[Robert Urbanek]

From the early days of America there has been a strain of Christianity that held that both the “savages” and the “savage” wilderness had to be tamed and converted.

Here we find a vast stock of proper materials for the art and ingenuity of man to work upon: Treasures of immense worth concealed from the poor ignorant aboriginal natives! The curious have observed that the progress of human literature (like the sun) is from the east to the west; thus has it travelled through Asia and Europe, and now is arrived at the eastern shore of America.

As the celestial light of the Gospel was directed here by the finger of God, it will doubtless finally drive the long, long night of heathenish darkness from America. So arts and sciences will change the face of nature in their tour from hence over the Appalachian Mountains to the western ocean; and as they march through the vast desert, the residence of wild beasts will be broken up, and the obscene howl cease forever; instead of which the stones and trees will dance together in the music of Orpheus. The rocks will disclose their hidden gems and the inestimable treasures of gold and silver will be broken up. Huge mountains of ore are already discovered; and vast stores are reserved for future generations.

— From the 1758 almanac of Nathanial Ames, Denham, Mass.

Even today, many Christian capitalists would let the “obscene howl” of wild animals “cease forever.”