The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection - Softcover

Taylor, Dorceta E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822361981 ISBN 13: 9780822361985

Verlag: Duke University Press, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

In this sweeping social history Dorceta E. Taylor examines the emergence and rise of the multifaceted U.S. conservation movement from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. She shows how race, class, and gender influenced every aspect of the movement, including the establishment of parks; campaigns to protect wild game, birds, and fish; forest conservation; outdoor recreation; and the movement's links to nineteenth-century ideologies. Initially led by white urban elites-whose early efforts discriminated against the lower class and were often tied up with slavery and the appropriation of Native lands-the movement benefited from contributions to policy making, knowledge about the environment, and activism by the poor and working class, people of color, women, and Native Americans. Far-ranging and nuanced, The Rise of the American Conservation Movement comprehensively documents the movement's competing motivations, conflicts, problematic practices, and achievements in new ways.

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Dorceta E. Taylor

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The Rise of the American Conservation Movement

Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection

By Dorceta E. Taylor

Duke University Press

Copyright © 2016 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8223-6198-5

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
PART I. THE IMPETUS FOR CHANGE, 
1 Key Concepts Informing Early Conservation Thought, 
2 Wealthy People and the City: An Ambivalent Relationship, 
PART II. MANLINESS, WOMANHOOD, WEALTH, AND SPORT, 
3 Wealth, Manliness, and Exploring the Outdoors: Racial and Gender Dynamics, 
4 Wealth, Women, and Outdoor Pursuits, 
5 People of Color: Access to and Control of Resources, 
PART III. WILDLIFE PROTECTION, 
6 Sport Hunting, Scarcity, and Wildlife Protection, 
7 Blaming Women, Immigrants, and Minorities for Bird Destruction, 
8 Challenging Wildlife Regulations and Understanding the Business-Conservation Connections, 
PART IV. GENDER, WEALTH, AND FOREST CONSERVATION, 
9 Rural Beautification and Forest Conservation: Gender, Class, and Corporate Dynamics, 
10 Preservation, Conservation, and Business Interests Collide, 
11 National Park Preservation, Racism, and Business Relations, 
12 Nation Building, Racial Exclusion, and the Social Construction of Wildlands, 
Conclusion, 
Notes, 
References, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

KEY CONCEPTS INFORMING EARLY CONSERVATION THOUGHT

The conservation movement arose against a backdrop of racism, sexism, class conflicts, and nativism that shaped the nation in profound ways. Though these factors are not usually incorporated into environmental history texts, they are incorporated into this narrative because they are critical to our understanding of how discourses about the environment were developed, policies formulated, and institutions organized. Hence, this chapter identifies seven key concepts that recur in the book: (1) race relations; (2) colonialism; (3) nativism; (4) gender relations; (5) the evolution of environmental ideologies; (6) power elites and environmental governance; and (7) the creation of an environmental identity.

Race Relations in the Environmental Context

Four aspects of race relations that had considerable impact on the transformation of the environment are defined here: the appropriation of Native American land and resources; the enslavement of blacks; the seizure of Latino territories; and the containment of Asians.

EURO-INDIAN RELATIONS AND THE IDEOLOGY OF CONQUEST

The role that race played in the formative experiences of early environmental activists and their subsequent formulation of environmental ideologies has been understudied, but race issues — relationships between Europeans and non-Europeans — were critical to the development of environmental discourse and activism in the United States. For instance, the American government and European settlers battled Indians for centuries to gain control over the land and other resources. These conflicts played significant roles in the crafting of policies that had lasting impacts on indigenous peoples and the environment.

During the battles to control land and resources, Native Americans were overpowered militarily and decimated by diseases. Tribal lands were seized as war bounties or through treaty making and breaking. Furthermore, Indians were repeatedly expelled (or removed) from their homelands, forced to live in reservations located on marginal lands, and allotted small parcels of land on which to subsist. Over time, federal Indian policies evolved to focus on the control of land, water, and mineral resources; the extermination and containment of Indians; forced assimilation, the transformation of Indians into farmers and urban low-wage laborers; and restrictions on religious and cultural expression (Nabokov 1991; Taylor 2009, 2014).

The first commercial trade between Indians and whites in North America probably occurred in the eleventh century, when Nova Scotia Indians traded gray fox and sable pelts for Viking knives and axes. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as timber, fur-bearing animals, and other natural resources were depleted in Europe, Europeans explored the Americas for raw materials. Consequently, the French, English, and Dutch competed with each other to trade with Indians. In exchange for trinkets, metal objects, liquor, and guns, Indians traded raw materials such as salt, tobacco, wood, fish, fur, and hides. However, as trade increased Indians found themselves competing with each other to extract natural resources and trade them as rapidly as possible (Nabokov 1991: 32–35; R. Thornton 1987: 11–12).

Despite the long history of commercial relations, whites and Indians had vastly different views and attitudes toward the land. Whites viewed Indian worship of animal spirits, rocks, and rainbows as pagan rituals to be purged. Hence, by the 1630s numerous Spanish missions were established in the South and thousands of Indians were Christianized; those who refused baptism were beaten or executed. In the Southwest, in what is now New Mexico, the Spanish established a feudal system (the encomienda) sustained by the perpetual servitude of the native inhabitants. When British soldiers took over the territory in the 1700s, they sold thousands of the Indian converts into slavery (Hannan 2001; Nabokov 1991: 50–52, 70; U.S. Commission on Human Rights 1992: 13–31).

Native Americans and whites had differing views of the land, and this led to many conflicts and the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples. Indians viewed themselves as custodians and stewards of the earth, not as masters with dominion over it. By contrast, white settlers saw the land as a commercial product best suited for private ownership and exploitation; consequently, they cleared forests for cultivation and the development of towns, and private property was essential to their entrepreneurial ventures. Whites were also disdainful of the Indian custom of sharing undeveloped, common land. These differences formed the philosophical basis of the Euro-American seizure of Indian lands.

The justification for seizing land was articulated early on when the first governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, expressed a view that was typical of the European perspective on Indian land-use practices. He questioned the communal living arrangements and seasonal migration patterns of Native American tribes. He also articulated and rationalized a colonialist ideology of conquest that paved the way for the appropriation of Indian land and resources. In so doing, Winthrop distinguished between two rights to the land — a natural right and a civil right. He argued that Native Americans had a natural right to the land, but Europeans in settling and developing the land had a civil right to it. The civil rights, in his view, superseded the natural rights. In 1629, Winthrop argued that the earth was the "Lord's garden" and that the earth was given to the "sons of Adam to be tilled and improved by them" (Winthrop [1629] 1846: 272–276). Winthrop justified the taking of Indian lands by arguing:

That which is common to all is proper to none. This savage people ruleth over many lands without title or property; for they enclose no ground, neither have they cattle to maintain it, but remove their dwellings as they have occasion ... And why may not Christians have liberty to go and dwell among them in their waste lands and woods, (leaving them such places as they have manured for their corn,) ... there is...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Duke University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0822361981
• ISBN 13: 9780822361985
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 498
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Niederlande