Writing Two Short Essay Each One At Least 250 Words, Question Are About The Environment Racism

1)In 1491, Charles Mann argues that the environment in the Amazon was created and managed by Native populations, not “pristine” wilderness. In the years that followed European contact, he cites historical evidence that indicates that it wasn’t a lack of intelligence or “fitness for survival” that so many died, but rather that without immunity to new diseases, Native Americans died en masse. With a smaller population, their civilizations were made weaker and vulnerable to attack.

How does – or does it not – change your view of Columbus Day and the national narrative about “How America was Born”? ​Cite at least one passage from Mann, Handsome Lake or Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

1) Mann, Charles. “1491.” ​The Atlantic​, March 2002. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/

2) The Inka had such grandiose monuments like Machu Picchu. The Mayan had Calakmul. The Aztec had incredible statues and gold. The dominant narrative in history tends to see these sorts of things as representative of civilization, if not progress. We are clearly leaving “human rights” out of the picture, for the moment.

But what if the actual forest is an anthropogenic space? (“Anthropogenic” means “impacted or shaped by humans.” European colonizers did not necessarily recognize it as such, but it was a space of humans living as “a part of” rather than “apart from” the land. Additionally, what is the potential promise but also pitfall that could be associated with saying: “humans have always been developing the land”? (Hint: see Mann’s discussion of Deneven and Cronon and the Wilderness Act of 1964 and Aldo Leopold’s Great Roads Movement critique). ​Cite at least one passage from both Mann and Leopold.