Extractive Industries and the Transformation of American Environments

In the early modern period, extractive industries were the vanguard of European colonization in America. Whether involving the removal of minerals, flora, fauna, or other organic or inorganic materials, these ventures attracted enterprising Europeans hoping to profit from bringing natural resources out of newly accessible lands and into the expanding currents of international trade. Establishing a viable extractive industry – such as mining, logging, fishing, hunting animals, or collecting plants – proved a critical preliminary component of many settlement schemes by helping to generate the capital needed to underwrite their initial development and, ideally, by contributing to their ongoing productivity. Although the results were uneven, European powers, especially Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands, sought to parlay their subjects’ involvement in various American extractive industries to produce national wealth, claim sovereignty over new lands, justify the exploitation of subaltern populations, and lay the groundwork for more extensive imperial expansion. Whether as the foundations of new commodity frontiers or as the precursors to other forms of colonial development, extractive industries reshaped many regions in the Americas, often with dire outcomes for their Indigenous inhabitants and natural environments.