From Equality to Inequity

In Changes in the Land by William Cronon, the pre-colonial system was described as one in which the environment and the society were equals in. Pre-colonial New England was an adaptive cycle with a resilient environment as shown in Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World by Brian Walker and David Salt. Native American people and nature were balanced. *

 

 

During Transitional New England the English colonist arrived and this automatically altered the system. Initially the alterations were not to drastic because it was mostly a time of contribution and agreement. Nature was respected and the people shared resources. However, at a point in the transition a threshold was crossed and this system would no longer return to the previous state of equality.

 

 

Colonial New England was a point of no return. With more English settlers arriving the system was reinforces. The way of the English was very different from that of the Native Americans and the ecosystem did not resist all these changes. New England became a system of inequity where justice was non existent and money was the only value.

 

 

*The  concept maps contain blue circles which represent wild animals and plants (other than trees). The grey circles represent invasive animal and plant species. The black circles represent cattle and the green rectangles in the land represent agriculture.