Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:18 pm Post subject: longest reading that ever happened.
OKAY.
So I'm not done yet. I'm getting there. About half way through the second part.
Thoughts so far? On the primary sources, I actually stopped myself half way through the first one and said "Wait. This isn't satire." That said, the author's relationship with the "wilderness" in the context of this class was, to say the least, comical. In "A Hideous and Desolate Wilderness" God and Savage Wilderness were suddenly pinned against each other, and these poor english settlers were left to voyage in between them.
It was the existence of nature translated to our narrator as a desperate need to "civilize".
I mean, it got pretty topsy turvy at the end when he said "He hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor."
NATURE oppressing MAN? … did I get the order there right?
-but then, obviously, the second source was a little more loving and appreciative to our lovely lands.
-QUESTION ON THE MERCHANT READING: If key elements of our nature/environment got taken away from us as they were for the Abenaki TODAY, would we be dealing with the same calibre of cultural repercussions? or was the level of affect particular to that culture?
okay. So far, I'm not that into the Eden reading. I don't know what its trying to prove really, yet, but it feels like its sort of alleviating a lot of guilt from european settlers in the native american genocide. Maybe thats a perspective I haven't heard before, but I feel like I should take issue with the notion that this genocide wasn't caused largely because of the solipsistic colonizing of the Americas and European colonizer's inability to understand the functions of a culture not their own.
A lot of things followed that were out of the colonizer's control; disease, yadayda, but if it hadn't started with an arrogance on the colonizer's side that THEIR environment functioned better than that of the American Indians'… well, that got the snowball of destruction rolling.
but maybe thats not what he's saying at all. I'm going to try and go finish this reading. this post was horrendous. [/quote]
Last edited by oliviabunty on Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:22 pm; edited 1 time in total
I found the readings, especially Fate of the Abenaki in the Colonial Ecological Revolution and Eden to be very depressing and scary. I took Native Americans last year and read about the widespread destruction that Europeans brought over because they were carrying diseases that the Native Americans had no immunity to. Although I had read about the widespread destruction of Native Americans last year because of disease and than war, the Eden article really made me understand just how widespread, quick and devastating the diseases were. Now I really can relate to how the students’ of Cronon could be “profoundly depressed by what they had learned in it.” (7) Because Eden was so dense and had so many ideas and facts packed into it, to me the awfulness of what happened seemed even worse.
I know that people say this a lot but looks really can be deceiving. I think this is what first happened when colonists came to what is now the United States and the readings demonstrated this nicely. “Never had they seen birds and other animals in such profusion, fish and shellfish so large, or forests so expansive.” (84) People returned from North America with amazing stories of abundant forests and streams but decided not to tell or did not know the reality that life here was not what it seemed. Winters and life in general was harsh. For example “in New England, late winter and early spring were often more hostile than hospitable, with resources in short supply or difficult to procure for those unused to them.” (85) From what I gathered I believe people did not really know just how hard living in North America could be because most of the early Europeans who came over only came for a few months.
Overall reaction: Gigi's comment about the depressing nature of all this and the quote she found from Cronan's article sum it up pretty well. The facts were overwhelming, depressing, and just left me wondering what to do with my life. The few things I got out of this reading were to be careful that demand doesn't outweigh supply, and be careful of primary sources because they can be very unreliable.
Supply & Demand: This pattern came up a lot in the Eden reading. Both the Europeans and American Indians had larger demands than supplies, causing terrible effects for their, for lack of a better word, societies. Native Americans effectively wiped out their own settlements, which I think would have failed even if Europe didn't come in with their sicknesses. Actually, the tribe who loved astronomy and built the giant cities in the west did. So yeah, that makes sense. Europe just sped the process up. The Europeans overcrowded and failed to maintain their cities and towns, leading to disease. Basically, watch supply and demand, and if your population gets too high, you're screwed.
Primary Sources: The author of Eden, as well as the direct primary source documents we read, really confused me. Why write this article if we can't pin anything down? No facts are clear, and this is all speculation, so what's the point?! I understand it's important to guess, but why did the author write this dense book on material he or she had no more insight on than people who previously looked at it? All the primary sources mentioned seemed to tell different sources, so which one do we believe?!
So I REALLY liked this reading. By the way I’m half way through the long Eden one. In response to Olivia saying “I don't know what its trying to prove really”, I don’t think its really trying to prove anything. This is just talking about what people thought about the land back then.
I was very happy that they started talking about the Anasazi and their farming because the only time I’ve ever really heard about Native Americans farming or living in houses and the suck is when I visited Mesa Verde.
In the first set of reading they talked about things that people rote in books and letters home to Europe. I am amazed that either with so many letters and books that no one wrote about the deaths, starving, and hardships of winter. But also that I’ve barely heard of primary sores where they talk about winters being more then “hard”. Does anyone else think that that are weird?
