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<title> "Instead of a garden I found a wilderness" </title>
Man's conception of nature has strongly influenced the use and misuse of natural resources. While nature has been exploited throughout history, the question whether it has a value in itself has been given little thought. I am here going to give an overview of the various ways in which the first generations of American colonists looked upon nature. To start with: it is obvious that their views differed much from those of the original American population. It is also clear that their ways of thinking were sufficiently firm, to lead to the conversion of an endless wilderness into the biggest of civilizations.
	The British colonization of America started around1600. The first colonies were New England and Virginia. By 1732, the East Coast from Maine in the north to Georgia in the South had been settled. Many pioneers expected to find an earthly paradise in the New World. What they found was really a rich and fruitful country, more abundant than what they were used to from home. The promotors of discovery and colonization wrote almost lyrically about the richness. Some of these promotion scripts were so over-enthusiastic that they even were parodied by more clear-sighted writers. Something about the appreciation of the resemblance of agarden.
	However, not before long the pioneers had realized that the riches of the new continent were not as easily accessible as they had thought, or hoped. The reality they faced was that nature was a threat to their survival. It was a wilderness rather than a garden, and they felt hatred rather than enthusiasm. 
	According to Roderick Nash, in Wilderness and the American Mind, this hatred against wilderness had two components. Firstly, on the direct physical level, the wild country made life arduous and full of fears. And for a civilized man, there was a risk of becoming more and more like a savage. "The pioneer, in short, lived too close to wilderness for appreciation." Secondly, wilderness as a "dark and sinister symbol" frustrated the pioneers. In the European, Christian tradition, wild country had always been connected with a moral low. Especially for the Puritans in New England, wilderness as metaphor had great significance. They often sought parallells between their own lives and biblical events, and so their migration to the wilderness of America was associated with the Exodus. Just like God led his people from Egypt to Canaan through the desert, he would lead the Puritans from England, through the wilderness of New England, to an earthly paradise. [Maybe something about Indians... both a physical threat (massacres) and the fact that they were desciples of the devil (Mather)...]
	Although most pioneers looked upon nature as an unfriendly wilderness, and the main cause of their difficulties, there were some exceptions. Robert Beverly, in his book History and Present State of Virginia, finds the complaints exaggerated. He argues that if the colonists only would adapt themselves to their new environment, they would live happily. But foolish as they are, they "go sweltering about in their thick Cloathes all the summer, ... and then unfairly complain of the heat of the Country. They greedily Surfeit with their delicious Fruits, ....they fall Sick, and then unjustly complains of the unhealthiness of the Country"
	Exaggerated or not, the pioneer's difficulties in living close to wilderness led to the conclusion that "the rural, controlled state of nature was the object of his affection and the goal of his labor." (Nash, in Wilderness and the American Mind). Wilderness had to be fought, for the purpose of clearing up land where people could be secure and where civilization could bloom. This fight could also be seen as a mission from God. Especially the pioneers in New England were aware of Genesis 1:28, the first commandment of God to man, which states that mankind should increase, conquer the earth and be on top of all living things. 
	I would like to return to Robert Beverly here, because as well a he opposed the complaints about wilderness, he was also opposed to the conquest of wilderness. He did not believe that suppressing nature was the right way to make a paradise on earth. He saw that the Indians led a happy life full of pleasures, without interfering with nature. He was one of the first to criticize the progress of civilization. In his History and Present State of Virginia he writes: "And indeed all that the English have done... has been only to make some of these Native Pleasures more scarce, ... hardly making Improvements equivalent to that damage." Alhough Robert Beverly 
The dream lived on
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