since we're moving away from a romanticized history of Columbus, we should do the same re: American Indians.
Myth
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Many people believe that the first English to settle North America found an ancient, impenetrable wilderness stretching uninterrupted from the shores of the Atlantic to the banks of the Mississippi. The popular view of a pristine wilderness inhabited by American Indians who left no trace on the land is rooted in the Romantic notion of “the forest primeval” promoted by such poets as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
The Romantic view entered the early conservation movement through the writings of Henry David Thoreau and others (Williams 1999). It plays a strong role in today’s environmental movement (Brown 1999) and has even influenced the science of ecology (Whitney 1994).
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the truth
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Native Americans significantly altered the local ecosystem by clearing and burning forests, probably to make fields and enhance the growth of nut trees, Springer said. It’s a picture that conflicts with the popular notion that early Native Americans had little impact on North American landscapes.
Early Native Americans caused more carbon dioxide emissions than previously thought—and they thus contributed to global warming even before the industrial era began, a new study suggests.
This long-ago land clearing would have impacted global climate, Springer added. Ongoing clearing and burning of the Amazon rainforest, for example, is one of the world’s largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
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