I really dislike reading Merchant because she betrays her stance so hard core in her writing, implicitly in structure and explicitly in language use.
I also really didn't like this kumbaya crap she spoke of between Indians and animals, most notably in lines such as
"An ethic of moral obligation between human and God replaced the ethic of moral obligation between human and animal [for the Indians.."
and
"...Obscuring the underlying death of the animals and their Indian equals," (50).
While these could both very well be true, Merchant does not support these ideas at all in her previous paragraphs describing the manner of trading relationships and subsequent disease, etc. I think she assumes because the relationship between Indian and the earth DOES appear different from European's that it puts Indians (still as a whole, not separate tribes with separate ethic systems..) in a polar opposite camp.
Which is why, despite it's length, the Eden reading was an excellent follow up to Merchant. Granted, it took me a very long time to even remotely figure out the reading's main points, yet in the end it had some excellent ideas about WHY its so easy for us to fall into Merchant's camp of INDIANS AND NATURE WERE ONE UNTIL EUROPEANS CORRUPTED THIS HARMONY.
Europeans see this natural paradise and dismiss any human impact despite the un-ignorable human presence Indians presented. So despite the seemingly endless nit-picky analysis of sources in declaring disease specificity and impact, as well as estimated population figures the conclusion that Indians HAD "exploited" the land and created real impact was evident.
"The native people who molded North America were fully capable of transformative action in ecosystems...but in almost all instances their populations were too small to have made much of a difference. And when people few in number quickly became fewer from disease, the lands they had burned, cleared and planted---lands transformed and exploited for purposes relating to agriculture, fuel, hunting, gathering, construction and other ends--rested and recovered from whatever human pressures they had been over." EDEN, (97)
While it took a hell of a long time to get there i'm so glad i did because i found this passage truly revelatory. i think it not only paints an encompassing and true picture of ANY Indian-earth relationship, but really shatters this odd idea that we have that nature and people can and were harmonious at one point until we screwed it up. Furthermore i think its incredible that the impact was supposedly small enough so as to be reversed--reclaimed by nature. Its almost as if the arrival of the Europeans (with all of their diseases and land-owning ideas and such) ushered in/reaffirmed a renaissance for North America herself.
also to olivia: YES oppressor is in the right order because on land and in ship settlers were almost entirely at the whim of nature. Until natural disasters happen (which, as Massachusetts residents, we haven't truly experienced first hand) its hard to grasp that
to dylan: you're right that a lot of it is---not exactly speculation---but a lot of estimation and fractured piecing of facts. Yet when we DO have indisputable primary sources (though prone to hyperbole) its interesting to try to explain how they saw that (the whole premise of "Eden" after all) Furthermore, all the sources we read I dont think really directly conflicted so much as showed slightly distorted views of the same..something.
My question is: How come Indians were sometimes able to "exhaust" resources in their given areas (and therefore forced to move) when they had such supposedly small and dispersed populations, yet European populations that settled in similar areas could do so permanently and seemingly be sustained??
So I’ve just finished the first part of the assignment and I plan to come back later when I’ve done Eden. I think the pairing of Merchant’s essay and The Potential of the New English Canaan right before it is pretty perfect because TPNEC (acronym for The Potential of the New English Canaan) totally proves Merchant’s points that she goes on to make. As I was reading TPNEC, I was thinking to myself how much the European settlers saw this new world solely as a commodity and how the raw resources could be taken and used to their advantage. I agree with Gigi’s point that when the settlers came, they must have thought it looked amazing—so much great stuff, here for the taking! (the way all this was described you’d think they found Eden…oh wait.) They further justified this by saying how the “Salvages” live such a contented life thanks to all these resources and why not share?
Then, reading Merchant’s piece it further goes on to explain how they profited from these resources and to what extent. I think the most striking thing was how quickly the Indians grew to be dependent on the Europeans; “Far from being passive pawns at the hands of unscrupulous traders, these Indians recognized the advantages of the new tools for their own subsistence.” They had struck up a seemingly fair trade where the Europeans profited hugely off something they knew the Indians could offer them and in return the Europeans could offer the Indians; “Indians, with their access to a resource in demand as a symbol of status by upwardly Europeans, were thus drawn into a system of worldwide mercantile exchange.” I think this is the perfect example of how the environment acted as such a huge force in these peoples’ history, by being the “thing” they could exchange and there are tons of other examples of this in history, as Diamond pointed out. This dependency forever changed the economy and ecology of the New World.
