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

The utter destruction of the environment as it existed prior to European settlement symbolizes the power of market forces, such as capitalism, in the insatiable desire for profit. This desire for profit resulted in the exploitation of both Native Americans and the land, and the decimation of both a people and a way of life closely tied to a respectful husbandry of the land and its resources. As every aspect of the land and its resources was transformed into commodities to be sold for profit, the land came to symbolize the commodities that grew or lived upon it, and even the land itself became a commodity to be improved upon, owned, bought, and sold.

Cronon explains this concept in terms of the European settlers’ great desire to raise cattle for profit:

Regions which had once supported Indian populations considerably larger than those of the early English settlements came to seem inadequate less because of the human crowding than because of animal crowding. Competition for grazing lands—which were initially scarcer than they later became—acted as a centrifugal force that drove towns and settlements apart” (141).

The settlers determination to raise prestigious and environmentally costly herds of cattle resulted in a great many undesirable effects upon the land, including erosion due to drying the land by removing forests, soil compaction resulting from crowding animals onto insufficient pasture lands, and the loss of soil nutrients through failure to rotate crops and pasture sites.