Only to the white man was nature a "wilderness" and only to him was the land "infested" with "wild" animals and "savage" people. To us it was tame. . . . Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families we loved was it "wild" for us. When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was that for us the "Wild West" began.
The old Lakota was wise. He knew that
man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard; he knew that lack
of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect
for humans too.
- LUTHER STANDING BEAR, Lakota Sioux
The two cultures that encountered each other in 1492 clashed for several reasons, but one of the most important reasons concerned each culture's view of nature. For Native Americans, the land and animal life were their entire livelihood, as they depended on both for subsistence. Their religions were also closely connected to the earth, and they considered both the land and the animals sacred. The Europeans, on the other hand, viewed nature as something to master, and then utilize for profit. These ideals were directly at odds with each other, and this ecological confrontation has affected the world ever since. However, this is another one of the areas that textbooks generally do not cover.
Native Americans had nurtured such immense and rich forests in America that the people who settled here built a society based on wood. In his book Native Roots, Jack Weatherford discusses how the Europeans used the American woodlands. In its trade with Europe during the early development of the United States, "wood filled most of the industrial usages that metal, cement, and plastics have come to fill, and wood provided the primary fuel before its eventual replacement by coal, petroleum, and electricity" (56). Prior to the formation of the United States, Britain had recognized the value of the forests that "proved to be an easily harvested and exploited resource on national and international markets" (57). Shortly before the colonists declared independence and took over the management of the forests, the British felled approximately 30 thousand pine, oak, and cedar trees as they imported 14 thousand tons of timber, Weatherford says. He continues, "In less than 200 years after the arrival of the Puritans, the settlers of New England consumed an estimated 260 million cords of firewood" (54). Today, deforestation is a major concern of conservationists in the United States.
Native Americans who lived in what is now the United States lived in a hunter-gatherer society and depended on the land and the animals for their survival. "The natives of North America were some of the best hunters ever known anywhere in the world," Weatherford says, "their skill and accuracy frequently astounded the early European explorers" (67). The Europeans were amazed by their speed and accuracy, but their genius was in their intimate knowledge of animal habits and their sophisticated tactics of trickery (67). Weatherford points out that American hunters today use these tactics-wearing camouflage clothes, using bird decoys and bird whistles and calls-without realizing that these tactics came directly from the Indian hunters (69). The Europeans adopted many Indian hunting tactics and became "frontiersmen," but they did not hunt for the same reasons as the Indians. Before the settlement of the Plains, massive herds of buffalo roamed the plains and were a major food source for the Indians. But Europeans viewed hunting as much more than providing a food source, it was also a sport. While the Indians used every bit of a buffalo they killed-the meat for food; the sinew for sewing thread; the fur for their clothing, blankets, and dwellings; the organs for water containers; the bones for making tools-the Europeans slaughtered them in mass numbers merely for entertainment. This was illustrated in the 1990 movies Dances With Wolves, in one powerful scene which shows a tribe of Indians on a buffalo hunt encountering countless buffalo carcasses littered across the plain. In the year 1800, 40 million buffalo roamed the plains, one herd stretching as far as the eye could see and sounding like an earthquake when they pounded across the plains. Yet less than a century later, by 1895, under 1,000 buffalo remained (Hirschfelder and de Montano 18). Such massive animal depopulations drove many Native Americans to starvation.
