Culture and Environment in the Early French Caribbean

Ideas, practices, and human priorities: culture in the unstable environment of the early Caribbean colonies. Early French colonization in the Caribbean from the 1620s to circa 1730 brought great demographic, economic, and agricultural changes, with settlers introducing crops, animals, and new forms of labor into ecosystems that imposed their own limitations.In these settlements, ideas and practices concerning the environment, ranging from the preparation of food and drink to medical treatments, drew on both European and non-European knowledge.Yet social, gender, and linguistic barriers were among the restrictions to what colonial populations knew about Caribbean ecosystems.Descriptions and illustrations of animals and plants could fascinate Europeans, despite giving only partial insight into the Caribbean environment.Colonial practices such as feasting distinguished culture from wilderness, and people from one another; in an environment in which cultivation signified culture, the plant