14 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Almost the first discovery which the Pilgrim historian records is 

 that of a cache of Indian corn found along the shore. On Novem- 

 ber n, 1620 the historian writes: 



They found a pond of clear fresh water and shortly after a good 

 quantitie of clar ground where y e Indeans had formerly set come 

 and some of their graves. And proceeding furder they saw new- 

 stuble wher corne had been set y e same year, also they found where 

 latly a house had been wher some planks and a great ketel was re- 

 .maining and heaps of sand newly padled with their hands, which 

 they digging up . found in them diverce f aire Indean baskets filled 

 with corne and some in eares faire and good of diverce colours 

 . . . and took with them parte of y e corne and buried y e rest 

 . . . And here is to be noted a spetiall- providence of God . . . 

 that hear they got seed to plant them corne y e next year, or els they 

 might have starved for they had none, nor any liklyhood to get any. 1 



Few of us in these modern days realize the frightful struggles of 

 these early pioneers to obtain food enough to sustain even the spark 

 of life. It is recorded that some of the desperate Pilgrims, driven 

 by the despair of hunger would even cut wood and fetch water for 

 the Indians for a cap of corn. Others, we are told, " fell to plaine 

 stealing both night & day from ye Indeans of which they (the In- 

 dians) greviously complained." 2 



The bitter experiences of the winter of 1622-23 compelled them 

 to think how they might raise as much corn as they could and " ob- 

 taine a beter crop then they had done, that they might not still thus 

 languish in miserie." 3 The struggle for existence was a hard one 

 with all the colonists until they had mastered the methods of corn 

 cultivation. The Indians who were the teachers soon found that they 

 had students that outclassed them in many ways. Bradford's ac- 

 count of how the settlers -earned to plant and cultivate is both inter- 

 esting and enlightening. He writes : 4 



Afterwards they, as many as were able, began to plant ther corne, 

 in which servise Squanto stood them in great stead, showing them 

 both ye maner how to set it, and after how to dress and tend it. He 

 also tould them excepte they gott fish and set with it in these old 

 grounds it would come to nothing. 



Trumbull also tells that the Connecticut Indians instructed the 

 first settlers in the manner of planting and dressing corn. 5 



1 Bradford. History Plymouth Plantation, p. 49. Cols. Mass. Hist. Soc. 

 Ser. 4. 111:8;. Bost. 1856. 



2 Ibid. p. 130. 

 *Ibid. p. 134. 



4 Ibid. p. 100. 



5 Trumbull. History of Connecticut, Hartford 1797. i :-|6. 



