European American Settlement Research Articles

Dynamic Fire Regimes and Forest Conditions Across Three Centuries in a Shortleaf Pine-Oak Forest in the Ouachita Mountains, Arkansas, USA

In the interior highlands of the eastern United States, there is evidence that fire was frequent in some forests during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before declining drastically in the twentieth century. To better understand past fire regimes and how they shaped forest dynamics during periods of change, we conducted a dendroecological study at Lake Winona Research Natural Area (LWRNA), a 110-ha unlogged forest dominated by shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas. We used remnant wood and living tree cores to construct a multicentury record of fire occurrence and tree recruitment. Our results indicate the forest at LWRNA passed through multiple fire regime transitions that altered forest dynamics. During the protohistoric period (1701–1834), prior to widespread European American settlement (EAS), fire was frequent, but limited sample depth results in greater uncertainty regarding fire frequency and forest conditions. During EAS (1835–1929), fire was very frequent and tree establishment was dominated by shortleaf pine. After 1930, effective fire protection led to establishment shifting toward increasingly fire-intolerant hardwoods. Evidence of temporal variations in the fire regime, age structure, and contemporary composition broaden our understanding of reference conditions in this pine-oak forest and demonstrate that fire management could be used to restore a range of vegetation conditions from frequently burned pine- and oak-dominated woodlands to fire-excluded, closed-canopy mesophytic communities.

Native American Land-Use Impacts on a Temperate Forested Ecosystem, West Central New York State

Land survey records (LSRs) describing forest species composition prior to extensive European American settlement are critical sources of information on past environmental controls of forest dynamics in eastern North America. Embedded within these historical data sources is evidence of prior Native American land use. This study expands on previous LSR-based analyses of Seneca and Iroquoian populations’ impacts on the temperate forests of west central New York State. We use an enhanced array of geospatial LSR vegetation data beyond conventional bearing tree data and implement, for the first time, combined indirect ordination of vegetation data along major environmental gradients and numerical classification of discrete upland vegetation communities. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling revealed three main drivers of vegetation dynamics in the study area: (1) fire frequency (53.7 percent of total variance); (2) soil productivity (22.6 percent variance); and (3) Native American land use (15.9 percent variance). Agglomerative hierarchical clustering reinforced the primacy of these gradients by delineating two major forest types differentiated primarily by fire frequency and secondarily by soil productivity. Seneca and Iroquoian agricultural villages were preferentially concentrated within fire-tolerant dry upland forests on high-productivity soils within the interior portion of the Lake Ontario Lowland. Fire-tolerant, dry upland forests on low-productivity soils were situated on the adjacent Appalachian Plateau, which was likely used by indigenous populations for silvicultural land-use activities. Native American disturbance of temperate forested ecosystems likely varied across the diverse culture areas of eastern North America, with the Seneca and Iroquois representing an extreme end-member within a broad continuum of anthropogenic disturbance. Key Words: forest composition, land survey records, land-use history, Native Americans, vegetation disturbance.

The Edges of Wood: Dendrochronological Analysis of Three Seneca Iroquois Log Structures at Letchworth State Park, New York

Letchworth State Park in Castile, New York, maintains the Caneadea Council House, the Nancy Jemison Cabin, and Thomas “Buffalo Tom” Jemison Cabin, all built in Seneca communities along the Genesee River valley in the early 19th century. Dendrochronological analysis of samples from these structures has provided a more precise construction date of ca. 1820 for the council house, significantly later than the 1759–1780 range derived from historical documents. However, the results support the historical construction dates of around 1800 for the Nancy Jemison Cabin and ca. 1818 for the Thomas Jemison Cabin. Applying K. Jordan’s (2008) intercultural/creolized type and Brown’s (2000) “Reservation Log House” type along with the lens of hybridity elucidates how the council house and cabins relate to Seneca decisions to incorporate principles of European-style log construction into their longhouse and other building forms in adaptation to their more confined territory and increased European American settlement and infrastructure building at that time.

