1

Olivia Reamer

Dr. Benjamin

Environmental History

7 November 2022

Analysis of Colonial and 19th Century Interactions with Natural Resources and the Environmental

Consequences of their Commodification

“What was a merchantable commodity in America was what was scarce in Europe.” 1 This

observation by Bill Cronon in his discussion of the environmental history of New England, Changes in

the Land, reflects the prevailing attitude of colonists beginning to explore and harness the resources of the

New World. That the colonists observed the abundance of plants, animals, trees, and water supplies

through a lens of scarcity and want sheds some light on why they approached these resources with such

voracity, why they utilized these resources as if they would stretch on forever, why they were so quick to

position themselves their owners, and why they had such little regard for the ecological ramifications of

their use of these commodities. That many of the early colonists came to the New World believing they

were predestined by God to harness its riches and had motivations of finally finding success in a world

ripe with possibilities explains why they were so single-minded in their pursuit of commodities, often to

their future detriment and the destruction of the landscapes and resources they so prized. Ted Steinberg is

apt in his characterization of colonists as seeing the New World as a “World of Commodities”, as the new

inhabitants not only saw the land as their new home with little regard for its native inhabitants but also as

an economic resource to support their ambitions with a seemingly endless supply of resources to ensure

economic profit. In utilizing this abundance for economic gain, the colonists (in their minds) were simply

fulfilling their purpose as commodities, never mind what future effects would come from this pursuit.

This paper will discuss these perspectives through the analysis of three key commodities that shaped the

way colonists interacted with the environment of the New World and its Indigenous inhabitants, and the

single-minded pursuit of economic gain through these commodities enacted dramatic changes in the

environment, while also shaping the social, political, and economic trajectory of what would become

America. The commodities of wood, furs, and the commodities found in water impacted the environment

of the New World in dramatic ways, altering the patterns of life for indigenous communities and native

1
Cronon, 20
 2

species, transforming the appearance of the landscape and what resources remained for future use, and

shaping the ways that future industries developed around the pursuit of these commodities, exacerbating

the changes that had already substantially redefined the land and the inhabitants’ relationships with it.

Though perhaps seemingly minuscule, the impacts of deforestation from the timber industry, the

destruction of animal habitats and the integration of Indigenous communities into the capitalist economy

through the fur trade, and the unalterable changes in river currents and fish migration brought about by

the commodification of water were significant factors in shaping American history up until the present

day, and should be viewed as historical actors just as transformational as any revolution.

In his analysis of the colonists’ interactions with the “New World” of New England, Cronon

emphasizes their awe at the abundance of resources that awaited them, providing a stark contrast to the

scarcity that had begun to develop in Europe. One resource that Cronon pays special attention to is

lumber: a commodity that amazed settlers with the vastness of New England forests and the extreme

height of many of its trees, and one which prompted the eventual deforestation of not only New England

but eventually territories further west. Lumber was one the first commodities that piqued the interest of

colonists arriving in New England since wood was already becoming scarce and began to be a restricted

commodity in England by the 16th century. Due to this lack, the early English settlers in this region

perceived the seeming abundance of wood in the new-found colonies through a lens of great want and

scarcity. They thus saw the forests as an endless and valuable commodity, unlike any resource one could

take advantage of in England.2 Perhaps in attempts to encourage business and settlement from England or

just due to their surprise at the sheer density and diversity of the forests, colonial observers provided

detailed accounts of the types of trees they encountered such as William Wood who Cronon quotes

describing the timber of Massachusetts as, “‘straight and tall, some trees being twenty, some thirty foot

high, before they spread forth their branches’”. 3 The height and straightness of the oaks, hickories, and

especially pines played a significant role in its commodification and appeal to England. Europe had never

seen trees as thick and tall as those of New England, and the straightness of these trees, particularly the

white pines, made them the perfect source of masts for the British navy, as these trees were able to be

used whole in one part rather than in spliced together pieces how most European masts were made, in

addition to the convenience and cheapness of being extracted from the colonies rather than through trade

