1. Assess William Bradford's view of nature? How does he understand and characterize American nature? Do his ideas change over time? What are the reasons for and implications of such an assessment of nature?
2. We know that disease was devastating on Native Americans who encounter European colonists. Consider Bradford's relation (see Major Problems, esp. 71). How and why was it so destructive? How did contemporary European colonists account for the Indians' demise? Assess the implications of European colonial explanations.
3. How did John Winthrop, leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, justify English colonialism in New England (see 72-73)? Why did Puritans migrate? What gave them the right to settle in North America? How and why do the words of Winthrop matter?
4. Evaluate Thomas Morton's poetic epigraph. Compare and contrast it to John Winthrop-that is, assess the similarities and differences in the arguments and justifications for colonization in New England.
5. Compare and contrast the depictions of nature in the excerpts from Bradford and Morton. How could essentially the same landscape be both a wilderness and a paradise?
6. What does William Wood's New England Prospect (74) tell us about European colonial attitudes toward the Indians? What does it tell us about English colonial objectives? What does tell us about the impact of English settlement on the environment, even as early as 1634?
7. Evaluate the Indian explanation for English migration to America, which Roger Williams relates (74). What can we learn about Indian environmental practice from Williams's description of Indian hunting?
8. What can we learn as environmental historians from the death of Nicholas Shapleigh in 1682 (see p. 76)?
9. Conservation policy in New Hampshire dates at least from 1730. What happened in that year to conserve resources? What was the objective of the proclamation (77)? What might have made it necessary? What was its likely impact? What might it tell us about attitudes toward nature in 18th-century England and New England?
10. John White describes and illustrates the Indian town of Secota in 1590, as well as Indian boat building and fishing (98-100). Assess these as environmental historical documents-how can we use them to understand and analyze Native environmental thought and practice? Why might we care about the Indians' town, boats, and fishing?
11. Why were Ralph Hamor and John Rolfe so enthusiastic about tobacco (101)? What was their vision for tobacco cultivation in Virginia? What environmental factors affected their thinking? How, in their view, would tobacco cultivation improve Virginia? Did they see any "downside"? Would tobacco make Virginia a "land of opportunity"?
12. William Fitzhugh described his vast holdings in Virginia in a 1686 letter (102-3). Compare and contrast the colonial landscape of Fitzhugh's estate with the town of Secota, described by John White a hundred years earlier (98-99). Do these snapshot views illustrate an environmental revolution in the colonial South? Explain.
13. Assess Robert Beverly's statement (1705), "The Indians of Virginia are almost wasted" (102-4). In what sense were they nearly "wasted"? What was the cause? Assess their prospects. Who does Beverly blame for their demise? Is he remorseful?
14. Assess Robert Beverly's statement (1705) regarding Virginia (p. 104). What does he mean by ". . . Virginia, as it is now improved, (I should rather say altered,) by the English"? What is the difference between "improvement" and alteration of nature? Does nature-Virginia in particular-require improvement, in his view? Is improvement possible?
15. Assess Robert Beverly's comparison of Virginia with "the Land of Promise," or Eden. "The Country is in a very happy Situation, between the extremes of Heat and Cold, but inclining rather to the first. Certainly it must be a happy Climate, since it is very near the same Latitude with the Land of Promise. Besides, As Judaa was full of Rivers, and Branches of Rivers; . . . [and so forth]. In fine, if any one impartially considers all the Advantages of this Country, as Nature made it; he must allow it to be as fine a Place, as any in the Universe. . ." (105). How does Beverly's description compare to those of New England colonial writers? What are the dangers of Paradise in Virginia, according to Beverly? In what sense is Virginia a "garden'?
16. Assess the traveler's account of tobacco cultivation in 1775 (106-9)). What can this perhaps tedious account tell us about the "agroecosystem" of colonial Virginia? Analyze the environmental impact of tobacco growing. Assess the impact on the human as well as the natural ecology.
17. Assess this quotation from an anonymous traveler in 1775: "There is no plant in the world that requires richer land, or more manure than tobacco; it will grow on poorer fields, but not to yield crops that are sufficiently profitable to pay the expences of Negroes &c. . . . . this makes the tobacco planters more solicitous for new land than any other people in America, they wanting it much more" (108).
18. According to the anonymous author of Animal Husbandry (1775), what was wrong with American agriculture (135-37)? Why did it require reform, according to the observer? Were some parts in a greater state of "devastation" than others? What did the author recommend?
19. Assess this quotation from Animal Husbandry (1775): "In these colonies . . . land cost nothing . . . . But this circumstance, which is such an undoubted advantage, in fact turns out the contrary; and for this reason, they depend on this plenty of land as a substitute for all industry and good management; neglecting the efforts of good husbandry . . ." (137).
20. Assess Crèvecœur's description of Americans and America (c. 1782), which includes lines such as, "We are a people of cultivators, scattered over an immense territory." "We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself." "We have no princes, for whom we toil, starve, and bleed: we are the most perfect society now existing in the world. Here man is free as he ought to be" (138). Evaluate these statements as an environmental historian.
21. What is the role of the environment in forming "the American, this new man," according to Crèvecœur? What does he mean when he writes, "Men are like plants; the goodness and flavour of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow"? (139). Does Crèvecœur see regional variation among Americans-to what extent is this environmentally determined? Does America present dangers as well as opportunities? Assess Crèvecœur's sense of "progress" as environmental history.