Native American Ecology in New England

Pathfinder

Description of your research.

There has been a lot of debate in recent years about the ecological nature of American Indian tribes, a debate which often pits the image of natives at one with their environment against

that image of natives as exploiters  their environment. My research seeks to find a balance between these two images by reviewing native use of fire, hunting, and deforestation with a particular emphasis

on New England geography and native groups.

Primary Sources

Amadas, Philip. 1584. Voyage of M. Philip Andas and M. Arthur Barlowe. Source: Virtual Jamestown.

This first hand account of early interactions between these explorers and natives lends some insight as to what practices American Indians used before more frequent contact with Europeans.

Chief Red Jacket of the Seneca. 1805. Address to White Missionaries and Iroquois Six Nations Source: American Rhetoric 

Red Jacket's response to the white missionaries offers an important perspective on how American Indians perceived their environment.

Secondary Sources

Cronon, William. 2003. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang.

Cronon's work offers extensive knowledge on how not only American Indians affected their environment in New England but also that of New England colonists. To understand the changes to

these environments one must look at the affects of both societies.

Krech, Shepard III. 1999. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Krech's work is rich with information on an array of native groups spanning a large period of time yet offers surprising depth on each of the topics selected. I also selected this book for my paper

because the view points expressed in the book offered a counter point to the view point of my paper.

Foster, Michael. 1998. In Search of New England's Native Past. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press.

Foster's work does not focus exclusively on American Indian ecology, however several sections that touch on the topics of hunting and fire.

Williams, Gerald. "References on the American Indian Use of Fire in Ecosystems" 1994 n.p. 1 May 2009 <http://wings.buffalo.edu/anthropology/Documents/firebib>

This source proved invaluable as it offered an extensive list of many of the uses of fire among American Indian cultures.

Kardulias, Nick. "Negotiation and Incorporation on the Margins of World-Systems: Examples from Cyprus and North America" 2007 n.p. 5 May 2009 <jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol13/Kardulias-vol13n1.pdf>

This essay covers a wide range of topics, but I found the section that detailed some of the hunting taboos of some native tribes to be particularly useful.

"Fire Regimes of Oak Hickory Forests" Forest Encyclopedia Network 2008 <http://www.forestencyclopedia.net/p/p205>

This site is dedicated to detailing the forest ecology. Although it is an encyclopedia, it was able to illustrate some of the more subtle affects that American Indians had on their environment.

Your Name

Calen Robertson