Many of the textbooks discuss ecology in one form or another, but not many cover the ecological impact of the 1492 encounter on the Americas. The older textbooks tend to avoid ecology in general, perhaps because we were less aware of our ecological problems a few decades ago. Some of the currently used textbooks briefly discuss the ecological problems we face today, but not their relationship to the past. Many of the textbooks mention the buffalo depopulation, such as The United States: Its History and Neighbors:
In 1860 few people lived on the Great Plains. The grasslands stretched as far as the eye could see. At least 15 million buffalo roamed the prairies. There, Plains Indians led an independent and rich way of life. By 1890 the Great Plains were settled. Fenced pastures and farms had been carved out of the grassy plains. Farmers often could see railroad locomotives chugging across the continent. Fewer than 600 buffalo were left. The Plains Indians now lived on reservations set aside for them by the government. (442)
Notice the first sentence: few people lived on the Great Plains. This sentence illustrates that the authors were only counting the settlers as "people." There were many Indians living on the Great Plains at this time, partly due to the fact that Eastern Indians were being pushed westward by European colonization. A More Perfect Union does a much better job at explaining the ecological impact of the arrival of the Europeans:
After the Treaty of Fort Wayne was signed in 1809, all of the Northwest Territory was legally open to white settlement. Tens of thousands of settlers were now entering yet another environment where Indians had lived for centuries. The ways of the Indians had been closely connected to the plants, the animals, the rivers, and the soil of a particular area. When white settlers cut down many square miles of forest to clear new farmland, they destroyed a way of life. They drove off the game-bear, deer, and buffalo-that had been a major food source for the Indian. . . . But the pioneers did not particularly care what happened to the former inhabitants of the land. (203)
In a later unit, Union devotes two pages to the buffalo depopulation where it explains that the settlers eventually viewed the buffalo as a nuisance and uses the case to challenge the students to consider the issue of animal protection.
A few of the currently used textbooks discuss the way the Native Americans and the Europeans had very different view of land ownership. America: Yesterday and Today covers their opposing views in an excerpt called "By The Way":
The colonists and the Indians held different ideas about the ownership of land. Among most Indians in the English colonies, land was held in common by the entire group. In contrast, most colonists believed in individual ownership of land. The colonists also thought people who hunted on the land, rather than farmed or built on it, could not claim it as their own. Indian leaders sold land without realizing the colonists had a different understanding of land ownership. Often the Indians leaders did not have the consent of the Indians whose land they bargained away. Some colonists made treaties granting the Indians certain lands. . . . Later, other colonists broke the treaties. (124)
Studying the ecological impact of the European arrival helps students to understand the ecological problems we face today, and the importance of being environmentally aware. After describing the European versus Indian views of nature and land ownership, A History of US: Making Thirteen Colonies addresses conservation:
Cities were needed for all the people who would come to live in this bountiful land. And so we built cities and suburbs and in the process often polluted and burned and destroyed. Did we have to do that? Can we have cities and also sheltering woodlands and clean rivers and abundant wildlife? Yes, but it isn't easy. . . Can you do anything to help? Of course you can. Do you throw trash around?. . . Have you ever helped clean up your neighborhood? (80)
Studying the ecological impact on the Americas over the last 500 years will also help students understand the importance of appreciating Native American culture, as Native Americans have retained their connection to the land and could be instrumental in bringing America out of its current environmental crisis. Only A More Perfect Union addresses this:
Between 1870 and 1900, American settlers took control of the lands of the West, and they were often irresponsible caretakers. They cut millions of acres of timberlands, choked streams with slag from mines, and criss-crossed great sweeps of plain with railroads. In short, humans permanently altered the relationship of living things to each other and to their environment. . . . American settlers believed that the resources of the West were limitless. Because these settlers believed that nature existed for their benefit, they molded the land to meet their short-term interests.
In contrast to settlers, American Indians respected the land and its animals. They lived in harmony with nature and they believed that they were the servants of the land, not the other way around. The following passage from a letter by Chief Seattle of the Duwamish tribe to President Franklin Pierce expresses this view: "The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers. All things are connected. . . . If we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land, as it is when you take it. And with all our might, and with all your strength, and with all your heart-preserve it for your children."
The European settlers did not heed Chief Seattle's advice. Today, people throughout the world are still upsetting ecological balances. . . The question of humankind's place in the environment is a difficult one. In the United States, we are blessed with a diversity of land and climate that matches the diversity of our people. We must not waste it. Perhaps we can learn from the American Indians who sought to live in harmony with nature. Like them, we must learn to see ourselves as part of a larger ecological system. (424)
Students who gain a greater respect for this aspect of Native American culture will gain a greater respect for Native American culture in general. "It is time, at long last," say the authors of Wisdom of the Elders: Sacred Native Stories of Nature, "for modern, science-driven, industrial societies to begin to grant traditional Native nature-wisdom and the long-suffering First People of the world who are its guardians and rightful heirs the respect they have always deserved" (Suzuki and Knudtson 6).