Settler Colonialism and Ecosystem Change: How Ideology Has Shaped Minnesota’s Environments

Authors

Sarah E. Hobby, Macalester CollegeFollow

Document Type

Honors Project

Abstract

The formation of a uniquely American land ethic—defined by European political history and Christian biblical doctrine and forged through systems of dispossession—is central to the creation of environments within the United States today. Using Minnesota as a microcosm to understand how settler colonial interactions played out all across the United States, this paper analyzes connections between violent dispossession of Indigenous people and the degradation of environments. By understanding how Ojibwe and Dakota people think about and have shaped Minnesotan lands throughout their history and comparing Indigenous land-ethics to the Euro-American-settler land ethic, this paper evaluates the role that ideology and identity have played in environmental realities within the United States. Through the process of settler colonialism, European settlers reshaped environments within Minnesota—and North America broadly—and tied themselves to landscapes through their transformation. Under a Euro-American land ethic, though, and without Indigenous land-management, much of Minnesota has lost key relationships that its ecosystems depend on, fundamentally changing landscapes as a direct result of how settlers thought about and interacted with the world around them.

Recommended Citation

Hobby, Sarah E., "Settler Colonialism and Ecosystem Change: How Ideology Has Shaped Minnesota’s Environments" (2024). History Honors Projects. 36.
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/history_honors/36