We extend a warm thank you to the Iowa State University Center for On-Line Learning
and the Iowa State University Department of History for their support of this project.
Scholars debate the precise arrival of American Indian agriculturalists in the
Western hemisphere although it could be as early as 5000 B.C. Despite the
debate, it is clear agricultural practices of the American Indians on the North
American continent spread north from Central and South America throughout
the Southwest and mixed with indigenous practices in the Upper South and
Midwest. Over the next 6,000 years, Indian farmers domesticated squash,
sumpweed, marsh elder, sunflower, chenopod, and maize (corn). The
emergence of indigenous farmers created relatively stable communities that
adapted their crops and fields to the environmental challenges of their
regions. Corn hybridization, land utilization, and food storage all marked the
emergence of indigenous agricultural societies.
Cultivated by American Indians in the northern United States, corn was not the only crop but the primary one. Based upon the environmental conditions of the local region the farmers selected between a variety of flint, dent, popcorn, and sweet corns. Clearing and preparing the fields, usually located along fertile bottomlands and flood plains, consisted of clearing brush, grubbing out roots, and burning the brush in the fields to increase soil fertility and longevity. During the spring planting season, the farmers picked the best of the previous season's seeds from the harvested ears of corn. Upon making numerous mounds of soil throughout the designated field, they placed a kernel within each hill. Cultivating and weeding the rows began once the kernel germinated and the sprout reached from the ground. The indigenous people harvested and then stored the corn in bark containers in underground pits.
In the American South, American Indians practiced similar means of agriculture as in the North. They cleared land by setting brush afire while girdling trees, and utilizing axes and mattocks to remove smaller trees and brush. With the fields cleared and ready for planting, Southern Indian farmers practiced two distinct agricultural methods. Intercropping and multiple cropping utilized the small bottomland fields most effectively. The process of intercropping focused on the planting of various crops, such as beans, squash, and corn, in the same field. The mixture of crops in the same field served to complement each other. Beans replenished depleted nitrogen levels in the soil caused by the corn. In turn, the corn stalks served as a trellis for the beans to climb while the squash created a ground cover to choke out unwanted weeds.
Farmers planted two crops in the same field under a multiple cropping method. This method primarily focused upon using two varieties of corn, early and late. In planting the two crops together, the farmers could harvest the early crop for use while letting the other grow until maturity thus ensuring a longer availability of the corn food source.
American Indian farmers of the Great Plains utilized wooden and bone hoes to assist their agricultural practices. The hoe of the Great Plains farmer differed from those utilized to the east and the west. The adaptation of a buffalo scapula, shoulder blade, was the primary difference. However, even the adapted hoe was ineffective against the tough prairie sod. As a result, farming remained in the river flood plains with farmers often walking ten or more miles to their fields.
Agriculture in the arid Southwest presented different challenges to the indigenous farmers. Although still reliant on corn, beans, and squash as staple crops, the farmers contended with short growing seasons. In addition to their experimentation with extremely fast maturing crops, they also experimented with other environmental methods of increasing crop yields. Harnessing water became key as many of the Southwestern communities focused on irrigation of their fields. The most basic use of irrigation focused upon the planting of crops in areas subjected to seasonal floodwater. By allowing the floodwaters to fill the fields, the plants received the necessary moisture while not allowing the floodwaters to run off before percolating through the soil. Others, such as the Hohokam, built an extensive system of irrigation canals that rivaled the irrigation canals created by farmers of antiquity in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. By tapping into the Gila and Salt River watersheds, the Hohokam directed water to their fields through 150 miles of canal ditches.
Rick L. Woten
References
Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983.
Hurt, R. Douglas. American Agriculture: A Brief History. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2002.
______________. Indian Agriculture in America: Prehistory to the Present. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1987.
Wessel, Thomas R. "Agriculture, Indians, and American History." Agricultural History 50 (January 1976): 9-20.
White, Richard. The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change Among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
Further Readings
Anderson, Kat. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Barr, Daniel P., ed. The Boundaries Between Us: Natives and Newcomers Along the Frontiers of the Old Northwest Territory, 1750-1850. Kent: Kent State University Press, 2006.
Castetter, Edward F., and Willis H Bell. Pima and Papago Indian Agriculture. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1942.
________________. Yuman Indian Agriculture. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1951.
Harvey, Cecil. Agriculture of the American Indian: A Select Bibliography. Washington D.C.: Science and Education Administration, National Economics Division, 1979.
Kinney, J.P. A Continent Lost- A Civilization Won: Indian Land Tenure in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1937.
Kipp, Henry W. Indians in Agriculture: An Historical Sketch. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1988.