2
Cronon, 20
3
Cronon, 25
 3

from the Baltic forests.4 Thus a commodity was born, sparking the development of the lumber industry

across New England with the creation of sawmills in the northern colonies that by the later years of the

16th century dotted streams and rivers in Maine, particularly at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, a

precursor to the enormous and industrialized Great Lakes region mills in the 19th century.5 Perhaps due to

their excitement at a never-before-seen source abundance of timber and the necessity of lumber for

building up the new colonial communities that were in constant growth, lumbering in the colonies was

carried out at a rapid pace, extracting the wealth of wood from the forests of New England in an often

haphazard and even wasteful manner, utilizing techniques like “driving a piece”, 6 a method which

utilized the breakage of smaller trees as a cushion to protect a larger tree from shattering when felled,

crushing less valuable trees in its way as a result of colonial standards which deemed only certain trees as

marketable commodities and others, which might have been perfectly-useful for building materials were

just bulldozed in an attempt to harvest the most attractive (perhaps commodious) and profitable resources.

Indeed, Cronon highlights how New Englanders utilized this commodity in places that might have been

considered too wasteful in the Old World, such as wooden shingles for roofs, full-timbered house

construction, and expanding house sizes, thus using even more wood for its construction but also

continually eating up more and more firewood for heat. The effects of this haphazard harvesting were

only compounded by the expansion of agricultural settlements pushing westward across New England, as

forests were cleared of all their trees to make way for farms. 7 Overall, the general attitude of the colonists

towards the forests they discovered in New England is comprised of a few key beliefs: that the forests of

the New World were endless and would serve their needs forever (perhaps there is a connection with the

religious beliefs about being blessed by God), that the forests represented the promise of profit and were a

commodity that needed and deserved to be exploited, and that their methods and practices would have

little to no bearing on the future amount of trees and would not impede their ability to utilize lumber in

the future.

One might expect these attitudes to have shifted by the 19th century, as timber supplies grew

leaner, however, Steinberg’s analysis suggests the contrary. Especially with the buildup of

industrialization, new technology and transportation that depended on wood (like the railroad and
4
Cronon, 110
5
Cronon, 110
6
Cronon, 111
7
Cronon, 114
 4

steamboats), the growth of major cities, and a population boom in the later half of the 19th century,

lumber was an increasingly sought-after commodity that sparked the creation of mills and facilities to

support the lumber supply chain across the nation, pushing further westward as supplies dwindled.8 The

lumber barons and American citizens mark a continuation of the attitudes of the colonists: lumber was a

profit-generating tool of industry to be harvested at all costs and not only a commodity but a necessity for

the myriad of new uses that demanded it, as Steinberg compares wood’s necessity in manufacturing and

technology to that of plastic and steel in the modern day. 9 In fact, Steinberg addresses these similarities

between the colonists and the Americans of the 19th century, arguing that the industrialist approach to

timber constituted a more rampant destruction and “calculating approach” to harvesting wood, taking the

commodification of lumber a step further by concentrating the industry in the hands of large

manufacturing companies rather than the small farmer.10 Wood was not only a commodity but the product

of a mass industry. The sheer magnitude of lumber required by this industry wreaked environmental

havoc, again echoing and magnifying the colonists' experiences.

The most glaring effect of the commodification of lumber in the colonial period was

deforestation. The colonists’ wasteful methods of harvesting and using wood resulted in whole forests

becoming barren and empty. The true extent of this damage is evidenced by the fact that the inhabitants of

early centers of lumbering in Piscataqua were a century later dependent on gathering lumber from

faraway mills. These communities that used to surround the lumber industry were out of place in the New

