Changes

Native Americans were not passive in their responses. Indians both took advantage of new opportunities presented by Europeans while resisting those they viewed as threatening or dangerous. Such changes altered the identities of Native Americans. In this way, as Cronon points out, these adjustments had effects, “by ceasing to live as their ancestors had done, they did not cease to be Indians, but became Indians with very different relationships to the ecosystems in which they lived.” (164) Cronon concludes that the “transition to capitalism” led ot an alienation of the land’s resources and human labor, transforming “natural communities as profoundly as it did human ones. “ (170) The integration of the New England eco-systems into a capitalist global economy meant colonists and Indians played a role in ecological destruction

[http://videri.org/index.php?title=Guide_to_the_Literature Check out other great articles at Videri.org.]

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