Finally, I’d like to respond to Obunty on her question. I think that’s a fantastic question, very Cronon-like in bringing it into the present and future. I think my answer is no, our culture would not have the same catastrophic outcome if our “environment” was taken away. Of course we have to specify what “environment” and how its being taken away, but I think that the whole reason the Abanaki’s were completely devastated by what happened is because they were so closely tied to the environment and so utterly dependent and THAT was an integral part of their culture. I don’t think our current culture has nearly the same relationship with our environment for better or for worse and most of us are far removed from it in our day to day lives. Of course it’s impossible to say and very hypothetical, so I’m gonna take a page out of Cronon’s book (literally) and try and only make a vague parable.
Merchant stuff, right on. The language stuff you picked up didnt even occur to me, but I agree. Same with the Kumbaya crap. the Eden article definitely made sense after that, even though I'm still not a huge fan of it. The block quote and your explanation, definitely makes sense. I noticed that passage too while i was reading, but didn't have any formed thoughts on it. Yours work pretty well for me though. some of your wording, like " nature and people were harmonious at one point until we screwed it up." was a little off. I'm guessing you mean people to be native americans and we to be the europeans, in which case i'm right with you. I always get nervous with broad statements, like when you said, "ANY indian-earth relationship," I suppose I agree. based on my knowledge so far, it makes sense. I want to restate the pattern that the indians did this, then the european immigrants basically did it all over again. and for your response to me- conflicted or distorted, same difference. I didnt mean opposing so much as the idea that primary sources arent 100% reliable.
As for your big question, I'm wondering that too. I know i mentioned a pattern, and i stick with it still, but the europeans managed to follow that pattern yet survive. which i'd like to add to your question.
mmkay so we have two threads being actively contributed to at this point so I'm going to cut and paste knaide's and mikayla's (hope you guys don't mind) here so that people can respond to them:
knaide's post:
Okay first thing I have to say about this reading is this:
Is it me or does the information given on Native Americans totally contradict what was said in previous essays we read?
In previous readings, specifically Diamonds, explained that all other countries were in the Stone Age and still hunter-gathering while Eurasia already was in the midst of their Iron Age. Yet in the reading “Eden” it states that Native Americans also had agriculture (at one point they even where referred to as farmers) chopped down trees, and intentionally wiped out animals by adding salt to fields where they graze.
Does anyone else feel this is confusing in terms of what we read earlier?
On another note, it is neat to think of diseases as part of the environment, because it definitely plays a big role. I have always heard about the diseases brought by Europeans coming America, but the story “Eden” covers the diseases originally in America. How come Europeans didn’t contract any American diseases? Or if they did, why don’t we seem to hear about it? Was it a trivial amount of people who caught any illness?
This reading started off so happy with the idea of North America being like Eden and so many animals everywhere, but then everything dies from diseases. It was kind of depressing.
mikayla's post:
So far I have only read the “Eden” reading, but I will post again once I read the others.
After taking “Native Americans” last mod, this was an interesting read. Since Native Americans use oral history instead of written history (which is the standard for Western History), anthropologists, scientists, and historians have been attempting to get a picture of what America was like before European contact.
The “pristine myth” is a term used to describe the idea that America was a perfect, untouched frontier before Europeans arrived, and that the Europeans completely destroyed all that was good in it. Although it has been proven false (Native Americans did some non eco friendly things as well), it continues to be emphasized. Scientists and historians are trying to piece together what America was like before Columbus, how many people lived there, and what the environment was like.
This article presented a lot of information I did not know, such as information on diseases that already existed in America, and which specific diseases that afflicted the Native Americans.
One quote that struck me was “No one involved- not Indians, not white people-wished to see smallpox spread”. I was a little skeptical about this quote. This quote may apply to the French, who relied on Native Americans to keep up their fur trade industry, but in Central America, where the Spanish were conquering (and in some cases massacring) the indigenous people, the diseases just helped them reach their goals faster. Maybe this is a little cynical, but I was not fully convinced.
Like Kniade, I disliked how this reading started off with vivid descriptions of nature and European reactions to America, and then weirdly transitioned to disease, statistics, and biology. The essay started and ended in very different places.
(1) i think Obecks makes some great points, and i completely agree with her surprise at the rapid dependency Indians developed upon the traders. Yet it also really speaks to that other idea of an environment being altered without ones consent. But not in the "without consent" image we have of forceful confrontation (fighting) or even passive yet destructive acts (the small-pox blankets) but that in just change the currency (literally and figuratively) that the environment can change without almost anyone's consent. Besides the missionaries, settlers/traders were looking out for number---i dont think they were looking for Indian dependency as much as hoping to get as little interference--or else, as much assistance--from then as possible.