England landscape once cleared of trees, with even place names like “Cedar Brook'' in Massachusetts no

longer holding any meaning or relation to the drastically altered landscape in which even trees planted in

place of their predecessors failed to offset the constant use.11 The deforestation of the region caused an

ecological transformation that dramatically altered the environment of New England, with greater sunlight

and heat on the forest floor changing the microclimate of the soil,12 floods caused by the disappearance of

tree and root barriers which prevented heavy runoff throughout the year,13 and the creation of new

seasonal patterns that dried out the streams and rivers of the countryside due to the rapid flood waters and

less controlled runoff, which often affected the economic wellbeing of farms and mills which depended
8
Steinberg, 64
9
Steinberg, 64
10
Steinberg, 65
11
Cronon, 113
12
Cronon, 122
13
Cronon, 124
 5

on steady streams of water and the ability to follow flood patterns and were now completely thrown-off

by the irregularity of the climate in their region and fluctuation of temperatures.14 Though not heavily

involved in the deforestation of the region, Indigenous Peoples also suffered from its effects in the ways

previously mentioned like flooding and irregularity of the climate which surely complicated the lives of

many indigenous communities who based their lives on the patterns and regularity of seasons, but also by

destroying the edge communities of animals they had cultivated through their intentional arrangement of

the forest and producing a scarcity in animal species that lived in these areas and provided a stable food

source for indigenous hunters.15

If the effects of lumbering during the colonial period were destabilizing, those during the 19th

century continued and magnified its destructiveness. Although lumber supported a massive industry based

in the Great Lakes region, deforestation once again wiped out the forests through the massive harvesting

of lumber due to the settlement of the West and dependence of the East on the region which produced

similar effects on the climate and flood patterns of these regions. However, this enormous demand for

wood changed how lumber was harvested from chopping down individual trees in the colonial period to

large corporations buying up huge tracts of land often through government subsidies only to clear all its

trees and render the area barren and no longer valuable, and the industry was eventually forced due to

scarcity in the Midwest to attack the forests of other regions.16 The ways that lumber corporations

processed and transported the wood to meet this massive demand also had severe environmental

consequences. For instance, most logs were transported using river systems and canals by floating the

logs one by one to bring them to a mill, yet this method frequently resulted in enormous log jams

(sometimes 10 miles long), in which all the logs piled together and blocked the flow of the rivers,

exposing mud and causing flooding, in addition to disrupting the natural river ecosystems, and although

they were later fixed by booming, it generally seems like its extreme environmental consequences were

not considered.17 Additionally, the logging methods in the northern woods led to disastrous wildfires in

the region due to the hasty harvesting of logs which left behind copious amounts of slash that were later

burned by farmers once the region was cleared of wood. However, the burning of this dried-out slash and

other debris unleashed deadly wildfires for 50 years across the region, which not only produced
14
Cronon, 125
15
Cronon, 126
16
Steinberg, 65
17
Steinberg, 66
 6

irreparable damage to the land and the wildlife but also led to the deaths of thousands who were

asphyxiated by smoke or were trapped in the fires.18 Overall, the effects of lumbering from the colonial

age to only about 100 years ago clearly damaged and often destroyed the environments that were ripe

with the commodity, not only creating massive deforestation but also contributing to disasters and

dramatically altering the climate and patterns of the regions that were purged of wood. This

single-minded pursuit of lumber with no regard for the ecological consequences reflects just how much of

a staple commodity the forests of America had become.

The commodification of animal skins and furs had dramatic effects on the environmental

well-being of New England and drastically altered aspects of everyday life for both colonists and

Indigenous peoples swept up in the trade of these goods. Indigenous peoples had hunted the fur-bearing

animals of New England for many years before colonization, and in fact, the hunt played a major role in

the cycles of seasons and lifestyles of Indigenous communities, particularly those in the north. As Cronon

articulates in his chapter “Commodities of the Hunt”, dedicated to describing the effects of the fur trade,

hunting had always played a crucial role in not only the caloric intake of indigenous groups (as bear and

deer meat comprised ¾ of the meat supply for the average inland village) but also was the main source for

clothing for indigenous communities.19 The importance of furs and animal skins to indigenous

communities was so much so male hunters covered “hundreds of square miles…to obtain skins for the

skirts, leggings, shirts, moccasins, and other articles of clothing Indians would need”, Cronon points out.20

