124 



Jin Essay on Indian Corn. 



Vol. II. 



it as they gather it, and dry it well on 

 mats in the sun, and bury it in holes in the 

 ground, lined with moss or mats, which are 

 their barns," 



At page 185, he says, " The Indians 'boil 

 it until it becomes tender, and eat it with fish 

 or venison, instead of bread : sometimes they 

 bruise it in a mortar and so boil it. The 

 most usual way is to parch it in the ashes, 

 stirring it so artificially as to be very tender 

 without burning. They beat it in a mortar 

 and sift it into a fine meal, which they eat 

 dry or mixed with water. The English mix 

 it into a stiff paste and make bread of it, which 

 they bake all day or at night. The best sort 

 of food which is made of it is called samp," 

 &c. 



No Indian corn grows wild now ; but both 

 that and the kidney bean were found among 

 ■the natives. The Indians have a tradition 

 that the first grain of corn was brought hither 

 by a blackbird, and the first bean by a crow. 



In page 337, speaking of Calvert's first es- 

 tablishment in Maryland, " The infant colony 

 supplied themselves with Indian corn at Bar- 

 badoes, which, at first arrival, they began to 

 use to save their English store of meal and 

 oat meal. The Indian women perceiving 

 that the servants of the English did not know 

 how to dress it, made their bread for them, 

 and taught them to do it ft)r themselves. 

 There was Indian corn enough in the coun- 

 try, and these new adventurers soon after 

 shipped oft' 10,000 bushels for New England 

 to purchase salt fish and other provisions." 



In page 428, speaking of the mode of living 

 in Virgmia, he says, "The bread which the 

 better sort of people use, is generally made 

 of wheat, the poorer eat pone* made of op- 

 pone, or Indian meal." 



At page 441, speaking of the productions 

 of Virginia, he says, " The Indians had pease, 

 beans, and potatoes, before the English came 

 among them ; but the staff of their food was 

 their corn, of whicb we have given a large 

 description in the history of New England." 



What are the inferences to be fairly ad- 

 duced from this body of concurring testimony ? 

 It must be recollected that it emanates from 

 many persons of different habits and propen- 

 sities, and belonging to different nations, 

 civilized and savage; among whom there 

 could have existed no connivance or collu- 

 sion: it has been made public at different 

 periods of time, and under various circum- 

 stances ; and relates to different parts of a 

 widely extended territory, and it is therefore 

 not obnoxious to the objection of having been 

 an ancient error originally fallen into by ac- 

 cident, and unintentionally adhered to and 



* This name is still preserved in the South, where a 

 "pone bread" means Indian corn bread, 



copied by subsequent writers. Standing as 

 it does upon independent ground, each piece 

 of testimony corroborates and strengthens 

 the others ; and the whole taken together, 

 establishes in a way that defies refutation 

 that the Indian corn claims this hemisphere 

 for the place of its nativity. Many of the 

 articles to which I have referred, represent- 

 ing the Indian corn to be a plant new in Eu- 

 rope, were published at a time when such an 

 error could not have escaped detection. The 

 discovery of a new world was the great lion 

 or wonder of that day : the accounts given 

 by travelers of an immense country which 

 had been until that period not only unknown, 

 but which many of the learned supposed did 

 not, and could not exist; — of its singular in- 

 habitants, and of its various animal and vege- 

 table productions, was sought for and read 

 with avidity by princes and subjects, by 

 scholars and laymen, and although the Indian 

 Corn was every where asserted to be a na- 

 tive of the Americas and to be unknown in 

 the rest of the world, yet not a solitary indi- 

 vidual was found to correct the error if it was 

 one, or throw the slightest discredit on the 

 assertion. This task was reserved for more 

 modern times, and will not again, I hope, find 

 credence with any one who seeks only for 

 the truth. As to the objection that no one 

 has stated that he has seen the Indian Corn 

 growing wild and spontaneously in America, 

 I cannot perceive that there is much weight 

 in it, especially as no one pretends to have 

 seen it growing wild or spontaneously in any 

 other part of the world. By the Indians it 

 was doubtless found growing wild, but at the 

 time that tliis country was visited by Euro- 

 peans it was every where cultivated. I am 

 informed by a gentleman residing in the state 

 of Kentucky that there was, some thirty or 

 forty years since, a tradition among the west- 

 ern Indians that the seeds of the plants they 

 cultivated were presented by the Great Spirit : 

 that on a certain occasion the Great Spirit 

 had descended to this earth in the form of a 

 beautiful squaw: that where she first touched 

 the ground with her feet there sprang up the ' 

 Indian Corn ; where she placed her right 

 hand, grew the bean, and where she put her 

 left hand pumpkins and squashes, and where 

 she seated herself on the ground grew to- 

 bacco. 



In the United States this plant has always 

 gone by the name of Indian Corn, (except 

 where par excellence it is designated by the 

 name of ' Corn,'*) and there is no doubt but 

 that this name was given to it by the earliest 



■ In one of'the Counties of Pennsylvania, a man was 

 indicted for stealing so many bushels of" Corn,'" and 

 upon the exception being talten by Counsel that this 

 was not a perfect description of Indian Corn, it was 

 over-ruled by the Court. 