(2) sorry for the broad wording dylan. you're right that i should be more conscious of the sweeping statements but im glad you gave me the benefit of the doubt/essentially got my point. you're also completely correct in saying that, yes primary sources are by no means 100% reliable. at the same time, what we CAN 100% rely on is that theyre primary (forgery withstanding..) so that i think is important to remember to. like rachel was telling me, we dont and often, cant over simplify but instead, need to just take into account all of the sources, keeping in mind the person, culture and ENVIRONMENT from which it came
I’m going to just bite off a tiny chunk here and respond to Olivia’s first post and the first set of primary sources. Be back later.
I wasn’t as surprised by A Hideous and Desolate Wilderness. I think these colonists God as their deliverance from nature, which was very much a threat to them. They would have no way of knowing how to interact with the land or find food effectively, and came in with totally insufficient supplies (even for 1647). Keep in mind, this was back when the woods around Plymouth were filled with Timber Wolves and Mountain Lions.
I can still understand the “Potential of Canaan” article, though- it sounds like Morton felt better about the local flora and fauna because he had figured out how to exploit it. He’s already been turned on to what trees are good for what, and appreciates the firesetting practices of the “salvages”- who no doubt gave him whatever knowledge he has of how to work the land.
sounds pretty good. glad you got my point, too. i suppose the best way i can get over the primary stuff is to take into account not the specific facts, (although they shouldnt be ignored) but the idea/messages/insight the readings give us to the time and mindset of people, and why things happened as they did. basically to do some environmental historian work.
My question is: How come Indians were sometimes able to "exhaust" resources in their given areas (and therefore forced to move) when they had such supposedly small and dispersed populations, yet European populations that settled in similar areas could do so permanently and seemingly be sustained?? [/quote]
Rachel I think this is a really good question. I think that even though Native Americans lived in small villages and were very dispersed around the country when they exhausted their resources they needed to move because they did not have the means to bring resources in. Or at least I think maybe they were able to bring some resources in but not enough to sustain a whole tribe. I believe that European populations could settle permanently in similar areas and stay there longer but that they still did exhaust the resources but they had a way of dealing with it. If the soil was exhausted and the colonists were not able to grow enough crops for a while they could probably get food from ships coming over and other colonies. Does that make any sense?
Last edited by gaubin on Thu Jan 06, 2011 9:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
so that i dont completely change the topic, id like to just agree with dylans last statement
Quote:
but the idea/messages/insight the readings give us to the time and mindset of people, and why things happened as they did
The fact that we can see how peoples environments affect their history is what we (i think) are trying to accomplish in this course
(I have only read half of the Eden passage but i have finished everything else)
I just finished the first part of the homework and what i could most understand was the "Fate of the Abenaki in the Colonial Ecological Revolution by Carolyn Merchant. To me this passage was the most clear cut example (only of tonights reading) of how environment shapes human history and how humans shape environment history. This seems like sort of a broad statement to make so just to give some examples of what i mean, Merchant talks manly about Colonial and Native American fur trade. This market for furs seemed to shape most of the Northeastern U.S. It was the Indians (specifically the Abenakis in this case) who were most drastically affected by both human and ecological historical events. To wrap it up, id like to end with a quote from the reading. "What had begun as adaptation and absorption became dependency." This shows how drastically normal life for the Abenakis had changed, based on both ecological events (history) and human events (history)
To answer the question above quickly, in the context of my U.S. Native Americans 3rd mod, i believe that in many cases, European settlers were most self sufficient in the daily life with modern technology and most importantly, domestication of crops and animals. With this important skill of domestication, Euro-invaders life style was a very settled rather than the nomadic, hunter-gatherer life
I just read Mikayla's post and being in the same Native American class, i completely agree with what she said about "the pristine myth." I would like to state my opinion about something she said about the difference between the Europeans settlers environment impact and the Natives impact. She said,
Quote:
"The “pristine myth” is a term used to describe the idea that America was a perfect, untouched frontier before Europeans arrived, and that the Europeans completely destroyed all that was good in it. Although it has been proven false (Native Americans did some non eco friendly things as well), it continues to be emphasized."
I think why it is so emphasized that American became so messed up because of Euro-invaders is because it was such a sharp, and present issue. It wasn't over a very large period of time that this events took place and changed the environment history of the Native Americans.
just a quick response to Gigi's response to Rachel's question: (by the way, this is a great conversation we're having I think, keep it up!)
So Gigi I think you're right, the Europeans did have a way to deal with it, specifically using the Indians to show them/trade them food and other sustainable stuff. Merchent makes this point with the fur, but I think this is exactly Diamond's "big question" was that why did the Europeans sustain themselves while the native Americans died out? Of course theres a lot of circumstantial evidence to explain this, but as Diamond would argue, for some reason or another the Europeans were the ones who took advantage of their environment and used it to their advantage. Thats not to say the Indians didnt but the Europeans did it in a vastly different way. I dont think this totally answered your question Rachel, but just some thoughts
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