William Cronon Changes In The Land Analysis

William Cronon’s Changes in the Land shows the effect on the land of widely disparate conceptions of ownership owned by Indians and English colonists. He also interprets the situations occurring in New England with the plant and animal communities and the change from Indian to English take over. As residents of Europe were introduced to North America, the boundaries between the two were unclear. Cronon uses evidence to explain the situation that led to the ecological ramification of contact with New England. The law materialized land, making it material of which the purchaser had ownership. Indian law created possibility of being able to own fish or nuts that land produced and the right to hunt and live on the land because there was no possibility

Compared to Europeans, Indians had a lot more, which the settlers were not used to,because the landscape in England was restricted for landowners. Heavy forests covered New England, which was also unusual to the settlers, England had cut down all of its wood for fuel. European settlers were amazed by the lack of domestic animals, which was very common in European agriculture. The European settlers and the Indians had different ways of how they live and different opinions on how they should use the land around them. Cronon expresses, “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). The settlers judged the type of labor that the Indian males and females did. The Indian females did most of the farming, which was usual the job of the men in Europe. Although they didn’t farm, the Indian males hunted. To Europeans, hunting wasn’t common since they did not have wild animals in England, except private properties of the wealthy. European settlers began to make adjustments to the land. The Europeans destroyed strips of forest, by girdling, in order to make space for crops. The grass in New England were not very useful for grazing, leading to the trees being cut down. Instead, forests were used for stuff such as fences and fuel. Deforesting New England ruined forest grounds, changing the way Indians live. Cronon states, “the ecological effects of this regional deforestation were profound, extending even to the climate itself” (Cronon