IROQUOIS USES OF MAIZE 13 



2 Importance of maize in the early English colonies. There is 

 no plant more vitally or more closely interwoven into the history of 

 the New World 1 than maize or Indian corn. 2 At the most critical 

 stages in colonial history corn 3 played an important part. Our Pil- 

 grim fathers and the less hardy cavaliers of Jamestown and Mary- 

 land were rescued from starvation more than once when it was hard 

 upon them by foods made from the corn given them by the Indians 

 who had cultivated and harvested it. Had it not been for the corn, 

 of the Indians the stories of Jamestown and Plymouth instead of 

 being stirring accounts of perseverence and endurance might have 

 been brief and melancholy tragedies. The settlement and develop- 

 ment of the New World would have been delayed for years. 4 His- 

 tory would have been changed, the foothold of the English colonists 

 weakened and another tongue spoken along the Atlantic coast. 



1 Prescott in reviewing this subject says : " The great staple of the 

 country, as indeed of the American continent, was maize, or Indian corn, 

 which grew freely along the valleys and up the steep sides of the Cordil- 

 leras to the high level of the tablelands. The Aztecs were as curious in 

 its preparation, and as well instructed in its manifold uses, as the most 

 expert New England housewife. Its gigantic stalks, in these equinoctial 

 regions, afford a saccharine matter not found to the same extent in north- 

 ern latitudes, and supplied the natives with sugar little inferior to that of 

 cane itself . . ." Conquest of Mexico. N. Y. 1866. 1:112. 



John Fiske in his Discovery of America, writes: "Maize or Indian corn 

 has played a most important part in the history of the New World, as re- 

 gards both white and red men. It could be planted without clearing or 

 plowing the soil. It was only necessary to girdle the trees with a stone 

 hatchet, so as to destroy their leaves and let in the sunshine. A few 

 scratches and digs were made in the ground with a stone digger, and the 

 seed once dropped in took care of itself. The ears could hang for weeks 

 after ripening and could be picked off without meddling with the stalk; 

 there was no need of threshing or winnowing. None of the Old World 

 cereals can be cultivated without much more industry and intelligence. At 

 the same time when Indian corn is sown on tilled land it yields with 

 little labor more than twice as much per acre than any other grain." Fiske, 

 Discovery of America, 1 :2/. 



2 In using the term corn hereinafter we refer exclusively to maize. 



3 Lawson very emphatically describes the utility of maize in the follow- 

 ing : " The Indian corn or Maize proves the most useful Grain in the 

 World; and had it not been for the fruitfulness of this species, it would 

 have proved very difficult to have settled some of the Plantations in Amer- 

 ica. It is very nourishing whether in Bread, sodden or otherwise ; and 

 those poor Christian Servants in Virginia, Maryland and the other north- 

 erly Plantations, that have been forced to live wholly upon it do mani- 

 festly prove that it is the most nourishing Grain for a Man to subsist on, 

 without any other Victuals." History of Carolina. Lond. 1/14. Cf. Car- 

 tier Voyages. Tross ed. 



4 ... we are indebted to the Indians for maize, without which the 

 peopling of America would have been delayed for a century." Cyrus 

 Thomas. Agriculture, in Hand-Book of American Indians. Bureau of 

 Ethnology Bui. 30. 



