ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by briefly suggesting what North America would have looked like to a late fifteenth-century European who, through some feat of wizardry, could have soared like an eagle across the continent. For nineteenth-century North Americans of Anglo-European heritage, Europe had become a past, a place of histories and legacies of particular societies to be explored and reflected upon, in particular, by writers or, earlier, painters such as Thomas. Attitudes to land and landscape simultaneously encompassed pastoral myth and economic demand. The East Coast has been settled for many generations, and histories of settlement - let alone preceding Native American histories - are often hidden or multi-layered. Monuments claim the significance of particular characters or stories, often contributing to sidelining complexities.
