QUOTE: RELATIONSHIP WITH THE EARTH, CONNECTION TO NATURE - #8

“Jefferson was in the business of creating private property. During his presidency, he was faced with the thrilling challenge of developing huge acquisitions of land by the new American nation, territories that compared in size to all of Europe. Among the first things he did in regard to the newly acquired lands was to send out surveyors who would impose on their entirety a pattern of grids called townships and ranges and sections, the cadastral survey that frames the terms of every real estate transaction today. Jefferson saw this work as a necessary first step in bringing order to a sprawling “wilderness.” The tidy squares superimposed on the map of areas few new Americans had ever seen was a pattern designed to expedite their hasty occupation by the yeoman farmer-democrats that the president saw as the chosen people of God. If the new government was to have something to govern, it needed to transform all of that land into property.”

- Totem Salmon: Life Lessons From Another Species, by Freeman House