Changes in the Land

A detailed Summary of Changes in the Land

In his book, Changes in the Land, William Cronon explores the relationship between the Europeans and the indigenous Indian populations and the local ecologies in the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. In the preface Cronon states that, "the shift from Indian to European domination in New England entailed important changes-well known to historians-in the ways these people organized their lives, but also involved fundamental reorganizations-less well known to historians-in the regions plant and animal communities" (vii).

Cronon's approach involves an investigation not only of the role of a rapid changing human population played in the altering of the ecology of New England, but the impact that ecology had on the local Indian population through time. By using a traditional historical study with tools from the biological and anthropological studies, Cronon developed an analysis on the time period of the colonization of America.

By placing an emphasis on their centrality to the understanding of the changes taking place in the local ecosystem, Cronon describes relationships between Indian and American group, and emphasizing the different American responses to different populati

This impact changes at an accelerating rate upon the arrival of the Europeans. To accommodate the greater crop and livestock sores for commerce and safety against the harsh New England winters, the Europeans cleared a large percent of the local forest and domesticated the animals. All of new changes in the land brought about by the Europeans had a significant impact on the ecological system of America. The new livestock and the expanded European population helped to harbor disease epidemics, which ravaged Indian populations and sometimes eliminating entire villages (86). The difference in the notions of property rights came with an increasingly powerful European population, to be settled to the exclusion of the native Indian populations, forcing then to work with the European system of social organization which restricted patterns of migratory subsistence to smaller areas with greatly reduced animal and food stock.

Culture in the Land is a balanced work, detailing the importance of ecology, both as a dynamic entity, shaped by the human action, and as a focus of shaping how populations organize themselves.

ons. He underscores the importance of viewing these contacts not as being wholly representative of the American or Indian populations, but as meetings with their situational pattern

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Approximate Word count = 878
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History

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Changes in the Land

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