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<title> Instead of a garden I found a wilderness </title>
The first American colonists expected a lot when they first came to the new continent. The reports that they sent back to Europe told a story that America might be the place that they had dreamt about. The earthly paradise, which were believed to lie somewhere to the west, was finally found. Or so they thought. The first reports from America were written by the first people to explore the country. They were pioneers and scientists, who went there on big expeditions. A whole new continent was found and they started to explore it. They probably had a lot of money and a lot of equipment with them. Everything was new to them. The climate, the animals and the herbs. Everything was also new to the Indians that they met. The Indians were of course also curious to see what the new people had to offer and there fore treated them nice. This was the first impression for the colonists. And that was of course what they wrote in their reports to Europe. For the first colonists, America was probably the garden that they described.
The new continent was in many parts different from Europe and from the world that people knew. Writers, such as Captain John Smith, wrote about how much bigger and better the forest was in America and about all the different animals. Smith writes in his A map of Virginia; "for all the Countrey is overgrowne with trees" and "many of their Okes are so tall and straight, that they will beare two foot and a halfe square of good timber for 20 yards long." He also describes the fruit that grow on the trees and the bushes. He has found most of the fruits that can be found in Europe, only they are much bigger than the ones in Europe. In addition to those fruits that can be found in Europe, he has found a large number of fruits that isn't anywhere to be found in Europe.
There was also a great variation from Europe's animal life. Many of the animals that the colonists recognised were bigger than their European counter parts. When they found an animal that looked exactly the same as in Europe, it was almost as if they felt the need to point that out. As George Alsop does in A Character of the Province of Mary-Land. He writes "The Deer here neither in shape nor action differ from our Deer in England." People in Europe expected everything to be different and better, so when it was exactly the same, the colonists pointed that out. Animals that the colonists hadn't seen before, was of course extremely interesting to see. The female Possum for instance. They discovered that she had a false belly, the pouch. It was very exotic that the baby Possum's were brought up inside the female Possum's fake belly. These exotic animals lived in the great woods that was found in America. As a result of the great number of unknown animals in these woods and the fact that the big trees and large variety of fruit were unexplored, the new continent later became known as wild. qqAnother reason why America was seen as a big wilderness was of course the Indians. The Indians lived simple and from what the earth could provide to them. The ways that Indians lived and how they got their food fascinated the first colonists. It is described in Robert Beverley's History and Present State of Virginia how the Indians set up temporary camps during hunting season. They brought their whole family and searched for a good area to hunt in. When the season was over, they just left the small cabins that they had built and moved on. They didn't have any particular place to go. They just moved around. The Indians also had different methods when they were hunting and fishing compared to the Europeans. They would light fires in the woods, rounding up the animals in smaller and smaller circles until they could shoot them with their arrows. But they were not interested in the meat, only the skins. This was seen as a wild behaviour. They also used fire when they were fishing. At night they had fire in their canoes. That helped them to see the bottom of the lake or the river. It also dazzled the fish so that the fish didn't move. 
The Indian's different behaviour and different culture made that the first colonist's thought that they had come to a wild place. The Indians didn't see themselves as wild of course, and they didn't think of the big woods and all the animals as a wilderness. It is as Alexis De Tocqueville writes in Democracy in America; "in Europe people talk a great deal of the wilds of America, but the Americans themselves never think about them."
The colonists, however, saw the potential in the new land, but first the wilderness had to be conquered. The new continent had enormous potential. The climate was right for growing crops and there were also big areas available for that purpose. Large quantities of fish and animals, both unknown and known to the Europeans would provide them with food. Now they only had to learn how to handle this new climate and new environment and America would become the paradise that they had dreamt about. 
The first colonists that came to America had a lot of money and the right equipment. Later, when the ordinary immigrant came to look for the rich and prosperous country, he found that it wasn't that easy to adjust to a life on a different continent. Even if the land had a lot of assets, it would be hard for a person who thought that it would be a piece of cake to succeed in America. Captain John Smith said about the immigrants; "if they did not already know how to hunt and fish, the abundance of birds, animals, and fish in America would avail them naught until they learned these arts."
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