Ideology and culture in the Oregon country: the landscapes of a planting society

Abstract

Ideologies, and especially the choices that are rooted in ideology, have profoundly influenced the shaping of the Oregon country as it exists in the late twentieth century. “All human groups,” the historian William Cronon argues, “consciously change their environments to some extent” During the last two centuries, the successive cultural groups occupying the Pacific Northwest inhabited landscapes that have been shaped, to some degree, by previous dwellers. Each of these cohorts, operating from a deeply rooted cluster of beliefs and values, has shaped the land around them. It is impossible to understand the vast biological and other modifications that have taken place in the Oregon country without looking far beyond the region. Of particular interest is the introduction of a sometimes spectacular system change — the making of the landscape of a planting society — as human cultural practices moved from subsistence to commercial behavior, and as the Northwest became integrated into national and international market relations.