Nature and History in the Potomac Country: From Hunter-Gatherers to the Age of Jefferson

by James D. Rice

How environmental forces, and human responses to them, profoundly shaped both Native American and colonial life along the Potomac River. James D. Rice’s fresh study of the Potomac River basin begins with a mystery. Why, when the whole of the region offered fertile soil and excellent fishing and hunting, was nearly three-quarters of the land uninhabited on the eve of colonization? Rice wonders how the existence of this no man’s land influenced nearby Native American and, later, colonial settlements. Did it function as a commons, as a place where all were free to hunt and fish? Or was it perceived as a strange and hostile wilderness? Rice discovers environmental factors at the center of the story. Making use of extensive archaeological and anthropological research, as well as the vast scholarship on farming practices in the colonial period, he traces the region’s history from its earliest known habitation. With exceptionally vivid prose, Rice makes clear the implications of unbridled economic development for the forests, streams, and wetlands of the Potomac River basin. With what effects, Rice asks, did humankind exploit and then alter the landscape and the quality of the river’s waters? Equal parts environmental, Native American, and colonial history , Nature and History in the Potomac Country is a useful and innovative study of the Potomac River, its valley, and its people.

Genres: Nonfiction

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 5, 2009

About the author

A scholar specializing in early American history with an emphasis on Native America, James Rice earned his Ph.D. in early American history from the University of Maryland. He has been a scholar in residence at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, and a Carson Fellow at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.

Reviews

[Barksdale Penick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent survey of the native peoples along the Potomac river from pre-history to the brink of the American Revolution. Lots of fascinating information, such as agriculture reaching the area in full force around 900 AD, when better seeds and improved techniques resulted in such excellent food supplies that the people slowly moved away from hunting and gathering, although they always fell back on that during droughts or other lean times.

Of course, the book is filled with hundreds of years of betrayal by the Europeans, with treaties reached and broken over and over again. I don't know what the alternative could have been, since the society of the Native Americans simply could not have survived into the modernizing world, but it was all done in such tawdry fashion. And so many leaders of the English were happy to enrich themselves as they solved disputes between the sides.

It is a dense book and not easy to read but quite edifying. It reminds how difficult it is to present any historical issue and eta without considering so many aspects of cultural and social life. Such as the Little Ice Age of about 1200-1500, which followed several warmer centuries, forcing the warlike Iroquois to move south, resulting in hundreds of years of conflicts between tribes.

[Tula or KathyPotter · Rating 3 out of 5]

He has a decided point of view and I find it satisfying to explore.