Throughout history, there have been a select few themes that we see countries entering into wars for. Religious warfare, political domination and overall need for power have driven nations into total war with one another. An overarching theme that we see is that more land leads to more power. This is why Europeans all competed with one another to find new areas of exploration. Although the Portuguese and Spanish had started off trying to find new routes to India for spices, the day that Christopher Columbus accidently stumbled upon the Americas was a different kind of turning point. The knowledge that there was a whole new world out there was exciting to the Europeans because it meant there was a new frontier to economic growth. Finding the Americas provided a possibility of imperializing a huge mass of land, people and all. There were natural resources that had never previously been available to them and to them; it meant they had to exploit it for what it was worth before competition challenged them. At the time that Europeans first settled, I think that they were unaware of the long-term effects that their destruction of salt marshes was causing.

Europeans only understood that there was money to make from the destruction of the environment. For them, it was never about stopping and thinking what their actions were causing because during the time, there was little knowledge of the consequences. Now in hindsight, we are aware how their actions have altered the natural environment in a way that can never fully heal. But we only know this because of the knowledge that has been instilled upon us. Now we know how harmful our actions can be to the area around us because studies have been conducted and proven. We are constantly bombarded with facts about global warming and rising sea levels and know that humans have contributed to these ongoing disasters. Back then, people never fully realized how damaging their actions were.

European settlers had the constant pressure of other nations stealing their lands so them, if they didn’t cultivate the land, another nation would. They knew that the only way to secure the wealth of the land was to exploit it and send it back to their motherland to be sold for a profit. Leaving the area intact was out of the question because for them, what was the point, if not to make profit? This lack of knowledge showed how their impact on the environment was more of an “innocent destruction” rather than intent to destroy paired with a lack of concern. Had the Europeans been well educated in the consequences of their actions, perhaps they would have stopped to think of their impact and in some ways tried to lessen the destruction that can never be truly undone to salt marshes.