• people thought differently back then
• what we think of as natural is in fact the result of history
  

1. Introduction: A and B show similar patterns and also differences caused by X
   
2. the pattern of A
3. what forces shaped A
4. the pattern of B
5. what forces shaped B
6. a discussion of X as a key cause of the differences
7. conclusion
   

• new plants and animals, but also more extremes of temperature and river flow
• change in the economic patterns of the humans there
• Indian populations devastated by disease
• Europeans took Indian land and turned it into farmland
• 
  

Europeans brought not only a new economic system but also a new ecosystem

• European plants and animals went wild
• they exhausted the soil and changed the weather
  

They changed Indian culture as much, although the Indians continued to see themselves as a separate people

• the Indians made choices in how they adapted
• what they saw as resources and how they used them changed
• they had had less impact on the ecosystem because their culture didn't value accumulation of goods

Be careful in thinking about the dramatic change from 1600 to 1800:

• don't think the Europeans suddenly changed everything
• 
  
• native Americans had choices in how they responded
• the environment would have changed even without the impact of humans
• European plants and animals had an advantage over American ones in having evolved with more competition
  

It took a while even for the colonists to move fully to a market and commodity relationship with the environment

• even by European standards they used resources wastefully
• why did they change their attitudes to be more wasteful?
• they were amazed by what they saw, how it was different from Europe
• it is natural to be wasteful when there is suddenly more
• they never thought the resources would run out
• the new continent was so large
• God had given them this land to turn into a perfect society
• religious belief that nature was there for human beings to exploit
• labor was scarce
  
• did they feel badly about that?
  
• some of this was shaped by a situation where land was plentiful and labor scarce
• they assumed the new land was so large that resources would never be used up