In Southern New England where subsistence agriculture was more prominent and there were fewer

opportunities to stalk plentiful fur-bearers like in the North, Indigenous groups often traded among one

another, exchanging gifts in goods like corn for animal skins. Indigenous communities had never hunted

animals in amounts that exceeded their needs nor did they stockpile goods for extensive trade, except for

trade on a small scale with Southern tribes, a pattern which unintentionally limited the impact of hunting

on the population of animal species.21 However, although Indigenous peoples were familiar with some

trade practices and often exchanged goods, it was much more of a gift-giving process to attain favor and a

trade comprised mostly of the goods that these regional groups naturally possessed 22 and it was not until

18
Steinberg, 67
19
Cronon, 47
20
Cronon, 48
21
Cronon, 98
22
Cronon, 92
 7

the arrival of the Europeans and the commodification of the fur trade that Indigenous groups were

dragged into a much more vast and demanding network of trade; one which required hunting on a far

greater scale than ever before.

Upon their arrival to the New World, the English visitors were extremely drawn to and impressed

by the enormous supply of beasts available to them (not restricted to noble landowners like back in

England) and observed how much of New England was populated by many bears, several types of deer,

foxes, wolves, beavers, and moose, to name a few, which again sparked an interest in how to commodify

these animals.23 Since during the 17th and 18th centuries, furs and garments crafted with animal skins,

particularly beaver skin which was used to make popular hats of the time, were in high demand in Europe,

the colonists viewed the animal species of the New World in the light of this demand and sought to tap

into the preexisting hunting and trade structures of Indigenous communities. Even as early as the 16th

century, some Indigenous tribes along the coast of Maine and in Narragansett Bay had already begun to

participate in trade with Europeans, and in the cases of explorers like Bartholomew Gosnold and

Champlain, were often greeted by sachems who offered skins in return for friendship and who were

already eager to tap into the European demand for skins.24 However one of the key events that sparked the

commodification of furs and the participation of Indigenous peoples in the fur trade was the “biological

havoc” that Indigenous communities had experienced in the years since European contact due to diseases

that the Europeans brought with them during contact with Indigenous communities who had never

developed immunity to such illnesses and whose populations were decimated, resulting in social,

economic, and political upheaval so severe that the Indigenous communities could no longer maintain the

patterns of life they had depended on, and eventually became dependent on a new market that sprung up

from trade on a larger with Europeans.25 By tapping into and expanding pre-existing trade from North to

South in corn and beans for furs, while also utilizing wampum (valuable shells turned into beads used for

jewelry and other ornaments with a long history of exchange between Indigenous groups as a token of

prestige) as a sort of currency and commodity to trade for furs in the North (supplied by trade with the

tribes in Long Island), Europeans were able to take control of a broadening trade network in the colonies

and obtain the commodity of furs they desired while simultaneously altering the social and political

23
Cronon, 23
24
Cronon, 84
25
Cronon, 91
 8

structure of Indigenous communities through saturating the market with wampum and transforming it

from a gift and symbol of the authority of sachems to a commodified tool for trade that eventually held

much less cultural significance, and could be easily obtained (even though it was so desirable) through the

fur trade.26 However, Europeans possessed additional goods desirable to Indigenous communities, who

sold large supplies of their furs and skins to obtain such goods as wampum and corn, needed an alternate

material for clothing which they found in European textiles, which were cheaper than furs and easily

accessible through new trade networks, and eventually altered the lifestyle of many Indigenous

communities by significantly changing the traditional styles of dress and patterns of life, and again,

further integrating Indigenous peoples into dependence on European trade.27

Indigenous communities certainly experienced the brunt of the changes brought about by the

burgeoning fur trade, however, these effects were profoundly felt by the fur-bearers themselves and the

New England ecosystem, which in turn continued to harm the lifestyles of indigenous communities. As