Nabhan, Gary Paul. Enduring Seeds: Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant Conservation. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1989.
Struever, Stuart. Prehistoric Agriculture. New York: Natural History Press, 1971.
Trigger, Bruce G. The Huron Farmer of the North. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969.
Will, George F., and George E. Hyde. Corn Among the Indians of the Upper Missouri. St. Louis: William H. Miner Co, 1917.
Cultivated by American Indians in the northern United States, corn was not the only crop but the primary one. Based upon the environmental conditions of the local region the farmers selected between a variety of flint, dent, popcorn, and sweet corns. Clearing and preparing the fields, usually located along fertile bottomlands and flood plains, consisted of clearing brush, grubbing out roots, and burning the brush in the fields to increase soil fertility and longevity. During the spring planting season, the farmers picked the best of the previous season's seeds from the harvested ears of corn. Upon making numerous mounds of soil throughout the designated field, they placed a kernel within each hill. Cultivating and weeding the rows began once the kernel germinated and the sprout reached from the ground. The indigenous people harvested and then stored the corn in bark containers in underground pits.
In the American South, American Indians practiced similar means of agriculture as in the North. They cleared land by setting brush afire while girdling trees, and utilizing axes and mattocks to remove smaller trees and brush. With the fields cleared and ready for planting, Southern Indian farmers practiced two distinct agricultural methods. Intercropping and multiple cropping utilized the small bottomland fields most effectively. The process of intercropping focused on the planting of various crops, such as beans, squash, and corn, in the same field. The mixture of crops in the same field served to complement each other. Beans replenished depleted nitrogen levels in the soil caused by the corn. In turn, the corn stalks served as a trellis for the beans to climb while the squash created a ground cover to choke out unwanted weeds.
Farmers planted two crops in the same field under a multiple cropping method. This method primarily focused upon using two varieties of corn, early and late. In planting the two crops together, the farmers could harvest the early crop for use while letting the other grow until maturity thus ensuring a longer availability of the corn food source.
American Indian farmers of the Great Plains utilized wooden and bone hoes to assist their agricultural practices. The hoe of the Great Plains farmer differed from those utilized to the east and the west. The adaptation of a buffalo scapula, shoulder blade, was the primary difference. However, even the adapted hoe was ineffective against the tough prairie sod. As a result, farming remained in the river flood plains with farmers often walking ten or more miles to their fields.
Agriculture in the arid Southwest presented different challenges to the indigenous farmers. Although still reliant on corn, beans, and squash as staple crops, the farmers contended with short growing seasons. In addition to their experimentation with extremely fast maturing crops, they also experimented with other environmental methods of increasing crop yields. Harnessing water became key as many of the Southwestern communities focused on irrigation of their fields. The most basic use of irrigation focused upon the planting of crops in areas subjected to seasonal floodwater. By allowing the floodwaters to fill the fields, the plants received the necessary moisture while not allowing the floodwaters to run off before percolating through the soil. Others, such as the Hohokam, built an extensive system of irrigation canals that rivaled the irrigation canals created by farmers of antiquity in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. By tapping into the Gila and Salt River watersheds, the Hohokam directed water to their fields through 150 miles of canal ditches.
Rick L. Woten
References
Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983.
Hurt, R. Douglas. American Agriculture: A Brief History. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2002.
______________. Indian Agriculture in America: Prehistory to the Present. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1987.
Wessel, Thomas R. "Agriculture, Indians, and American History." Agricultural History 50 (January 1976): 9-20.
White, Richard. The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change Among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
Further Readings
Anderson, Kat. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Barr, Daniel P., ed. The Boundaries Between Us: Natives and Newcomers Along the Frontiers of the Old Northwest Territory, 1750-1850. Kent: Kent State University Press, 2006.
Castetter, Edward F., and Willis H Bell. Pima and Papago Indian Agriculture. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1942.
________________. Yuman Indian Agriculture. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1951.
Harvey, Cecil. Agriculture of the American Indian: A Select Bibliography. Washington D.C.: Science and Education Administration, National Economics Division, 1979.
Kinney, J.P. A Continent Lost- A Civilization Won: Indian Land Tenure in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1937.
Kipp, Henry W. Indians in Agriculture: An Historical Sketch. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1988.
Nabhan, Gary Paul. Enduring Seeds: Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant Conservation. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1989.
Struever, Stuart. Prehistoric Agriculture. New York: Natural History Press, 1971.
Trigger, Bruce G. The Huron Farmer of the North. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969.
Will, George F., and George E. Hyde. Corn Among the Indians of the Upper Missouri. St. Louis: William H. Miner Co, 1917.