People vs. Land

Throughout the course of world’s history, people have been constantly moving and relocating themselves into new places around the world. This change in location has been disrupting the natural environment since the beginning of time. People have also been constantly been adapting to what the environment has given them in multiple ways. There are several sources, which have been read in class, to appropriately support such observations.
As William Cronon writes in Changes in the Land, “the shift from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes…in the ways these peoples organized their lives, but also involved fundamental reorganizations…in the region’s plant and animal communities.” This exemplifies that new people in the area have made an impact, both positive and negative, on the land. In other words, people change the land, but also the land changes the people. This theory is proven time and time again throughout Cronons book. For example, Cronon writes that agriculture has been drastically changed because new methods have arrived from other countries that have changed the way the land is tended to in the non-growing season, as well as how crops are planted and kept.
Perhaps the biggest way that people have been changing the land due to agriculture is where they are planting their crops. The Native Americans had been planting their crops in forested areas, mostly so the topsoil would stay constant due to the roots of trees. The Natives also wanted the trees to remain standing, to be used as a habitat for animals to be used for food and warmth. Natives were people of the land, and had been for as long as Europeans/Americans know. They had skills that no other country did, including how use the land that was available and how to plant without unnecessary effort. As Roger Williams put it, “they burnt up all the underwoods in the Countrey, once or twice a yeare.” When the Europeans relocated in the 1500s and 1600s, there was no thought