Natural Resources That Drew Settlers to the New World

European settlers encountered a continent rich in resources that had sustained Indigenous peoples for millennia. The abundance of three fundamentals drove colonization:

1. Land — Fertile & Vast

• Eastern woodlands: deep soils for European crops (wheat, barley, rye)
• Southern tidewater: ideal for tobacco, rice, indigo — cash crops
• Midwestern prairies (later): world's deepest topsoil for corn/soy
• Critical nuance: "Empty" land was a legal fiction (terra nullius); Indigenous nations managed these landscapes through fire, agroforestry, and seasonal rounds

2. Water — Transportation & Sustenance

• Major river systems: Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac, James, Savannah, Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri
• Great Lakes / St. Lawrence: inland freshwater highway
• Coastal access: harbors, fisheries, Atlantic trade routes
• Reliable rainfall vs. arid Mesoamerica/Andes

3. Timber — The Universal Building Material

• White pine (masts for Royal Navy), oak (ship frames), chestnut, cypress, cedar
• Fuel: charcoal for iron, domestic heating
• Export commodity: barrel staves, shingles, lumber to Caribbean/Europe
• Deforestation rapid: 90% of original eastern forest cleared by 1900

Additional Resources

• Furs: Beaver, deer, bear — drove French/Dutch trade networks
• Fish: Cod (Grand Banks), herring, shad, salmon — protein & export
• Minerals: Iron (VA, PA, NJ), lead (MO), copper (Lake Superior) — later exploitation
• Game: Deer, turkey, passenger pigeon, bison (east of Mississippi)

Ecological Consequence

Settler extraction transformed ecosystems: passenger pigeon extinction, bison near-extirpation, chestnut blight, soil depletion, watershed alteration. Indigenous stewardship models offered sustainable alternatives largely ignored.

The "abundance" was real but not inexhaustible—and never unowned.