Turtle Island Research Paper

America (or should I say...Turtle Island), pre 1492, was a very different time in history. It was a time of gratefulness for mother earth and all that she provided. The air was clean, the water was pristine, and the land and animals were respected by the country’s inhabitants. There was a mutual understanding of this respect for mother earth and the Natives were well known for this philosophy of life. Things took quite a turn for the worse once Christopher Columbus sailed to America in 1492 bringing over not only a plethora of europeans, but also, their mindsets and ideals. The Europeans differed in environmental perspective compared to the Natives because they were under the impression that nature was limitless, that there was no possibility …show more content…
First by destroying animals habitats, it affected species diversity. Second, cutting down trees also changed the climate. Tree canopies shaded the land from sunlight and kept down summer temperatures on the ground. In the winter the trees themselves helped to insulate the soil below, moderating the effect of the cold. Third, deforestation played havoc with rivers. Trees helped to ensure that streams flowed steadily because their roots absorbed and released water throughout the year. Clearing the forest, however, generally increased the amount of water that ran off into streams. Cutting down large sections of the continent’s forests thus helped to set the stage for disaster: droughts and floods that emerged directly from the sharp edge of an ax (Steinberg 37). I believe that the Europeans had no understanding of what was to come in the future from their environmental actions, which could have been a huge factor as to why they were so careless about exploiting their new …show more content…
The belief that the earth’s creatures existed to benefit humanity became a frontier maxim encouraged by this apparently limitless supply of wildlife (Kline 27). While the Natives used the animals for food, clothing, as well as other beneficial uses, they only used what they needed, no more no less. They killed animals only in proportion as they had need of them (Merchant 40). The Europeans did not use what they need rather used as much as they possibly could to receive the most profit. The Natives used the animals for survival therefore typically never threatened their existences. The fur trade was one of the biggest factors to the decline in wildlife. Let us make clear at the outset that the Indians did not threaten the beaver as a species. The great naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton estimated toward the end of his career that there were 60 million beaver in North America when the Europeans came (Merchant 80). In the wilds of North America, beaver trapping contributed to shifting economic and political alliances between Europeans and Native Americans. The effects of the trade came to have profound social, demographical and environmental impacts on the various inhabitants of seventeenth and eighteenth century North