Indigenous hunters began to depend on the fur trade as the new structure of survival and interacting with

their environment, and as colonial traders and their markets in Europe continually demanded more and

more skins, specifically the popular beaver skin, the hunting habits of the Indigenous communities began

to shift from an unintentionally-conservationist approach in which the hunters only took the animals they

needed during certain times of the year to a year-round industry of hunting expanding into new areas to

produce the largest amount of beaver skins, which eventually reduced the beaver population to such a

small level that New England Indigenous peoples had to begin fixing hunting territories into more

privately owned territories rather than open to hunting for various tribes, and because they stayed

stationary to control the beaver hunt more heavily, they actively had to limit the amount of beavers they

hunted not as a conservation method to support the ecosystem that depended on the beaver, but as a tool

to maintain a continuous supply of a commodity.28 This shift in practices demonstrates just how

drastically the commodification of animal skins reduced the amounts of animals, like beavers, so that it

required great cultural shifts to support the demands of the market. The animals of New England

experienced a similar elimination as the trees. Both were harvested initially with little regard for future

effects on the population and with the primary focus on the demands of the current market, resulting in

26
Cronon, 95-97
27
Cronon, 102
28
Cronon, 104
 9

the disappearance of many creatures from the ecosystem, such as beavers who were already targeted due

to popular demand but disappeared rapidly due to the additional factors of having very sedentary lifestyles

and low reproductive rates, causing them to virtually disappear from New England by the mid-17th

century.29

Moreover, similar to the effects of deforestation, as whole populations of fur-bearers like beavers,

otters, foxes, and raccoons were wiped out, place names like “Beaver Creeks” and established trading

posts became irrelevant to the landscape.30 The disappearance of the beavers, for instance, from these

areas shaped the trajectory of the ecological landscape, as old dams provided sites for bridges and mills,

while the ponds in their old habitats were taken over by salmon and shad, and the collapse of old dams

even benefitted colonial farming as old leaves and silt were washed up and ponds dried into rich soil.31 By

the 19th century, observers traveling to New England were no longer confronted with an abundance of

animal species, rather visitors like Timothy Dwight, quoted by Cronon, remarked that there were almost

no more wild animals roaming in the colonies, “...besides a few small species of no consequence except

for their fur”.32 The only element of consequence about these disappearing animals that interested the

colonists and Indigenous peoples of the region was their fur, demonstrating their disregard for the animals

that carried the fur and the commodification of the skins and furs of these species to such an extent that

traditional relationships of Indigenous peoples with the ecosystem were turned upside down.

Great reductions in the animal population of New England while they became increasingly

commodified once again enacted great changes in the lifestyles of Indigenous communities, as Cronon

classifies them as the “real losers” of the fur trade.33 Dependent on the commodities of the colonists and

completely integrated into the capitalist trade patterns enacted by the colonists, the use of wampum as a

currency turned southern New England Indigenous groups into much more sedentary communities fixed

on extracting shell-fish year-round, while the overhunting of animal species completely changed Northern

Indigenous groups’ relationship with their ecosystem, with both communities experiencing significant

social and political upheaval due to this trading system like epidemic disease, the transformation of

political prestige, shifts in how and why goods were exchanged, and the beginnings of economic

29
Cronon, 99
30
Cronon, 106
31
Cronon, 106
32
Cronon, 107
33
Cronon, 101
 10

dependence on capitalism.34 The commodification of fur was much more than the start of a new trade

system and decline in animal populations, but was a huge factor in the transformation of social, political,

and economic relationships and interactions with the land, especially in Indigenous communities.

The final commodity of great importance in this discussion is a broader category of commodities

that consists of water and the goods which were extracted from the waters of the colonies into the 19th

century. This may seem like multiple commodities in one category, but how water, the power it provided,

and the goods like mussels, fish, and clams, interacted and worked together to shape the colonial

landscape make it an interesting phenomenon to investigate in all of these areas. The role of water in the

early days of colonization largely concerned its capabilities to produce food: the ways it could be used to

assist agriculture and especially the fish and shellfish found within it. The first observations of early

colonists highlighted the importance of water’s abundance of edible resources, as observers like Reverend

