Changes in the Land: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Some Europeans were wary of describing the abundance of New England’s resources in exaggerated terms or suggesting that the area was a paradise wherein much “wealth and sustenance” could be gained with little effort. Some Europeans arrived in New England expecting a mythical “land of plenty” and were disappointed by what they found. Part of the reason for the problem of misinformation was that many of the first accounts of the landscape were written by those who arrived in spring and summer, and this created the false impression of “perpetual abundance.” The contrast between summer and winter was generally more extreme in New England than in Europe, but the overall cycle of seasons was essentially the same. However, colonizers were so excited by the idea of “laborless wealth” that they failed to see this.

This misunderstanding of the seasons had dangerous consequences; unaware that the summer abundance did not last year-round, some settlers did not store away food for winter and ended up dying of starvation. Many colonizers arrived in New England expecting to be able to recreate the lives they had left behind, with the same kind of agriculture, patterns of labor, and social structure of society (although they also hoped they would personally have elevated status in their new home). However, establishing an society in which all this would be possible proved to be an enormous and difficult undertaking.  

New arrivals found themselves highly dependent on the support of others, whether European or Native. Some participated in trade with indigenous people. At times, Europeans characterized indigenous communities as leading the life of effortless wealth they desired; however, this belief highlights the limits of their understanding of both the landscape and the Native people who inhabited it. The ecosystem of New England is defined by cycles of light and dark, hot and cold, and high and low tides. Every part of the ecosystem is in sync with these cycles, adjusting its behavior accordingly. Native people similarly harvested food according to seasonal cycles, a practice that “required an intimate understanding of the habits and ecology of other species.” Colonizers, on the other hand, did not have such knowledge.

One of the ways in which indigenous communities adapted to seasonal cycles was by being mobile. Most precolonial indigenous people lived in villages, small settlements that moved from place to place depending on where resources were available. Everything about indigenous communities’ way of life reflected the need to be mobile. Native people adjusted their living structures depending on where they were located and they avoided having numerous or unwieldy possessions. In general, communities who lived below the Kennebec River grew crops, whereas northern communities did not practice agricultural cultivation due to a less hospitable climate. As a result, northern indigenous people fed themselves purely through hunting and gathering.

In northern New England, spring began when the ice began to break up, at which point indigenous communities who had been living inland would return to the coast and start fishing. Until September of every year, there was an abundance of fish. Communities also gathered and ate birds’ eggs during the months of April, May, September, and October, based on the migratory patterns of birds. In July and August, they gathered nuts, berries, and wild plants, and hunted birds, whales, porpoises, walruses, and seals. In September, communities moved inland again, and between October and March they would kill and eat beaver, caribou, moose, deer, and bear. Men hunted the animals while women prepared the carcasses to be eaten.

During winter, northern indigenous communities relied on snow to hunt animals via their tracks. It was an accepted fact of life that during February and March there was often little to eat. Colonizers found this difficult to understand and remarked on how strange it was that northern Indians did not store extra food in the fall in order to ensure that they did not go hungry in winter. However, it was colonizers who died of starvation at a much higher rate than Native people. One of the results of indigenous people subsisting on very small amounts of food in winter was that their population remained fairly low.

Indigenous communities of southern New England also practiced hunting and gathering, but they raised crops at the same time. Growing crops meant having a steadier supply of food during the winter, as grain could be stored during the colder months. This meant starvation was not as much of a concern for southern Native people. For this reason, they were much more populous than those who lived in northern regions. Northern and southern Native people had very different relationships to the seasons, which was reflected in the different terms they used to describe parts of the year. In southern New England, time was divided into months based on the harvest of crops.

The agriculture practiced by southern Native people had a gentle impact on the landscape and generally did not cause soil erosion. They used cornfields to grow not only corn but also kidney beans, squash, pumpkins, and tobacco. Colonizers, who were used to fields being used to grow only one crop, thought that the practice of combining many different ones in a single field was “messy.” However, in reality, this was a way of using the land efficiently, as well as creating a balanced, nutritious diet. Women were generally charged with tending to the crops, a task that was “compatible with simultaneous child-care.” In the spring, men fished. The idea that Native people used fish as fertilizer is largely a myth and was certainly not widely practiced.

In the summer, when crops needed less constant attention, Native people tended to move their encampments around, sometimes in order to avoid conflict or high concentrations of fleas. Men often embarked on multiday hunting or fishing expeditions, travelling in canoes on journeys that could be quite dangerous. In the fall, harvest festivals took place, along with rituals in which wealthy people gave away most of what they owned. After the harvest was over, the winter hunt for animals such as bears and deer began. This endeavor required a great amount of skill and knowledge about animal behavior. During this period, men who were out hunting would often go for several days without food. The animals they caught were used for both food and fur. 

Southern indigenous communities thus had what was in some ways a more “complicated” relationship to the landscape than those in northern regions. By practicing agriculture, those in the south took a more active role in changing the environment to their own purposes. Women would use fire to clear fields before planting corn in them. They would usually use a particular field for around eight to ten years before moving on once the soil lost its fertility. Like Europeans, Native people sometimes faced fuel shortages, and some assumed that this was the explanation for why the colonizers had come to their land in the first place. Native people also used strategic burning of the forest to clear it of unwanted underwood and fallen trees.

Native people in northern New England did not use this practice of burning, in part because they did not need to alter the landscape in the way that their southern counterparts did. Colonizers failed to properly understand the reasons why Native people practiced forest burning, largely unaware of the complex ecological benefits it engendered. In reality, the practice of forest burning helped stimulate the diverse “mosaic effect” of the natural landscape and also fostered habitats for a huge array of wildlife. Colonizers, who were used to keeping domesticated animals, didn’t understand this. They also did not understand the division of labor in indigenous communities, falsely believing that women did all the work. Native people, for their part, often struggled to understand why European women seemed to do nothing.

This confusion was caused by the fact that Native people could not see why women should not work in the fields, whereas Europeans did not consider the hunting and fishing performed by Native men to be serious labor. Indeed, the Europeans took this idea even further, eventually taking Native people’s hunting practice as the basis for their argument that they didn’t really own the land they inhabited—and that Europeans could thus take it for themselves. In reality, indigenous communities simply had a sustainable relation to the land which harmoniously fit with the environment’s natural cycles. Before long, a clash arose between Native people’s mobile lifestyles and the Europeans’ desire to build fixed settlements.