01:512:103 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Wild Beasts, Puritans, Miantonomoh

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: American History Courses
• Course: 01:512:103
• Professor: Professor Mitchell

Document Summary

Instead of viewing the precolonial landscape as beautiful, the leading. The new english saw the indians as their opposite as pagan peoples who had surrendered to their worst instincts to live within the wild, instead of laboring hard to conquer and transcend nature (location 3916). Economic interest encouraged colonists to spread out, to acquire large and dispersed farms. But this contradicted their religious desire to live in tight communities of near neighbors, watching over one another"s morals and meeting frequently for worship (location 3926). To avoid becoming like indians, the new english changed the land and converted. The puritans also worked to subdue, convert, and transform the indians into replicas of english christians (location 3926). In sum, both to benefit and to reassure themselves, the new english worked to dominate the external world of the forest, its wild animals, and its indians (location 3926). The natives lacked political unity (location 3935).