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<title> Culture Course Essay "Instead of a garden I found a wilderness" </title>
The first American colonists all had different opinions on nature in the New World, due to different backgrounds and expectations. They found a country very different from their home country and some were impressed by what they found, while others didn't like what they saw at all. In the material I studied I found three different points of views of nature in North America.
	The first view is that of people who were very impressed by the New World and gladly settled down there. George Alsop, an English servant who came to America 1658, writes in his book "A Character of the Province of Mary-Land" about nature of great abundance, with fantastic fruits and many diversities of animals. He writes for instance that he is being served venison, which was rarely found in England, so often that he doesn't want it anymore. Both Indians and Christian Inhabitants hunted deer daily. The English didn't do it for the food, but mostly for recreation. The new country was like a paradise with beautiful flowers, delightful woods and many rivers and creeks. Almost all year round there were flowers with the most lovely smell, and birds singing in the trees. Nobody would ever have to go hungry, thanks to the rich animal and vegetable life and people would also have a choice of what to eat. Alsop doubted there was any place in the world that was as beautiful as this.
	Robert Beverley, an American educated in England, describes another point of view. In his book "History and Present State of Virginia" he discusses in what ways the colonists have destroyed the American nature. The English found an America with nature wonderful like paradise, but they didn't appreciate it enough. They were greedy and couldn't resist the temptations of nature and for instance ate too much of all the delicious fruit they found. When they got sick after that they blamed the "unhealthy" country. The English were also very afraid of some animals, like wild cats and elks; animals that had never bothered the Indians, who lived in America long before the first colonists came. The Indians had a much better life, with for example more food, before the English took over their land. The natives were clever hunters and knew how to hunt specific animals in different seasons, something the English never could. The new colonists changed the society the Indians had built up and made more damage than improvement.
	The wilderness of nature in America wasn't always seen as something wonderful. It has also been described as desolate and hostile. The Europeans had for a long time believed that an Eden on earth lay somewhere in the west, and thought they were going to discover just that in America. Instead of beautiful gardens and a pleasant climate, they found dark and cold forests, and the disappointment was enormous. Pioneers had a very hard time trying to adapt to the new country, and the wild nature was soon seen as the cause of all their problems, and to survive they had to battle the wilderness. They were afraid of not only the dark forests, but also the "savage men" and dangerous beasts that hid in them. The pioneers feared that they would become savages themselves, because of the lack of restraints, and forget all about morality, law and tradition. The wilderness became the symbol of evil and chaos, which especially Christians couldn't accept. They had to try hard not to lose their faith in the wild world without the presence of God. The Puritans, who came to New England in the seventeenth century, saw conquering wild nature as their mission from God. They believed it was a challenge that would bring them closer to their Lord. Cotton Mather, a puritan minister, said he knew the reasons for the evil in this wild nature. He believed Satan had enticed the Indians and they were now heathens who served the Devil. Edward Johnson compared them to the Christians who had been led from Egypt to Canaan, through dangerous wilderness. And the puritans were rewarded for their work. In for example Boston, the wilderness was destroyed and the wild animals who had lived there were killed. Houses, farms and churches were built and puritans thanked God for his blessing. A century later, in the eighteenth century, people were still trying to tame the wilderness in a time of progress and civilization. Conquering nature strengthened the American ego and made many people proud of themselves. Pioneers and frontiersmen's main purpose became destroying wild nature and stopping savage life.
	These ways of looking upon nature differ significantly. What is wonderful and "Edenic" to one group of people can be frightening and terrible to another. The differences probably have something to do with what expectations people had, and where they came from. Europeans who sought an Eden with happiness and order, were disappointed to find wilderness, while Americans who had lived in Europe only a few years and remembered the time when America was even wilder, were instead disappointed of the way the Europeans had changed the country. They all needed to blame someone for the disappointment and many blamed the wilderness itself.
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