Changes in the Land

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

In the preface Cronon states his thesis plainly. “The shift from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes-well know to historians-in the ways these people organized their lives, but it also involved fundamental reorganizations-less well known to historians-in the region’s plant and animal communities.” (xv) Further Cronon makes it clear that his aim is to write an “ecological history” of colonial New England and that it “is not a history of New England Indians, or of colonial relations, or of the transformation of English colonists from Puritans to Yankees.” (xvi). He warns the reader not to make any conclusions in regards to the colonial impact on the Indians based on his research. (xvi)

Cronon divides his book into three parts; Looking Backwards, The Ecological Transformation of Colonial New England, Harvests of Change. In the first section he uses Henry David Thoreau’s views in comparing the American ecological landscape of the seventeenth century with his present time frame. It is eye opening the conclusions which are reached. Cronon uses this viewpoint to provide a foundation for the remainder of his work. This foundation is the abundance of native flora and fauna prior to the incursion of the colonists in the seventeenth century.

The two common myths which Cronon outlines and critiques is the belief that early European settlers were confronted with virgin land. The second is the idea of the “Noble Red Man”. In the first he shows that no ecological system is frozen, rather each culture adapts the environment to its needs. In the second Cronon debunks the myth that the Native American was the original environmentalists. He says that this idea dehumanizes the Native American, by making them into something they are not. Cronon states that the correct view should be that two different...