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====Conservation vs. Preservation====

When the English colonists first started building towns on the North American continent, they recreated some of these earlier ways of treating land. New England towns often featured a “commons,” or an area that was protected from development but open to all villagers for common use. Southern plantations typically had vast acreages left out of the cycle of cultivation. This was as much a result of labor conditions in the South as anything else, but the effect was a sort of commons shared between settlers, slaves, and Native Americans. As the settlers continued moving west, tales emerged of the rugged frontiersman as the archetype of American exceptionalism. The self-reliance and ingenuity that were tested on the frontier translated into a strong and independent citizenry that served as the foundation of the new country’s political class. Names like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett became synonymous with the American spirit, and their exploits on the frontier helped define what it meant to be an American folk hero.