Social Impact of Americans’ Control on the Environment
California and the larger American west have gone through a tremendous environmental transformation. It is a vast wilderness that was progressively altered by civilization brought about by mining and industrialization. The availability of economic fortunes led to an influx of newcomers in pursuit of the newly found riches which consequently led to an increase in the population (Cronon, 1995). As a result, the immigrants, therefore, stumbled upon both the West’s’ indigenous inhabitants and also a non-human factor the environment. These interactions between the natural environment and humans in the process of establishing settling grounds presented unique challenges (Isenberg, 2013). The environment as a non-human entity would normally be expected to be passive to human alteration and contemplation but in reality, it is an active participant in these interactions. The historical social relations between dominant Americans and American West indigenous minority groups therefore shape the environmental history of the American West and California where the environment was controlled by culture.
The Trouble with Wilderness is Cronon’s illustration of how capitalism was unleashed in the Owens Valley with little to no concern being given to the plight of the Paiutes’. According to Cronon, the Paiutes’ had been settled in the Owens Valley for over 15 centuries but the expansion of Los Angeles as a city overlooked this fact (1995). This was driven by a deep desire to create profits and it involved manipulation and threats in order to forcefully eject the natives from their ancestral home. The Reclamation Bureau that was meant to create a long-lasting economic solution for the Paiutes’ was illegally used to rip them off their land in favor of civilization (Cronon, 1995). The Paiutes’ were traditionally farmers and the irrigation project would not only help them grow food but also maintain their traditions of irrigating the wilderness to maintain the natural eco-system. The dominant Americans therefore forcefully took control of the Paiutes’ land largely ignoring the fact when there was no solid justification for the immediate need for substitute water supplies. This in essence meant that the dominant Americans did not value the traditions and lifestyles of the Paiutes’ and thus sought to eliminate the inferior practices in favor of civilization.
President Theodore Roosevelt’s support for the aqueduct’s construction further illustrates how the immigrating population viewed the Paiutes’ as a hindrance to settling in and developing the west. This essentially means that the main driving force behind the forceful acquisition of ancestral land inhabited by successive Paiute generations’ was their poor land usage. As a consequence, the land which was initially a tribal possession had to be subjected to unfavorable legal policies meant to displace the Paiutes’ and drive them out of their homeland (Cronon, 1995). This was achieved by altering the water basins to construct reservoirs that would for all intents and purposes lock the natives out of the water supply. By denying them their lifeline, they were forced to give up their properties for losses while few individuals capitalized on their misfortunes. It shows that they were deemed as irrelevant and they had to assimilate to the European lifestyle whether they liked it or not and acquisition of land through any means possible was the only way to realize this selfish agenda.
The changes to the traditional natural environmental management practices of the Paiutes’ further exhibit how the newcomers to the west understood very little about the nature of their new environment. Continued civilization in the west was further accelerated after gold was originally discovered in California. According to Andrew Isenberg, the connection between the environment and industrialization is well captured by the ecological burden brought about by hydraulic mining. In the first chapter of his book ‘Mining California’, the author illustrates how the arrival of new settlers and their foreign way of life led to a significant shift in ecological balances (2013). Urban settlement, aggressive extraction of gold, and logging are the technological and legal measures that were imposed on the natural environment. For instance, logging was revolutionized as an important fuel for mechanization and as early as 1870, more than a third of the forest cover in California had already been destroyed. It followed that the natural habitats for fish within the waterways were affected and thus a crucial food source for the natives (Isenberg, 2013). Consequently, hydraulic mining resulted in huge deposits of mercury being deposited on the environment and especially along with waterways. The chemical made its way into the food reserves of the natives leading to detrimental health effects. Isenberg claims that this was clearly a means for miners to profit through exploiting the natural environment without considering the long term blow to both the environment and humans (2013). More to this, it also paved the way for the occurrence of previously unheard of natural calamities like cholera and flooding which not only affected the environment but also the people inhabiting it. The flooding washed way the irrigation land previously used by the natives rendering them irrelevant in their homeland and therefore a further attempt to forcefully displace them. This is because the alterations done to the environment would not support the traditions and lifestyles of the original inhabitants which effectively meant that they had to be annexed from their land in favor of the emigrants’ pursuits for more mining grounds. Further, it shows a complete disregard to the efforts of the native inhabitants by dominant American groups to conserve and preserve their eco-system which effectively confines them to a minority group (Isenberg, 2013). The Euro-Americans, therefore, imposed artificial controls on nature which produced detrimental social and economic costs to the native inhabitants. Isenberg for that reason proves in his book that the actions of miners whether intentional or accidental directly impacted the lives of the natives in California as a result of the ecological damage to their environment.
Historical social relations between the minority American West natives and Euro-Americans contribute to the environmental history of culture determining the state of the environment. Cronon in his article The Trouble with Wilderness paints a picture of the effects of industrialism and capitalism being unleashed on unsuspecting Owen Valley Paiutes’. After living in their ancestral land for over 15 decades, civilization annexed them from their homeland forcing them to sell their land and abandon their inherited way of life. The waterways they depended on were altered to deny them access and thus took away their livelihoods. This same tactic was employed during the gold rush where the inferior lifestyle of the Paiutes’ was replaced with urbanization. As a consequence, natural food habitats were affected and farming land either swept away by floods or laced by mercury. The ability of the Paiutes’ to preserve their environment was therefore minimized and finally eliminated through gradual processes of civilization. This is because their beliefs and traditions were perceived as inferior and a hindrance to the capitalistic greed of Euro-Americans.
References
Cronon, W. (1995). The Trouble with Wilderness.
Isenberg, A. (2013). Mining California. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.