Environmental Thought in Antiquity

In Richard's "The Unending Frontier," it is details the stages of the Columbian/Spanish colonization of the Americas in the fifteenth century. It's very enlightening to have an account of the brutal and inhumane behaviors of the Spaniards towards native individuals when colonizing their land. This is not something that is generally taught in the standard history of the Americas in secondary education. 

It does leave me to wonder how one might distinguish between colonization and conquering, however. The Europeans not only introduced illnesses unknown to the natives that wiped out a good portion of their population, but they also enslaved and punished the native individuals out of paranoia that they might overpower and kill them. All while the Europeans ravaged and mined land that wasn't theirs.

While the Spanish colonial rule made a large impact on the environment, it definitely was not completely positive. It was an invasion of the highest order. The contact of the Europeans on the Americas essentially ruined an environment and diminished a culture by introducing their ideas of domesticated living. And the impact of this wrongdoing is still being reflected in today's society.