Why New England Habitats Changed During the Colonial Period

Why New England Habitats Changed During the Colonial Period

In, Changes in the Land, by William Cronon, he asks one main question that he analyzes throughout the book; why New England habitats changed as they did during the colonial period. In this book, Cronon compares the ecological relationships of pre-colonial Indian communities with those of the arriving Europeans. He also compares the pre-colonial ecosystems of New England with those that existed at the beginning of the 19th century.
To answer the question that William Cronon raises for analysis, Cronon explains how New England shifted from Indian to European dominance. He also explains the effects of the European invasion, not only on the Indians but on the land as well. Cronon tells us how the invasion of the Europeans had important changes in the way the Indians and colonists lived their lives as well as how it reorganized the regions plant and animal communities. In this book Cronon also describes the processes of ecological change that followed the arrival of the Europeans.
The 3rd chapter of this book is titled, Seasons of Want and Plenty. Cronon meant that during the spring and summer seasons, the animals were in abundance, or as Cronon states “to numerous to count.” (Cronon 35) Most colonists had high expectations of labor less wealth because almost all of the early descriptions of New England were written by spring and summer visitors. What those colonists didn’t know was how difficult it would be to obtain food during the fall and winter seasons. They believed that the plentiful times of spring and summer would never end, so they didn’t store any food away for the winter, which meant many starved to death. The ways the Indians, as well as the colonists obtained their food was mainly determined by the season cycles.
The Indians had two groups mainly based on how they obtained their food. Those two groups were the northern Indians and the southern Indians. The northern Indians relied mainly on fish and game as their primary food source. The...

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