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

The mercantile values that the European settlers arrived with determined their relationship to the land. They perceived the bounty of the natural world, including fish, shellfish, waterfowl, bears, deer, beaver, foxes, and grasslands, as “free” and available to anyone who used their labor to gather them up. Wherever possible, the settlers first attempted to create surplus goods for trade with the Native Americans and each other. Next, they created a market for desirable goods that no longer existed in the Old World, including tall white pine timbers for masts, other wood for shipbuilding, and furs. In every way, the settlers viewed the landscape as a money-making venture.

The market economy eventually tied the New World inexorably to the Old World, just as the settlers attempted to recreate their farms along the model of the farms left behind in England. In so doing, they destroyed the ecosystem of the New World, all the while making a profit.