THE FIRST AMERICAN FARMERS
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| Agriculture of Incas |
Mesoamerica
Some of the earliest American farmers lived in the central part of what is now Mexico. Beginning in 8000–7000 B.C. they began to plant and harvest bottle gourds and pumpkins. Three to four thousand years later the crops that farmers in the Tehuacán Valley grew included corn, three types of beans, chili peppers, avocados, two kinds of squash, and amaranth (a plant grown for its seeds). Later they began to cultivate sunflowers and then manioc, a root crop first domesticated in the Amazon River Basin. In the centuries before the Spaniards arrived, they became full-time farmers and had begun to grow more varieties of beans and squash as well as tobacco.
The first Europeans to see and taste the crops the Mesoamerican farmers grew were astonished by the amount and variety of the food that Indians grew. They took seeds and plants to Europe and to their Asian and African colonies.
South America
At about the same time that ancient people living in what is now Mexico domesticated crops, American Indians living in what is now the central part of the Andes in Peru discovered how to farm too. Their efforts focused on quinoa and tubers. Potatoes are the bestknown tubers.
These farmers began planting and harvesting potatoes about 10,000 years ago. They developed many different varieties of potatoes and grew sweet potatoes as well. They also domesticated three other tubers: oca, mashua, and ullucu. These plants are still eaten by the people of the Andes, but Europeans did not adopt them.
In addition to domesticating plants for food, the people of the Andes also began herding and domesticating llama as a source of food. They started raising cuy, or guinea pigs, for meat as well. South American farmers who lived in the Amazon River Basin domesticated manioc, or cassava. This root crop provides maximum food energy with very little labor on the part of farmers.
North America
Indians living in the Northeast and Southeast of what is now the United States independently began cultivating goosefoot, marsh elder or sumpweed, and sunflowers. They also domesticated erect knotweed, little barley, and maygrass—all seed-producing grasses.
These crops, except for sunflowers, are relatively unknown to most people today. They once provided a balanced diet for American Indian people. Because these plants produced many seeds, five people could harvest a 200-square-foot field, planted equally with marsh elder, or sumpweed, and chenopod in a little more than a week. A field this size provided half the food needed by 10 people for six months. By about 4,000 years ago American Indians living in the river valleys of what are now Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, and Alabama had also domesticated squash and bottle gourds.
Corn seeds were first introduced to these farmers in about A.D. 200, but corn did not become a major crop for them until about A.D. 800.
HOW THE FIRST FARMERS GREW CROPS
Before they could harvest crops, American Indian farmers needed to clear the land, till the soil, and plant seeds.
Clearing the Land
Indian farmers chose land where few large trees grew. Next they cut down the small trees and brush with stone axes, evenly spreading them across the earth that was to become a field. This method of clearing land is called milpa, swidden, or slash-and-burn agriculture. It is still practiced by indigenous farmers in parts of Mexico and South America.
American Indians discovered that if they cut a strip of bark from around the trunk of larger trees, those trees would die within one to three years. Removing the bark from around the tree prevented the food that the tree made in its leaves from reaching the roots. These Indians usually cleared land in the spring because this was easiest and most effective time to remove the tree bark.
Once the large trees had died, Indian farmers could more easily cut them down or burn them where they stood. This method of controlling trees is called tree girdling. Today it is still used by organic farmers and landscapers, who do not want to use chemicals to remove trees from their land.
When the branches and brush that the farmers cleared had dried, they set fire to them. The ashes that remained after the fire reduced soil acidity. Burning also added magnesium, calcium, potash, and phosphorus to the soil. Proper balance of these minerals is important to plant growth. In addition, burning increased nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen is necessary to grow healthy bean plants. Rather than planting the newly cleared plots of land right away, most farmers waited a year or two before growing crops on them.
American Indians understood that the nutrients in the earth were used up by constant planting, so after two or three seasons of growing crops on one field, they cleared new fields. In the Northeast, Huron farmers’ fields typically yielded about 25 to 30 bushels of corn an acre. When yields dropped to a third of that, they cleared new plots. Every 10 to 12 years they relocated their villages. In Mesoamerica, Maya farmers let their fields lie unused from 15 to 40 years before using them again.
Europeans, eager to use the fields that the Indians had cleared, drove them from their farms, permanently relocating them to land that in many cases was unsuitable for farming.
