You are here
Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2006
- Title: "The Paradise of these Parts:" 17th Century Primary Accounts of the Northeast Coastal Landscape
- Primary Author: John Burk (Harvard Forest)
- Additional Authors: David Foster (Harvard University); Glenn Motzkin (University of Massachusetts - Amherst )
- Abstract:
The 17th-century records of European explorers, travelers, settlers, soldiers, town and colony governments, and other miscellaneous sources provide valuable primary insights into the Northeast coastal landscape. We have been gathering historical data for this period as part of a broad effort, including paleoecologial and archaeological studies, to understand vegetation composition, structure, and dynamics prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Some 230 sources, covering the region from Long Island to Cape Cod and the North Shore, were researched, yielding 550 distinct landscape and vegetation descriptions in varying amounts of length and detail. Explorer accounts checked in the past year included the voyages of Henry Hudson, Thomas Dermer, and Samuel de Champlain; the latter included a detailed description of the Chatham/Eastham area of Cape Cod from 1605. The papers of colonial figures such as Roger Williams, John Winthrop and his family, Thomas Morton, John Josselyn, Alexander Hamilton, and others included information about native populations and lifestyles, trade, and travel descriptions, as did Indian war journals of John Mason, John Underhill, and Benjamin Church.
A thorough search of town, state, and colony records was conducted as a follow-up to the explorer accounts, with initial emphasis on geographic areas not addressed in the former (i.e. areas of Connecticut and Rhode Island). The town records included ordinances to burn woods, uplands, and underbrush (several Long Island towns, 1650-1660), citations of woodlands to be divided by proprietors, depletion of wood by liming and mill operations (Truro, MA and others), and locations of grasslands, meadows, Indian fields, and sawmills. Every town checked enacted some sort of timber conservation act by the early 1700s, with many citing considerable losses of forest (Portsmouth, RI, Huntington, NY, Lyme, CT, Rehoboth, MA). A number of towns, including those on Cape Cod, also passed acts to protect and/or grant permission to ‘box,’ ‘milk,’ or ‘turpentine’ pine trees. Similar citations, on a wider geographic scale, were found in the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth Colony, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York colonial government records.
While the references have not been analyzed in detail at this point, a basic search indicates 345 (65 percent) described timber/wooded areas, 59 mentioned Indian fields and agriculture, 133 refered to grass/plains/meadow/barren land and 110 detailed native population dynamics. A detailed database and bibliography of all sources checked is being maintained, with paper copies stored in the archives.
- Research Category: Historical and Retrospective Studies
