How did the coming of Europeans change the conditions in the prairies?
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Answer:
Before the arrival of the Europeans, this sea of grass is estimated to have contained approximately one person per 5000 acres. The native peoples lived off the land, as hunters of vast herds of bison and the pronghorn antelope, deer and elk that roamed the prairies. They used hides for their clothing and shelter, and supplemented their diets with native plants; some built homes using the abundant prairie grasses.
When the first European explorers crossed the middle of the North American continent they were met with an awesome expanse of grassland. They didn't even have a word for it - the French, in a characteristically dismissive vein, described it as a meadow. The English were apparently more awed; they adopted the romance of the French language, if not its literal meaning, and called it a "prairie." Later, one of the early settlers wrote, in 1841, that "for miles the prairie gently sloped, hardly presenting a bush to relieve the eye. In the distance, the green skirting of woods, which fringed either border of a large stream, softened down the view