Tilling the Soil
After they had cleared their plots (small fields), American Indian farmers used digging sticks or foot plows to loosen the soil and break it into fine pieces for planting. Archaeologists believe that the people who lived in what is now Peru were the first to use foot plows to till the soil about 10,000 years ago.
Using foot plows, Native farmers were able to plant enough crops to feed people who lived in some of the most populous cities in the world. Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire, had more inhabitants than Paris did at the time when the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés first saw it in 1519. In the Andes Mountains, ancient Indian farmers made 1.5 million acres of fields. Their small plots of land added up to a great deal of farming.
Farmers of the Americas did not use wedge-shaped plows that were pulled by draft animals until after contact with Europeans. Foot plows were more suited to their environment since no animals native to the Americans could easily be trained to pull such a plow. America’s first farmers invented very efficient ways to raise food on the land that they had cleared. These methods were very different from those in many other parts of the world, where crops were planted in rows.
Planting the Crops
Rather than planting seeds in rows, American Indian farmers grew several types of plants together in small plots. Indians either planted several types of plants in the same small hill or grouped them together in flat fields. Planting several types of crops together increased the amount of food a farmer could grow in a small plot. It also helped the plants to grow because they helped each other. This is now known as “companion planting.”
Northeast farmers often planted corn, beans, and squash in the same hill. Corn stalks provided a place for the bean runners to climb. Bacteria that grew on the roots of the bean plants stored nitrogen from the air,releasing some of it to the soil. Corn, like beans, needs large amounts of nitrogen in order to prosper.
The tall corn stalks shaded the squash plants that covered the ground. In turn, the broad, low leaves of the squash plants kept the ground from drying out too quickly. Because squash plants fought with weeds for space, sunlight, and nourishment from the soil, American Indian farmers had less weeding to do. Companion planting also helped control insects. Beans and squash attract insects that eat the pests that target and destroy corn.
Native farmers of the desert Southwest did not do much companion planting. Instead they developed bush beans that did not climb by sending out runners and so did not need corn stalks to support them. Plants in the desert need to be spaced far enough apart so that they do not compete for moisture. Desert farmers of the Southwest found another way to control insects as well. They kept squash bugs from destroying their plants by sprinkling ashes on the leaves.
Today Maya farmers in Mesoamerica continue to use companion planting as their ancestors did. Sometimes they grow as many as 60 to 80 kinds of crops in one plot. Even tiny plots contain a dozen or more types of plants.
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MODERN USES FOR ANCIENT CROPS
Today scientists concerned about world hunger are taking a second look at American Indian crops that are not widely grown or known throughout the world. Some think that plants such as oca, mashua, and ullucu could help solve the hunger problem if farmers around the globe began to grow them. The contributions of American Indian farmers to the world’s people may be beginning anew as these ancient crops are used for food.
BOTTLE GOURDS
Bottle gourds have tough skins and very little flesh. The gourds range from light to dark green in color. From four to 40 inches long, they grow on climbing vines. They are sturdy, fast-growing plants. American Indians dried bottle gourds and used them for eating and cooking utensils, canteens, rattles and whistles. Eastern Woodland Indians sometimes hung gourds on poles in their fields to serve as homes for insect-eating birds.
MILPA TODAY
Today milpa is still practiced in Mesoamerica and in South America’s Amazon River Basin, but this is changing. Population growth and the pressure to make more money have forced Native farmers to shorten fallow (nongrowing) periods and sometimes abandon them. Big multinational businesses are urging indigenous farmers to clear huge tracts of land in order to raise cattle. Many scientists are concerned that this is disturbing the delicate ecological balance of the rain forest.
FOOT PLOWS
American Indian farmers made a foot plow from a wooden pole about six feet long with a two-inch diameter. They sharpened the end that was used to till the soil to a point. Then they heated the pole over a fire to harden it. Finally they attached a little platform for a footrest about 12 inches from the bottom of the plow. Farmers broke the soil for planting by stepping on the footrest.
THE THREE SISTERS
People of some tribes called corn, beans, and squash the three sisters. Not only did these three food plants help each other to grow when they were planted together, they provided excellent nutrition. Together the amino acids in corn and beans provide a complete protein, something neither food does on its own. The vitamins in squash, including beta-carotene and vitamin C, work together with those provided by the other sister vegetables.
By Emory Dean Keoke & Kay Marie Porterfield in "Food, Farming, and Hunting", Facts On File, Inc., New York, 2005, excerpts pp.48-53. Adapted and illustrated to be posted byu Leopoldo Costa.
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