Jean Cronon Changes In The Land Sparknotes

Changes in the Land” is a book about the study’s done by William and the impacts on the environment and inhabitants of early New England done by the Europeans settling in. In his thesis Cronon claims, “the shift from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes well known to historians in the ways these peoples organized their lives, but it also involved fundamental reorganizations less well known to historians in the region’s plant and animal communities” (Cronon 15). Cronon uses different evidence that he gathered up to display the conditions following the Europeans coming in contact with the new land.

When Europeans first arrived in New England the environment the Europeans first encountered shocked them. It was

The most important way that the New England environment differed from that of Europe was that the land was so untamed and there was a lack of domestic animals. Large areas of land and hunting in England was reserved to large landowners and the Crown. European settlers were also taken aback by the absence of domesticated animals, which played a vital role in European agriculture. The Europeans often criticized the Indian way of life. The European settlers and the Indians had different values on life and had differing opinions on how they should use the land around them. According to Cronon, “Many European visitors were struck by what seemed to them the poverty of Indians who lived in the midst of a landscape endowed so astonishingly with abundance” (Cronon 33).European ideas about owning land as private property clashed with natives’ understanding

Natives in the North and South of New England were very different. Cronon wrote, “throughout New England, Indians held their demands on the ecosystem to a minimum by moving their settlements from habitat to habitat” (Cronon 53).Northern Native Americans needed to alter even less because they were less prone to agriculture. The indians altered and manipulated the environment to better fit their needs and lifestyle by being nomadic and using the resources they found in the environment they were in at the time.Cronon wrote, “throughout New England, Indians held their demands on the ecosystem to a minimum by moving their settlements from habitat to habitat” (Cronon 53). The Europeans believed that the indians were incoherent for not seeing the many good things they and in front of them that they were capable of using. Cronon wrote was, “how could a land be so rich and its people so poor?” (Cronon 33). To the European settlers the Native Americans were the lowest class, achieving nothing for their lives when the vast potential lay in front of