> Apart from -great- cultural differences - e.g. respect for nature You can respect nature and still make use of natural resources. Even if native Americans di

> Apart from -great- cultural differences - e.g. respect for nature You can respect nature and still make use of natural resources. Even if native Americans did the former (see below--some did but many did not), they fell far short on the latter. There were many natural resources in the US that native Americans never made any use of, and European settlers did. This is an example of the more general fact that the native Americans did not build very much wealth, while European settlers built much, much more. The native American cultures would never have built the medium through which we are having this discussion, for example. Or modern medicine, or modern sanitation, or all of the other things that have led to a huge increase in both average length and average quality of life. > indigenous Americans had -a lot- of knowledge about their world, and how to care for it. Perhaps some did. Many did not. Travel around the US Southwest and see how many sites there are where native American tribes lived and either died out or had to move on because they had mismanaged the local resources to the point where those resources could no longer support the tribe.