what impact do the characters have on the setting, the environment?

The last half of this book centers around the later years of Bishop Latour and Father Vaillant. It shows how their friendship progresses near the end of their lives. Latour and Vaillant knew each other before they came to America but in their missionary journeys they sometimes had to spend time apart. This was because they had to each help the people in different ways.

" It was the indian manner to vanish into the landscape, not to stand out against it." "They seemed to have none of the European's desire to 'master' nature, to arrange and re-create." pg. 233 I think that those quotes from the book explain sthe question perfectly. The indians lived with nature and did not try to take over. As more Americans and European settlers came to the less populated areas, they started building, creating a railroad system, searching for gold, and hunting the native people.