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"Europeans had long since devastated their forests. So when they came to
America, they were overwhelmed by all of these trees. There was no New York
thruway to come down. They had to hack their way through forest and trails.
It was an excruciating experience."
—Scholar Gordon Wood
While the march of General John Burgoyne's British army through the
dense forests of upstate New York may have been slow and arduous, elsewhere in
the 13 colonies—and soon enough in New York—the wilds of North America were
being swiftly converted into tame farmland and villages.
150 years of European settlement on the eastern seaboard had already
drastically changed the landscape by the time of the American Revolution. In
southern New England, animals which had once been in abundance like beaver,
deer, bear, turkey and wolves, were now all but gone. Farmland had replaced
forests. Domesticated animals had replaced wild ones.
More than 90% of the American population in 1790 was rural and most of these
people lived and worked on farms. The nature of European farming techniques
required open landscapes for field and pasture. Overgrazing and ignorance of
modern methods for replenishing overused soils led quickly to the despoliation
of acreage. This led to a need for more land, which led to more deforestation
and a continual encroachment on Native American lands.
The response of Indians to this westward march of the colonists was ecological,
as well as social and political. To some extent they adapted to the demands of
the European community, and even adopted some of the customs to suit their own
needs. Hunters looked for game that appealed to colonists' needs. Native
Americans planted larger cornfields in order to have more trade with the
settlers. Historian William Cronon tells of a Narragansett Indian named
Miantonomo, fed up with the voracious land demands of the Europeans on
Narragansett territory, who suggested a novel solution to stopping the grab.
Miantonomo said that his tribesmen ought to kill white "men, women, and
children, but no cows." His reasoning was simple: the Narragansett would
need the cows "till our deer our replenished again."
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