Effects of positional error on modeling species distributions: a perspective using presettlement land survey records

Presettlement land survey records (PLSRs) are the records of early land surveys in North America, and contain data regarding vegetation conditions prior to widespread European-American settlement. Researchers have used the data within PLSRs to develop species distribution models (SDMs), in order to generate predictions of the historical distributions of tree species. Despite their value for SDMs, PLSRs contain positional error, which may hinder their usefulness for modeling species distributions at fine spatial resolution. Using data from the Holland Land Company (HLC) township survey (1797–1799 CE) of Western New York, USA, this study examines the positional error associated with different approaches for georeferencing vegetation data within PLSRs. The study then examines the impact of positional error upon the predictive performance of SDMs that utilize PLSRs. Our study indicates that the magnitude of positional error within PLSRs varies with georeferencing approach, and that more accurate georeferencing approaches produce better-performing SDMs. The study also indicates that the effects of positional error upon SDMs vary with the niche characteristics of species. Overall, this study affirms the importance of accurately georeferencing species data prior to developing SDMs, including applications that involve PLSRs.

Reach-scale channel sensitivity to multiple human activities and natural events: Lower Santa Clara River, California, USA

Understanding the cumulative impact of natural and human influences on the sensitivity of channel morphodynamics, a relative measure between the drivers for change and the magnitude of channel response, requires an approach that accommodates spatial and temporal variability in the suite of primary stressors. Multiple historical data sources were assembled to provide a reach-scale analysis of the lower Santa Clara River (LSCR) in Ventura County, California, USA. Sediment supply is naturally high due to tectonic activity, earthquake-generated landslides, wildfires, and high magnitude flow events during El Niño years. Somewhat typically for the region, the catchment has been subject to four reasonably distinct land use and resource management combinations since European-American settlement. When combined with analysis of channel morphological response (quantifiable since ca. 1930), reach-scale and temporal differences in channel sensitivity become apparent. Downstream reaches have incised on average 2.4m and become narrower by almost 50% with changes focused in a period of highly sensitive response after about 1950 followed by forced insensitivity caused by structural flood embankments and a significant grade control structure. In contrast, the middle reaches have been responsive but are morphologically resilient, and the upstream reaches show a mildly sensitive aggradational trend. Superimposing the natural and human drivers for change reveals that large scale stressors (related to ranching and irrigation) have been replaced over time by a suite of stressors operating at multiple spatial scales. Lower reaches have been sensitive primarily to ‘local’ scale impacts (urban growth, flood control, and aggregate mining) whereas, upstream, catchment-scale influences still prevail (including flow regulation and climate-driven sediment supply factors). These factors illustrate the complexity inherent to cumulative impact assessment in fluvial systems, provide evidence for a distinct Anthropocene fluvial response, and underpin the enormity of the challenge faced in trying to sustainably manage and restore rivers.

Fire history from three species on a central Appalachian ridgetop

The impact of settlement era fires on Appalachian forests was substantial, but whether these fires affected the extent of fire-adapted ridgetop plant communities is poorly understood. Here we present fire history and stand structure of an Appalachian ridgetop (Pike Knob, West Virginia) based on fire scars from three species (Pinus pungens Lamb., Pinus resinosa Soland., and Quercus rubra L.) and stand structure from two species (P. pungens and P. resinosa). Our research objectives are to determine (i) the degree to which the fire frequency on Pike Knob was affected by European American settlement (~1780–1900) and (ii) how the history of fire on Pike Knob shaped the current age structure of P. resinosa and P. pungens. All three species documented fire activity beginning in the mid- to late 1800s and continuing into the middle of the 20th century, when pasture lands were most active. The majority of P. pungens and P. resinosa established during or shortly after the ~85-year period of fires (1868–1953), suggesting a strong influence of past land use on current forest composition. Ridgetop pine communities have been resilient to both the absence of fire and frequent fire, indicating that pine communities will also be resilient to modern fire management, whether fire is excluded or re-introduced.

THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NATIONAL PARKS

Many national parks contain private lands and non-park economic functions that can interfere with management purposes. The number and variety of these "threats" depend on the degree to which the boundary of a new park encloses previously settled lands and economic development. Yellowstone is the only example of a major park established before European American settlement; it is largely free of inholdings and non-park uses. By contrast, Glacier National Park, founded in 1910, and Mojave National Preserve, created in 1994, unavoidably incorporated private lands and previous uses. Despite vigorous National Park Service efforts to eliminate them, many remain, and even those removed have left a landscape legacy. The temporal and spatial relationships shown by these latter parks exemplify those found throughout the national park system and suggest parallels with the political creation of nation-states.

