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<title> "Instead of a garden, I found a wilderness." </title>
	Nature is something, we today try to preserve and protect. Though this has not always been the case. The environment of the North American continent has been viewed differently throughout the centuries. Especially when the first settlers reached the coast of what was to become the United States of America. The people that first set foot on the land saw this land as a fulfillment of dreams, while others later saw it as Satan's Hell. 
	
	The first explorers of the New Land perceived it as Heaven on earth. Their descriptions of the land discovered, are ones of plenitude and abundance of all animals and plants. The first people that wrote to tell about the New Land were called promotion writers; they went over for the sake of promoting the New Land. Though their purpose was to describe the countryside, to tempt settlers to come over to the New Land, their descriptions are like descriptions out of the Bible of the Promised Land, like the Garden of Eden. Some promotion writers were more realistic than others, for instant Captain John Smith, who said about the coast of Massachusetts "more likely to affright than delight one...". However, most explorers were impressed with the abundance of American nature. Though as Captain John Smith said, "that, if they did not already know how to hunt and fish, the abundance of birds, animals and fish in America would avail them naught (nothing) until they learned these arts." So the first settlers should have been aware of what awaited them. 
However, the first settlers did await a garden, where you could just pluck everything you need for survival. Moreover, what awaited them was a wilderness, which was indeed a plenty of plants and animals but not a Garden of Eden. One of the first settlers to arrive was William Bradford, a passenger on the "Mayflower", who when stepping off the ship described the coast as "a hideous and desolate wilderness". And with this first generation of Americans began a "tradition of repugnance" against nature. There were few settlers that saw those descriptions of a Garden of Eden that the promotion writers described. Most settlers only saw a wilderness that needed to be tamed. According to Roderick Nash's book "Wilderness and the American mind" there were two components that were important in the "American pioneer's bias against wilderness." One of the components would be the physical level. They were not strong enough and they were not use to working in nature. "Safety and comfort, even necessities like food and shelter, depended on overcoming the wild environment." The other component would be one that mediaeval Europeans also endured that of believing that forests and woods were full of beasts, witches, etc. So the additional threat to the settlers, which as known were religious fugitives in their home countries was that they believed the wilderness was full of evil and scary things. Which is probably why a lot of the metaphors about the nature have to due with the settlers beating the Evil and therefore Satan, who was hiding in the wilderness. Even centuries later wilderness was seen as an evil, dark and sinister symbol for Satan. Conquering the wilderness meant conquering evil, so the settlers "battled wild country not only for personal survival but in the name of nation, race and God." So the anticipations of a Garden of Eden soon devoured against the reality of the North American continent. Though there might have been other reasons for the first settlers to describe the country as wild, evil and dark. Nash mentions: "One reason why the Puritans (first religious settlers) portrayed wilderness as replete with physical hardships and spiritual temptations was to remind later generations of the magnitude of their accomplishment." Sometimes even warlike metaphors were used for this "battle" against the environment. The wilderness was the "enemy", which was to be "defeated, subdued" by the "pioneer army". Even as late as in the 1950's a phrase stated by some advocates building a dam, still show those warlike metaphors that the first generation of Americans had towards nature. And almost a century later an American president said "conquer the deserts". The bad connotations of wilderness did not end with the civilization of the West Coast of North America. Wilderness was still present and remained an obstacle for all frontiersmen. Though this overcoming of the obstacle gave meaning to some of the life of the men on the boarder of wilderness during the 16th and 17th century. 

Since North America was discovered the environment has been seen as both the tempting Garden of Eden and repelling Hell of Satan by the first white people to sail the Atlantic. And settlers later have seen it as that land of promise, fortune and dreams. The metaphors are many that have been used for the multitude of animals and plants in North America. But also the metaphors for the danger and evil that the wilderness symbolized were many. However hard it was for those first settlers, centuries later USA was thought of, as the land of dreams and that is how the first promotion writers wrote about the New Land. The first American colonists saw the New Land differently mostly because the first men to come over were not farmers, but "businessmen" and noble men. And therefore they probably saw nature and its inhabitants as dangerous and evil. And the subjugation of this "evil" wilderness was the main source of pride for the pioneers. These thoughts of the first generation of Americans continued long into the 19th century.
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