John Locke
Locke was a 17th-century English philosopher who was a key figure in the Enlightenment and the “Father of Liberalism.” In his book Two Treaties of Government, he compared indigenous and European ways of life…
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William Cronon
Cronon is the author of Changes in the Land. Cronon began writing the book while a PhD student in Yale’s history department. He went onto become a highly important historian credited with helping inaugurate the field of environmental history.
Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau was a 19th-century American writer and philosopher and one of the key figures of the Transcendentalist movement. He wrote the famous book Walden Pond, about his time spent living and contemplating nature. He lived in Concord, Massachusetts and was an environmentalist with a keen interest in ecology.
William Wood
Wood was an English traveler who wrote a book entitled New England’s Prospect in 1633.
Edward Johnson
Johnson was a colonial historian.
John Winthrop
Winthrop was an English colonizer who was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His idea that there were two forms of land ownership—natural and civil—helped justify and intensify the colonizers’ seizure of indigenous land.
Miantonomo
Miantonomo was a Narragansett sachem who called for “pan-Indian unity” as the basis for political resistance against European colonizers. He was murdered by colonizers in 1643.