Francis Higginson and John Brereton exclaimed how they could barely believe the extremely large

numbers of codfish, and William Wood was in awe of the seasonal migrations of smelt and alewives,

among others, that arrived to spawn, “‘in such multitudes as is almost incredible, pressing up such

shallow waters as will scarce permit them to swim’”.35 For hundreds of years pre-contact, these fish had

supplied a large bulk of the Indigenous diet, specifically for Indigenous communities on the coasts of

New England where fishing and gathering shellfish constituted an integral part of male hunting traditions

and female gathering. However, like the commodities previously mentioned, these goods were rarely

stored in bulk or gathered in surplus. Likewise, Indigenous peoples did not apply strict English-style

property definitions on the waters they used, as Cronon points out, “... fish and shellfish could generally

be taken anywhere, although the nets, harpoons, weirs, and tackle used to catch them — and hence

sometimes the right to use the sites where these things were installed — might be owned by an individual

or a kin group. Indeed, in the case of extraordinarily plentiful fishing sites — especially major inland

waterfalls during the spawning runs — several villages might gather at a single spot to share the

wealth”.36 At this point, water sources, and the goods they provided represented resources to be shared by

various groups for subsistence purposes rather than commodities to be harvested or utilized to bring about

a particular economic end, as would later develop post-colonization. Once Europeans began to establish

34
Cronon, 101;107
35
Cronon, 22
36
Cronon, 63
 11

settlements and assess the resources that they could draw from in the colonies, fish and other water goods

were recognized as a “merchantable commodity”, which, according to Cronon, were goods that were able

to be transported back to Europe and generate profits for colonists, in this case specifically fish for

salting.37 Steinberg even recognizes how the growing populations of New England and increasing demand

for fish for consumption were already contributing to the depopulation of fish as they had become a

desirable commodity even before the buildup of industry and other agriculture practices which led to the

decline of the fish population.38

In addition to the commodification of fish, wampum as previously referenced was another good

that came from water, made up of the ground shells of whelks and quahogs, which was commodified by

European traders and drastically altered how Indigenous peoples interacted with wampum’s social

significance and the rate at which wampum was manufactured and traded in Indigenous communities,

transforming this symbol of prestige and leadership to a common commodity and almost a currency in the

fur trade.39 Other ways that water and the resources found in it were commodified during the colonial

period include the unique use of fish as fertilizer. Water had already been a key factor in supporting

colonial agriculture, but as colonial agricultural practices usually wore out the soil of their settlements

through monoculture and not resting fields for sufficient amounts of time, they depended on fertilizer to

keep agriculture productive. Utilizing the spring runs of fish to harvest thousands of fish for fertilizing

corn, colonists were able to prolong the lives of colonial fields while also enacting some key ecological

consequences, one of which was spoiling fields because of their high quantities of oil, which eventually

did not interact well with the ecosystem of fields.40

However out of all of the uses for water and all its related commodities, none was more impactful

and prized than the use of water as a power supply for mills, which extended from the colonial period

through the industrial age and up until the end of the 19th century. As explored in the section on timber,

mills were essential to the process of utilizing and profiting from the commodity of wood, yet the use of

water as a power supply transformed whole rivers into commodities essential to the growth of

industrialization, while irrigation of croplands also utilized some of the same methods to control water,

like dams and canals. Both uses of water as a commodity and tool for industry and agriculture contributed
37
Cronon, 20
38
Steinberg, 58
39
Cronon, 95
40
Cronon, 152
 12

dramatic environmental consequences to the landscape. For instance, in terms of agriculture, the use of

the commodity of water for irrigation led to the creation of dams and canals that changed river ecosystems

so much so that the fish populations began to decline as these artificial barriers blocked the migratory

patterns of alewives and salmon, and whole species of fish began to disappear.41 Moreso than Cronon,

