A New Reinterpretation of Early American History
In the field of American environmental history, historians prefer to do local history rather than synthetic history. When Cronon was doing his research on environmental history, taking Island County, Washington as a case study, his Lands on the Use did a good job in exploring local history. Following him, local history becomes popular in the field of American environmental history. However, illuminated by Crosby, Diamond and McNeil, colonial American historians attempt to reinterpret early American history in a synthetic way. For Virginia Anderson, she examines how significant of the domestic animals were in shaping the relationships between Native Americans and colonists, which greatly revised the historical writing of early American history.
Adopting the perspective of Columbian Exchange in early American history, Anderson examines the cultural conflicts between Native Americans and the colonial Americans. Anderson presumes how colonial Americans were different from Native Americans in understanding animals, property and husbandry. In doing so, Anderson finds a granite monument in the town of Duxbury, Massachusetts, on which “site of nook gate. Here a palisade was erected across the nook in 1634. This palisade was a high fence to prevent cattle from straying and probably to keep the Indians out” were engraved on it.[1] According to this palisade, Anderson assumes the differences of domesticating animals between Native Americans and colonial Americans, as well as their understanding of property were the core for understanding early American history. Then Anderson explains the cultural differences between Native Americans and colonial Americans. Colonial Americans in the 17th century wanted to construct their own fence to keep the Indians out and prevent cattle from straying, while Native Americans were accustomed to stray their cattle and did not like to set fence to protect their own ownerships. The British colonists in North America were interested in domesticating animals, while Native Americans preferred to hunt. For colonial Americans, taming a wild animal could help them to have their ownership of the animals. While for Native Americans, they actually did not have consciousness to ownership and property. Due to these cultural differences on treating livestock and animals, as well as their understanding of ownership, Native Americans and colonial Americans were in conflict with each other on settling with animals, which finally caused the King Philip’s War and the Pequot War. Finally, Native Americans were forced to the west. For Anderson, the history of colonization of Europeans in North America was the history of Native Americans who were forced to the west due to these cultural differences.[2]
Through examining these topics in early American history, Anderson attempts to make a grand synthesis in reinterpreting early American history. She was ambitious and her interpretations were rather challenging. Revisiting the cultural misunderstanding between Native Americans and colonists, she helps us to understand early American history in a new way. However, it seems that she goes so far away that her new explanations are not very convincing. It is undeniable a fact that there were cultural misunderstandings between Native Americans and British colonists in North America. However, she should not assume all the political affairs, as well as the wars between Native Americans and colonists were all caused due to their different understanding of livestock and property. After all, human beings also played important roles in it. Ignoring the significance of human agency, her great synthesis in reinterpreting early American history is rather unconvincing.
As we can see, the Columbian Exchange has been gradually accepted by early American historians in the past forty years. Unlike traditional narratives which mainly focus on nation-state, political elites, colonization, capitalism, the environmental turn in early American history asks historians to pay more attention to the exchanges of plants, diseases, livestock, etc., and their impacts on colonists, as well as Native Americans. Following this tendency, more and more historians start to apply an ecological perspective to approach their themes. However, it does not mean that historians should underestimate the significance of traditional interpretations. Rather than compete for the dominant paradigm in early American history, the environmental turn in early American history is complimentary with them. Since the perspective of Columbian Exchange was brought into early American history, it provided historians a new lens to explain early American history, asked historians to explore new territories and reflect the traditional historical writing of early American history. Although historians have made great progress in interpreting early American history, it is a field which is still in need of further explorations.
[1] Virginia Dejohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 2.
[2] Also see Virginia DeJohn Anderson, “Animals into the Wilderness: The Development of Livestock Husbandry in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Apr., 2002), 377-408, “King Philip's Herds: Indians, Colonists, and the Problem of Livestock in Early New England,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), 601-624.
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