The Imperial Republic: A Comparison of the Insular Territories under U.S. Dominion after 1898

The doctrine of incorporation, as elaborated in legal debates and legitimated by the U.S. Supreme Court, excluded the inhabitants of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam from the body politic of the United States on the basis of their cultural differences from dominant European American culture. However, in spite of their shared legal status as unincorporated territories, the U.S. Congress established different governments that, although adaptations of continental territorial governments, were staffed largely with appointed imperial administrators. In contrast, Hawai'i, which had experienced a long period of European American settlement, received a government that followed the basic continental model of territorial government. Thus, the distinction between the incorporated and unincorporated territories corresponded to the limits of European American settlement. However, even among the unincorporated territories, cultural evaluations were important in determining the kinds of rule. The organic act for Puerto Rico provided for substantially more economic and judicial integration with the United States than did the organic act for the Phillippines. This followed from the assessment that Puerto Rico might be culturally assimilated while the Phillippines definitely could not. Moreover, religion was the criterion for determining different provincial governments within the Phillippines. In Guam, the interests of the naval station prevailed over all other considerations. There, U.S. government officials considered the local people to be hospitable and eager to accept U.S. sovereignty, while they largely ignored the local people's language, culture, and history. In Guam, a military government prevailed.

Land use history at multiple scales: implications for conservation planning

To better understand the dynamics of development and to illustrate the transition of a region from a natural to an agricultural environment, we developed a regional land use history of the Palouse bioregion of southeastern Washington and westcentral Idaho. We traced the history of European–American settlement and changes in biodiversity in the region, used this to understand how human activities have altered land cover and ecological integrity of the Palouse bioregion, and illustrated how this can assist local managers. We compiled and interpreted available information on people, plants, animals and physical resources over a period of time. Multiple spatial and temporal scales incorporating both sociological and ecological data were used to examine changes in the bioregion as a result of agricultural development and human settlement. Understanding the biophysical changes that have occurred provides a useful starting point for outlining future research needs, establishing conservation goals and targeting ecological restoration efforts, and can be used immediately in local land use planning efforts.

Native Americans in the Fur Trade and Wildlife Depletion

Native Americans are generally acknowledged as the New World's first and foremost environmentalists. Native American religions stress that people are coequal with nature, descendants of Grandmother Earth. How then, could some of them have depleted wildlife for the fur trade, as occurred in the eastern United States and Canada by the mid-19th century? The most comprehensive discussion of that question published to date is Calvin Martin's Keepers of the Game. ' Martin proposed that Indians believed their catastrophic post-contact epidemics were caused by wildlife diseases, which together with a Europeanization of their values, shattered their protohistoric deferential relationships with wildlife spirits. However, various authors subsequently have criticized Martin's interpretations as unsubstantiated and have advanced their own solutions to the question, focusing primarily on the political and economic advantages of the fur trade to Native Americans.2 This paper examines Native Americans (predominantly Menominee and Winnebago) involved in the fur trade of Green Bay, Wisconsin before European-American settlement (ca 1620-1836,) when Indians were almost the sole hunters and trappers in the region. By investigating fur trade ecology, economics, and ideology, the paper attempts to explain why they depleted wildlife populations. 118

Fitzgerald: The Geography of a Revolution

This on-the-ground study of one square mile in Detroit was written in collaboration with neighborhood residents, many of whom were involved with the famous Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute. Fitzgerald, at its core, is dedicated to understanding global phenomena through the intensive study of a small, local place. Beginning with an 1816 encounter between the Ojibwa population and the neighborhood's first surveyor, William Bunge examines the racialized imposition of local landscapes over the course of European American settlement. Historical events are firmly situated in space - a task Bunge accomplishes through liberal use of maps and frequent references to recognizable twentieth-century landmarks. More than a work of historical geography, Fitzgerald is a political intervention. By 1967 the neighborhood was mostly African American; Black Power was ascendant; and Detroit would experience a major riot. Immersed in the daily life of the area, Bunge encouraged residents to tell their stories and to think about local politics in spatial terms. His desire to undertake a different sort of geography led him to create a work that was nothing like a typical work of social science. The jumble of text, maps, and images makes it a particularly urgent book--a major theoretical contribution to urban geography that is also a startling evocation of street-level Detroit during a turbulent era. A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication.