Native American use of fire - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

In addition to simple cooking, Pre-Columbian Native Americans

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

used fire

Fire

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....

in many and significant ways, ranging from protecting an area from fire to landscape-altering

Fire ecology

Fire ecology is concerned with the processes linking the natural incidence of fire in an ecosystem and the ecological effects of this fire. Many ecosystems, such as the North American prairie and chaparral ecosystems, and the South African savanna, have evolved with fire as a natural and necessary...

clearing of prairie.

Human-shaped landscape

Many people believe that North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, before the coming of the Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

explorers, missionaries, and settlers, was a totally pristine, natural, wilderness world with ancient forests covering the landscapes. This ideal world was populated by millions of Indian people who, somewhat amazingly, “were transparent in the landscape, living as natural elements of the ecosphere

Ecosphere

Ecosphere has several different meanings:* In ecology the term ecosphere can refer to the Earth's spheres, a planetary ecosystem consisting of the atmosphere, the geosphere , the hydrosphere, and the biosphere....

. Their world, the New World of Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

, was a world of barely perceptible human disturbance.” This peaceful, mythic, magical ideal — sometimes referred to as tabula rasa

Tabula rasa

Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects...

— has symbolized the thinking behind much of the modern environmental movement. However these impressions of a "benign people treading lightly on the land" is wrong in its view of an entirely natural landscape: natives played a large role in maintaining the diversity of their ecosystems.
Fire scientists and ecologists often find old fire scars in trees going back hundreds of years. Geographers studying lake sediment

Sediment

Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....

s often find evidence of charcoal

Charcoal

Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...

layers going back thousands of years, attributing the data to prehistoric fires caused by climatic warming and drying conditions. Since the trees and sediments cannot document how the fires started, lightning

Lightning

Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...

becomes the easiest “natural” explanation. Early researchers thought that no large burning was carried out by natives, but research during the latter half of the 20th century has shown that many or most of the presettlement fires were intentionally caused.

Keeping large areas of forest and mountains free of undergrowth

Undergrowth

Undergrowth usually refers to the vegetation in a forest, which can obstruct passage through the forest. The height of undergrowth is usually considered to be 0.3 – 3 m . Undergrowth can also refer all vegetation in a forest, which isn't in the canopy....

and small trees was just one of many reasons for using fire in ecosystems. Intentional burning has greatly modified landscapes across the continent in many subtle ways that have often been interpreted as natural by the early explorers, trappers, and settlers. Many research scientists who study presettlement forest and savanna

Savanna

A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...

fire evidence tend to attribute most prehistoric fires as being caused by lightning (natural) rather than by humans. This problem arises because there was no systematic record keeping of these fire events. Thus the interaction of people and ecosystems is down played or ignored, which often leads to the conclusion that people are a problem in "natural" ecosystems rather than the primary force in their development.

Romantic and primitivist writers such as William Henry Hudson

William Henry Hudson

William Henry Hudson was an author, naturalist, and ornithologist.- Life and work :Hudson was born in the Quilmes, a borough of the greater Buenos Aires, in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, son of settlers of U.S. origin...

, Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

, Francis Parkman

Francis Parkman

Francis Parkman was an American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his monumental seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as history and especially as literature, although the biases of his...

, and Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...

were major inventors of the The Pristine Myth, which became part of American heritage. Influenced by Western prejudice against primitivism and hunter-gatherer societies, many people still believe that Native Americans lived in complete harmony with the environment and neither disturbed nor destroyed but took only what was absolutely needed for survival. One of the powerful technologies which Native Americans had was fire, and they clearly changed the landscape with it. Sometimes to clear the woods, sometimes to create a berry patch, the changes spread across the continents.

Role of fire by natives

The cumulative impact of burning by Native Americans profoundly altered the landscape. When first encountered by Europeans, many ecosystems were the result of repeated fires every one to three years, resulting in the replacement of forests with grassland

Grassland

Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica...

or savanna, or opening up the forest by removing undergrowth. More forest exists today in some parts of North America than when the Europeans first arrived. In South America, the cerrado

Cerrado

The Cerrado, is a vast tropical savanna ecoregion of Brazil, particularly in the states of Gioas and Minas Gerais...

of South America have been coexisting with fire since ancient times; initially as natural fires caused by lightning or volcanic activity, and later caused by man. Terra preta

Terra preta

Terra preta is a type of very dark, fertile anthropogenic soil found in the Amazon Basin. Terra preta owes its name to its very high charcoal content, and was indeed made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bone, and manure to the otherwise relatively infertile Amazonian soil, and stays there for...

soils, created by slow burning, are found mainly in Amazonia, where estimates of the area covered range from 0.1 to 0.3%, or 6,300 to 18,900 km² of low forested Amazonia to 1.0% or more (twice the surface of Great-Britain).

There is some argument about the effect of human-caused burning when compared to lightning in western North America. There is agreement that natives played a significant role across the eastern part of that continent.

Generally, the American Indians burned parts of the ecosystems in which they lived to promote a diversity of habitats, especially increasing the "edge effect

Edge effect

The edge effect in ecology is the effect of the juxtaposition or placing side by side of contrasting environments on an ecosystem.This term is commonly used in conjunction with the boundary between natural habitats, especially forests, and disturbed or developed land. Edge effects are especially...

," which gave the Indians greater security and stability to their lives.

Most primary or secondary accounts relate to the purposeful burning to establish or keep "mosaics, resource diversity, environmental stability, predictability, and the maintenance of ecotones." These purposeful fires by almost every Native American tribe differ from natural fires by the seasonality of burning, frequency of burning certain areas, and the intensity of the fire. Indians tended to burn differently depending on the resources being managed. Hardly ever did the various tribes purposely burn when the forests were most vulnerable to catastrophic wildfire

Wildfire

A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...

. Indeed, for some Indians, saving the forest from fire was crucial for survival. Those Indian tribes that used fire in moist ecosystems tended to burn in the late spring just before new growth appears, while in areas that are drier fires tended to be set during the late summer or early fall since the main growth of plants and grasses occurs in the winter. For the most part, tribes set fires that did not destroy entire forests or ecosystems, were relatively easy to control, and stimulated new plant growth. Indians burned selected areas yearly, every other year, or intervals as long as five years.

Arrival of the Europeans

Fires indicated the presence of humans to many European explorers and settlers. In San Pedro Bay

San Pedro Bay

San Pedro Bay may refer to:* San Pedro Bay , a small bay on Leyte* San Pedro Bay , an inlet on the Pacific coast of the United States* San Pedro Bay , a swamp and wildlife management area in north central Florida...

in 1542, chaparral

Chaparral

Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico...

fires provided that signal to Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was a Portuguese explorer noted for his exploration of the west coast of North America on behalf of Spain. Cabrillo was the first European explorer to navigate the coast of present day California in the United States...

, and later to others across all of what would be named California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.

By the 17th century, as most European explorers, fur traders, and settlers began to arrive in North America, native populations were on the verge of collapse because of new diseases (such as smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

) and widespread epidemics (influenza

Influenza

Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...

) against which the Indians had no immunity. In addition, warfare (with old enemies and new immigrants), new technologies (horse, iron, and firearms), change of economy (to fur trading and sheep grazing), different food sources (European-style farming and imperial handouts), and treaties (restricting or removing Indians from traditional lands) all had significant consequences— mainly negative—on native cultures and populations.

By the 19th century, many native languages and tribes were becoming extinct and knowledge of the old ways was dying. Only a handful of ethnographers and anthropologists (many employed by the Smithsonian Institution and/or the American Bureau of Ethnology) felt the need to record the Indian languages and lifestyles before the last of many tribes disappeared. Even fewer of these researchers asked questions about the native peoples deliberately changing ecosystems.

Settlers and the Rich Prairies

Early explorers and fur trappers often observed huge burned over or prairie/barren areas with many dead trees "littering" the landscape, without knowledge of whether the fires were natural or Indian caused. Written accounts by early settlers remain incomplete, although many noted that there was evidence of burned or scorched trees and open prairies or savanna

Savanna

s with tall grasses in every river basin. There are many other accounts of travelers in forest areas commenting on the ability to see through/around the trees for long distances – obviously lacking in shrubs, brush, and small trees. The abundance of open prairie areas was often thought to be the result of poor soils that would not support trees or even crops. This would not prove to be the reason for the openings – some of which ranged in size to millions of acres–it was fire.

However, a number of settlers/farmers saw that the prairies were potentially rich land (besides that fact that it was "ready for the plow" without having to clear the land). This grass-covered prairie land was one of the primary reasons for settlers to head west to the Oregon Territory

Oregon Territory

The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. Originally claimed by several countries , the region was...

and California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, and later to homestead

Homestead (buildings)

A homestead is either a single building, or collection of buildings grouped together on a large agricultural holding, such as a ranch, station or a large agricultural operation of some other designation.-See also:* Farm house* Homestead Act...

the Great Plains

Great Plains

The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...

. In the late 19th century until today, the Great Plains of the U.S. and Canadian Prairies

Canadian Prairies

The Canadian Prairies is a region of Canada, specifically in western Canada, which may correspond to several different definitions, natural or political. Notably, the Prairie provinces or simply the Prairies comprise the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, as they are largely covered...

were to become the farming “breadbasket” for the two nations.

Through the turn of the 20th century, settlers often used fire to clear the land of brush and trees in order to make new farm land for crops and new pastures for grazing animals – the North American variation of slash and burn

Slash and burn

Slash-and-burn is an agricultural technique which involves cutting and burning of forests or woodlands to create fields. It is subsistence agriculture that typically uses little technology or other tools. It is typically part of shifting cultivation agriculture, and of transhumance livestock...

technology – while others deliberately burned to reduce the threat of major fires – the so‑called "light burning" technique. Since the uplands were still in government ownership (public domain

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

), many settlers adjacent to the hills often either deliberately set fires and/or allowed fires to "run free." Also, sheep and cattle owners, as well as shepherds and cowboys, often set the alpine meadows and prairies on fire at the end of the grazing season to burn the dried grasses, reduce brush, and kill young trees, as well as encourage the growth of new grasses for the following summer and fall grazing season.

Reasons for burning

Henry T. Lewis, who has authored more books and articles on this subject than anyone else, concluded that there were at least 70 different reasons for the Indians firing the vegetation. Other writers have listed fewer number of reasons, using different categories. In summary, there are eleven major reasons for American Indian ecosystem burning:

Hunting ‑ The burning of large areas was useful to divert big game (deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...

, elk
Elk
The Elk is the large deer, also called Cervus canadensis or wapiti, of North America and eastern Asia.Elk may also refer to:Other antlered mammals:...

, bison
Bison
Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...

) into small unburned areas for easier hunting and provide open prairies/meadows (rather than brush and tall trees) where animals (including ducks and geese) like to dine on fresh, new grass sprouts. Fire was also used to drive game into impoundments, narrow chutes, into rivers or lakes, or over cliffs where the animals could be killed easily. Some tribes used a surround or circle fire to force rabbits and game into small areas. The Seminoles even practiced hunting alligators with fire. Torches were used to spot deer and attract fish. Smoke was used to drive/dislodge raccoons and bears from hiding.
Crop management ‑ Burning was used to harvest crops, especially tarweed, yucca
Yucca
Yucca is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40-50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitish flowers. They are native to the hot and dry parts of North...

, greens, and grass seed collection. In addition, fire was used to prevent abandoned fields from growing over and to clear areas for planting corn
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

and tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

. One report of fire being used to bring rain (overcome drought). Clearing ground of grass and brush was done to facilitate the gathering of acorns. Fire was used to roast mescal and obtain salt from grasses.
Insect collection ‑ Some tribes used a "fire surround" to collect and roast crickets, grasshoppers, Pandora Pinemoth
Pandora Pinemoth
The Pandora Pinemoth or Pandora Moth, Coloradia pandora, is an insect belonging to the Coloradia genus of moths. It is native to the western United States. The larvae of the Pandora Moth feed on the foliage of several species of pine trees, including the lodgepole, Jeffrey, and ponderosa pines...

s in pine forests, and collect honey from bees.
Pest management ‑ Burning was sometimes used to reduce insects (black flies, ticks, and mosquitos) and rodents, as well as kill mistletoe
Mistletoe
Mistletoe is the common name for obligate hemi-parasitic plants in several families in the order Santalales. The plants in question grow attached to and within the branches of a tree or shrub.-Mistletoe in the genus Viscum:...

that invaded mesquite
Mesquite
Mesquite is a leguminous plant of the Prosopis genus found in northern Mexico through the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan Deserts, and up into the Southwestern United States as far north as southern Kansas, west to the Colorado Desert in California,and east to the eastern fifth of Texas, where...

and oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

trees and kill the tree moss favored by deer (thus forcing them to the valleys). Fire was also used to kill poisonous snakes.
Improve growth and yields ‑ Fire was often used to improve grass for big game grazing (deer, elk, antelope
Antelope
Antelope is a term referring to many even-toed ungulate species indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelopes comprise a miscellaneous group within the family Bovidae, encompassing those old-world species that are neither cattle, sheep, buffalo, bison, nor goats...

, bison), horse pasturage, camas
Camassia
Camassia is a genus of six species native to western North America, from southern British Columbia to northern California, and east to Utah, Wyoming and Montana...

reproduction, seed plants, berry plants (especially raspberries, strawberries and huckleberries), and tobacco. Fire was also used to promote plant structure and health, increase the growth of reeds and grasses used as basket materials, beargrass, deergrass
Deergrass
Deer grass is the common name for:*Muhlenbergia rigens - a perennial bunchgrass.*Rhexia - a genus of plants in the Melastomataceae family....

, hazel
Hazel
The hazels are a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate northern hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae, though some botanists split the hazels into a separate family Corylaceae.They have simple, rounded leaves with double-serrate margins...

, and willow
Willow
Willows, sallows, and osiers form the genus Salix, around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere...

s.
Fireproofing areas ‑ There are some indications that fire was used to protect certain medicine plants by clearing an area around the plants, as well as to fireproof areas, especially around settlements, from destructive wildfire
Wildfire
A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...

s. Fire was also used to keep prairies open from encroaching shrubs and trees.
Warfare and signaling ‑ Use of fire to deprive the enemy of hiding places in tall grasses and underbrush in the woods for defense, as well as using fire for offensive reasons or to escape from their enemies. Smoke signals, actually large fires rather than the movie version of using blankets and smoke, were used to alert tribes about possible enemies or in gathering forces to combat enemies. Or a fire was used to merely announce leaving camp. In at least one case, fire was used to signal or "call" the salmon back to the coastal streams.
Economic extortion ‑ Some tribes also used fire for a "scorched earth
Scorched earth
A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...

" policy to deprive settlers and fur traders from easy access to big game and thus benefiting from being "middlemen" in supplying pemmican
Pemmican
Pemmican is a concentrated mixture of fat and protein used as a nutritious food. The word comes from the Cree word pimîhkân, which itself is derived from the word pimî, "fat, grease". It was invented by the native peoples of North America...

and jerky
Jerky (food)
Jerky is lean meat that has been trimmed of fat, cut into strips, and then been dried to prevent spoilage. Normally, this drying includes the addition of salt, to prevent bacteria from developing on the meat before sufficient moisture has been removed. The word "jerky" is a bastardization of the...

.
Clearing areas for travel ‑ Fires were sometimes started to clear trails for travel through areas that were overgrown with grass or brush, especially along ridgelines. Burned areas helped with providing better visibility through forests and brush lands for hunting and warfare purposes. It also reduced cover for wolves, bear
Bear
Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...

s, cougars, as well as enemy tribes who often hid along the edges of trails.
Felling trees ‑ Fire was used to fell trees by boring two intersecting holes into the trunk, then dropping burning charcoal in one hole, allowing the smoke to exit from the other. This method was also used by early settlers. Another way to kill trees was to surround the base with fire, allowing the bark and/or the trunk to burn causing the tree to die (much like girdling) and eventually topple over. Fire also used to kill trees so that it could later be used for dry kindling (willows) and firewood (aspen
Aspen
Populus section Populus, of the Populus genus, includes the aspen trees and the white poplar Populus alba. The five typical aspens are all native to cold regions with cool summers, in the north of the Northern Hemisphere, extending south at high altitudes in the mountains. The White Poplar, by...

).
Clearing riparian areas ‑ Fire was commonly used to clear brush from riparian areas and marshes for new grasses and sedges, plant growth (cattails), and tree sprouts (to benefit beaver
Beaver
The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver and Eurasian Beaver . Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges . They are the second-largest rodent in the world...

, muskrat
Muskrat
The muskrat , the only species in genus Ondatra, is a medium-sized semi-aquatic rodent native to North America, and introduced in parts of Europe, Asia, and South America. The muskrat is found in wetlands and is a very successful animal over a wide range of climates and habitats...

s, moose
Moose
The moose or Eurasian elk is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a dendritic configuration...

, and waterfowl), including mesquite, cottonwood, and willows.

Human-shaped landscape

Role of fire by natives

Arrival of the Europeans

Settlers and the Rich Prairies

Reasons for burning

Further reading