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Type: Journal Article
Author(s): H. Maxwell
Publication Date: 1910

From the text...'The opinion that Virginia at the time it first became known to white men was covered with vigorous and unbroken forest is erroneous. The proof of this is found in the writings of explorers and early historians. Woods covered much of the region, and fine forests abounded in some parts, but the Indian had made much more serious inroads upon the primeval growth of timber than the casual reader has generally supposed. This becomes more apparent when fragmentary accounts by different writers are brought together. The clearings made by Indians for agricultural purposes were comparatively large, but they were small in comparison with openings made by fires set accidentally, wantonly, or to the end that more wild game might abound, with improved opportunities for hunting it. Though white men are rated high as destroyers of forest, they are not in the same class with Indians. Virginia at the present time has six or seven acres of cleared land per capita. At the time of the first explorations the Indians had succeeded in deforesting thirty or forty acres for every individual in their tribes, and were proceeding with the work of destruction from the sea to the mountains and beyond. It is not possible to give exact figures, but thirty to forty acres of treeless land per capita is conservative. The population, however, was small at that time.'

Citation: Maxwell, H. 1910. The use and abuse of forests by the Virginia Indians. William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, v. 19, no. 2, p. 73-103.

Cataloging Information

Regions:
Keywords:
  • agriculture
  • Betula
  • Bison bison
  • burning intervals
  • Carya
  • Cervus
  • deforestation
  • Diospyros virginiana
  • distribution
  • fire management
  • forest products
  • fossils
  • fruits
  • grasses
  • grasslands
  • Hamamelis virginiana
  • hardwood forests
  • histories
  • human caused fires
  • hunting
  • Juglans nigra
  • land management
  • land use
  • lightning caused fires
  • Liriodendron tulipifera
  • mountains
  • Native Americans
  • old fields
  • openings
  • Pinus taeda
  • presettlement fires
  • presettlement vegetation
  • range management
  • regeneration
  • Rhus
  • sassafras
  • savannas
  • succession
  • understory vegetation
  • Virginia
  • wildlife habitat management
  • wood
Tall Timbers Record Number: 11365Location Status: In-fileCall Number: Fire FileAbstract Status: Okay, Fair use, Reproduced by permission
Record Last Modified:
Record Maintained By: FRAMES Staff (https://www.frames.gov/contact)
FRAMES Record Number: 36940

This bibliographic record was either created or modified by Tall Timbers and is provided without charge to promote research and education in Fire Ecology. The E.V. Komarek Fire Ecology Database is the intellectual property of Tall Timbers.