Steinberg expands on the commodification of water through the buildup of industry and its environmental

consequences. According to Steinberg’s findings, the 18th century represented the main period of the

commodification of water supplies and the harmful effects of this commodification through industry. For

instance, Steinberg highlights how blast furnaces and textile mills found their homes along rivers and

constructed large dams to utilize water as a commodified fuel source, yet this use, combined with factors

previously mentioned, was detrimental to the survival of fish populations across New England, as these

dams created barriers for fish migration and blocked their seasonal passage with mill operations that often

operated during the prime spawning period in the Spring.42 As mills and factories continually looked at

water as a commodity and key power source, and thus increasingly sought out ways to control water, the

effects on these water ecosystems only grew more pronounced. Although these effects often extended to

the inhabitants around these mills which depended on fish as a food source, the increasing economic

profitability of industries that harnessed water power meant that little could be done politically to block

such developments, as in the case of Samuel Slater’s textile factory in the late 18th century.43 It is in cases

like these when the good of factory owners is placed ahead of environmental destruction and the issues

caused to the general population as a result, that the increasing value of water as a commodity becomes

most apparent. Water power was so essential to generating profits that it became a commodity that was

valued more than any detrimental effects its use might have. The commodification of water also had legal

and practical consequences on the use of water. Although in the early colonial period water was viewed

under English common law as a resource that landowners on a river had access to for fishing, irrigation,

and other uses so long as they did not alter the nature of the river nor disrupt its flow.44 However, with the

increasing power of industry, the definition of water as a resource shifted alongside the meaning of land

ownership along water sources and the creation of the ability to own water without owning land.

Steinberg references the case of the textiles mills in Lowell, Massachusetts to illustrate this changing
41
Cronon, 155
42
Steinberg, 59
43
Steinberg, 59
44
Steinberg, 59
 13

relationship with water and land, explaining how the water distribution corporation at Lowell invented the

idea of “mill power” which describes the amount of water used to drive “3,584 spindles for cotton yarn”,

an idea which was utilized to sell water as a commodity, eventually leading to companies being able to

purchase water without even purchasing the land it flowed through.45 The ability to purchase water as a

commodity without even owning the land around it only exacerbated the concentration of factories

building up dams and canals which only increased the environmental consequences of these factories

which often changed the flow rate of rivers, blocked native species from carrying out their natural patterns

and necessitated the building up of even more dams to combat the elevation patterns as factories

expanded, effectively closing off rivers from fish and destroying their habitats.46 In addition to detrimental

effects on fish, this continual altering of river patterns also contributed to the flooding of fields and

altering of farm landscapes, creating issues for farmers and their crops, while other industries complained

about how the changing water cycles forced them to alter their methods (like loggers and other mill

owners), yet through all these issues, water as a commodity for factory use and economic growth reigned

supreme, as courts were swayed by the power and profitability of industry to side with factory owners in

most cases on the detrimental effects of their methods.47 Water had undergone an incredible

transformation: from a shared resource to support subsistence, to the source of commodities to support

economic growth, to a commodity in and of itself that was controlled not by nature or by surrounding

inhabitants, but by the demands of the marketplace.

Although these commodities are each distinctive and developed into industries in unique

manners, all three-wood, furs, and water resources-are intertwined in the historical narrative of New

England and beyond. All three shaped the landscape in numerous ways, altering the ways that inhabitants

of these regions interacted with the environment and changing the relationship between humans and their

resources from one focused on subsistence and practical use to the modern, industrial relationship focused

on utilizing resources on a mass-scale of production as commodities. Through colonization, the essential

everyday interactions between humans and their environment in the Americas were transformed to

correspond to the demands of the marketplace so much so that every plant, each piece of earth, and even

volumes of water were looked at through a lens of profit and productivity. These examples of wood, furs,

45
Steinberg, 59
46
Steinberg, 60
47
Steinber, 61
 14

and water commodities present concrete illustrations of the effects of commodification on the

environment and provide historical links perhaps even up to the present day explaining why our

environment has developed the way it has and what consequences such economic attitudes might have

when echoed in modern uses of the environment.

Works Cited

Cronon, William. Changes in the Land. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005.

Steinberg, Theodore. Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2019.