Notes: Did pigs control humans? Were people really afraid of lightning and hurricanes? Rapists or benevolent stewards-how did colonists farm their land? What is nature? North America was a very different place in 1800 compared to today. This seminar will examine four broad regions of this continent: Upper and Lower Canada, New England, the Chesapeake, and the Caribbean. These landscapes changed dramatically after the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Historian Alfred Crosby outlines this profound shift as part of a greater imperial movement, one much less political or militaristic, and more environmental. How plants, animals, and diseases transformed the landscape and aided in the expansion of this European enterprise will be one issue this course faces.