What Changed The Relationship Between English Settlers And Native Americans By Cronon

The New World once was a place with peace and love for nature. Resources were used on need basis and land was not used as a commodity. Ownership was based upon mobility. Native Americans only owned things that they could take with them. Native Americans faced many changes but nothing close to the ones they faced with Europe interference with the New World. In the book Cronon discusses how the economic and ecological changes resulted from the interactions between the English settlers and the Native Americans. The involvement of the English settlers changed the way land was viewed and used, as well caused ecological changes, and took away lives of many innocents. In the beginning of the book, Cronon mentions Henry David Thoreau 's Walden. Walden …show more content…
Native Americans before colonist did not believe in owning land. They were hunters who traveled from one place to another. The idea of claiming property was foreign to them until their interaction with the English colonists. Native Americans idea of ownership of the land was simply their right to use the land. There no boundaries or signs that marked off a landscape to a specific owner. In contrast, the colonists had a complete different view of the land. Europeans physically wanted to own land which led them into creating boundaries that would point out a piece of land as “owned property”. The ownership of land slowly created less space for the Native Americans to live and maneuver around because if they entered a specific area of land, which was owned, they would technically be trespassing, which was a new concept that did not exist …show more content…
The view that Native Americans had of land differed in many ways than how the Europeans viewed it. It was as if Native Americans were almost forced to change the lifestyle they lived and adapt to a completely new life style. Their old lifestyle almost became something was nearly impossible to follow because all of the changes that were surrounding them. Changes that involved land being a gift that they respected and lived on for years turning into something that was exploited to its most capacity. Land that was always open without any landmarks turned into a place that had fenced areas and property that was actually physically owned. Native Americans never believed in owning land. They were individuals who were moving from one place to another and the thought of settling at one place for a long period of time did not exist until the Europeans introduced them to that