The province was surrounded by powerful tribes of Indians who watched the white settlers with an eager hostility, and seized every occasion to molest them by secret inroad, and often by open assault.
If you look at it ecologically, deforestation is high on the list of things which bring devastation. You cut down trees to build homes, for fuel, and you end up with no trees left, and you have to move on. If you take the earth as a whole, eventually there's nowhere to move on to.
The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.

