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

In the final chapter, Cronon outlines the many ways in which the European settlers commodified New England’s ecology to the great disadvantage of the long-term interests and practical usage of the environment. Though both the Native Americans and European settlers were aware, to various extents, of the serious injury to the environment of various practices, they were unable or unwilling to adapt to the environmental realities of New England. The English settlers, in particular, simply used up resources until they were gone, with little thought of the consequences. Overall, the Europeans viewed the environment through the lens of profit motive.

Though European farming and animal husbandry methods pre-date modern capitalism by several thousand years, the Europeans’ views of the environment were ideally suited to capitalist principles, allowing Europeans to dedicate a large portion of the environment and their activities to the marketplace economy. As Cronon explains:

The colonists brought with them concepts of value and scarcity which had been shaped to the social and ecological circumstances of northern Europe, and so perceived New England as a landscape of great natural wealth. Searching for commodities which would allow them to obtain European goods, they applied European definition of scarcity—that is to say, European prices—to New England conditions of abundance. (168)

Therefore, the beliefs and values held by the early European settlers reinforce Cronon’s argument that they treated the entire experience of New England with the motive of achieving maximum profits. European settlers kept those beliefs and put them into practice even when those practices were “ecologically self-destructive” (169). Ironically, early New England settlers carried with them notions and environmental practices that in the end destroyed the very resources that they depended upon for survival and profit.