He explains how settlers attained property and

wealth through deforestation, catastrophic decline of the Indians, the introduction of

domesticated livestock and the continuous growth of the European population.

To begin this discussion, the book states that, “Of all the many organisms Europeans

carried to America, none of them were more devastating to the Indians than the Old World

diseases” (Cronon, 85). Simply put, these diseases that were carried over from Europe greatly

decreased the Native American population in the discussed region. This, in a sense, helped pave

the way for colonists and justified their means to obtain property. “To Puritans, the epidemics

were manifestly a sign of God’s providence” and furthermore they believed that “in sweeping

away great multitudes of the natives… that he might make room for us there” (Cronon, 90).

However awful and comical this belief may seem, it is what some colonists did believe, or at

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least helped them sleep better at night. Continuing upon the growing notion of property and its

usefulness to the colonists, Cronon discusses the value of livestock, trees and edible plants like

maize and other grains. Colonists developed problems with livestock because they would eat

marketable crops if nobody was careful enough to keep them from doing so. To keep this from

happening they began using fences to protect what they planted, thus creating an allotted

property one could call their own. There are other reasons for property formations as well. Land

was more valuable in certain areas than others and might have yielded more profits due to

fertility, location or tree types. Also, livestock in itself was valuable property to the colonists as

well. The Indians had trouble understanding this sometimes because they never domesticated

animals, much less had seen such a practice until the arrival of the Europeans. Indians had

always hunted the meat they ate and fished for the fish they ate. The concept of owning your

meat and monitoring where and what it eats was brand new. The author elaborates further on

livestock, discussing how cattle and swine from Europe inadvertently brought European plant

species with them in their fecal matter. This includes various weeds, dandelions and detrimental

plant diseases that devastated crops and other grasses used for grazing. Cronon gives examples

of how livestock (cattle in particular) reshaped the environment through over-grazing of pastures

and ground depression that made oxidation difficult for the soil they inhabited. He also discussed

briefly how the swine gave the Native Indians competition on the clam banks, contributing to a

diminishing supply of clams. Europeans also used mass amounts of fish entrails to help fertilize

crops, when in reality the nutrients in the soil were greatly depleted because the soil wasn’t

allowed to rest or regain nutrients. This coupled with river damming and mills reduced the

amount of fish available in the rivers.

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In New England, deforestation, over-grazing, parasitical organisms and lack of crop-

rotation brought about climate change and soil exhaustion. Where the land was bare, there were

colder winters and much hotter summers, thus becoming a prohibitive environment for nutrients

to flourish. Flooding became more frequent in flat, deforested areas because there were no longer

tree roots to hold back the water shed or rainfall. Also the wind moved much faster through open

areas, which also contributed to flooding.

In conclusion, William Cronon writes in various form of how the Europeans who settled

New England, brought with them a way of life totally different from the Indians. They came

from a land where wood was an expensive commodity, abundant wildlife was not available to

hunt or fish and land wasn’t vast and full of fertile soil for the taking. The colonists understood

the importance and value of America far beyond the Indians perception. The Indians had no

reason to fear a lack of resources; therefore, they didn’t understand why the Europeans were so

hasty to exploit the New England they had found. To Native Americans, wealth was having and

using the necessary means to survive. To Europeans, wealth was having and selling what others

needed to survive.

Word Count: 1,143

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