512 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



Florida, and sailed northward towards Vir^^inia, w^here, in 1584, 

 Heriot describes under the name Openawk what is supposed to be 

 the potato." '^ 



Now, it is quite certain that Sir John Hawkins never visited 

 Santa Fe de Bogota. Had he done so he might indeed have en- 

 countered Solarium tuberosum.. On referring to his original narra- 

 tive I find that in 1505, on his first voyage, his ship, the Jesus of 

 Luheck, went for water and provisions to a port called Santa Fe 

 on the coast of what is now Venezuela. There he received from 

 Carib Indians — naked savages who slept in cotton hammocks and 

 were armed with poisoned arrows — '' hennes, potatoes and pines." 

 The " hennes " were an indigenous pheasant-like bird commonly 

 called " curassow," which the Indians of that region still domesti- 

 cate. The " pines " were pineapples " of the bignes of two fistes," 

 the inside of which " eateth like an apple, but is more delicious 

 than any sweete apple sugared." The " potatoes " were wdiat we 

 now call sweet potatoes, " the most delicate roots that may be eaten." 

 These were, after manioc (the roots from which tapioca is derived), 

 the most important food staple of the Indians inhabiting the islands 

 and shores of the Caribbean Sea, a region where Solanwm tubero- 

 suvi was quite unknown at the time of Hawkins' visit. Sweet pota- 

 toes were encountered by Columbus and his companions imme- 

 diately after their arrival in the New World and were highly 

 esteemed, not only for their delicious taste but for the ease with 

 wdiich they could be propagated and their immunity from the hurri- 

 canes which so frequently destroyed the plantations of upright 

 manioc. Columbus never saw a tuber of Solanum tuherosum, nor 

 was this plant encountered by Cortez in Mexico. 



The identity of Sir John Hawd^ins' potatoes was recognized by 

 Sir Joseph Banks, who called attention to the fact that the sweet 

 potato was introduced at a very early date into the Canarj^ Islands 

 and Spain, whence it was imported in considerable quantities into 

 EnMand long before the introduction of Solanum tuberosum.'' 



The openawk of Virginia, with which the potato was also con- 

 fused, was described in 1588 by Thomas Heriot, the historian of 

 Sir Walter Raleigh's second ill-fated colony on Roanoke Island, 

 who published the first accurate account in English of North 

 American Indians and their food-plants. It is quite certain that 

 he never carried a tuber of Solanum tuberosuin from Virginia to 



* Sturtevaiit's Edible Plants. Edited by U. P. Iledrick, in Report of the New York 

 Experiment Station, New York State Department of Agriculture, 27th Annual Report. 

 Vol. 2, part 2, p. 546. 1919. 



''Banks, Sir Joseph. "An attempt to ascertain the time when the potato {Solanum 

 tuberosum) was first introduced into the United Kingdom." Transactions Horticultural 

 Society of London, 1 : 8-11. 1805. 



