ClimMit tutfior enfri (7 rtif/ ft 1 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATION NO. 447 Washington, D. G. Issued January 1942 A BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE AGRICULTURE OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS Compiled by EVERETT E. EDWARDS and WAYNE D. RASMUSSEN Bureau of Agricultural Economics Historic, archived document Do not assume content reflects current scientific knowledge, policies, or practices UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATION No. 447 Washington, D. C. Issued January 1942 A BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE AGRICULTURE OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS Compiled by EVERETT E. EDWARDS and WAYNE D. RASMUSSEN Ml Bureau of Agricultural Economics UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1942 For sale by rhe Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. Price 15 cents CONTENTS Pag« Preface v Introduction 1 Comprehensive histories 7 Agriculture of the American Indians: Comprehensive references 14 Agriculture of particular regions and tribes 24 Specific crops and animals 45 Agriculture on Indian reservations in the United States 64 «=r Uncultivated plants used by the American Indians: Food and industrial plants 78 w Medicinal plants 89 1 Index 97 CO riU- W '£ PREFACE The scope of this bibliography is delineated in the table of contents. The section of comprehensive references on the pre- Columbian agriculture of the American Indian is of special interest to the general reader. The section on the centers of advanced agricultural development supplies references for the research worker who wishes to know about the methods used by the Indian in terrace farming, irrigation, conservation, and other evidences of progress beyond primitive cultivation. The section on the particular crops domesticated and raised by the Indian will, it is hoped, be helpful to the scientist in carrying on research incident to the history and improvement of these crops. The section on the agriculture of the reservations in the United States provides selected references on recent and present-day problems of irrigation, conservation, forestry, and land use. The sections on food and medicinal plants used by the Indian are of similar import for the scientist who seeks new sources of food and drugs. In view of the fact that the Indians constitute a large share of the populations of the New World countries other than the United States and Canada, the bibliography may also contribute to a better understanding of the culture of these countries and therefore to closer relations between North and South America. The bibliography is comprehensive insofar as practicable. It includes the references that appear in the publication entitled "Agriculture of the American Indians; A Classified List of Anno- tated Historical References with an Introduction" which was issued in mimeographed form as U. S. Department of Agricul- ture Library Ribliographical Contributions 23 (ed. 1, May 1932; ed. 2, June 1933). To insure completeness, the following indexes have been consulted: Agricultural Index, 1916-1939; Annual Magazine Subject Index, 1908-1938; Industrial Arts Index, 1914-1939; International Index to Periodicals, 1920-1939; Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, 1882-1906; Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, 1900-1939; Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature Supplement, 1907-1919; and Writings on American History, 1906-1935. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE AGRICULTURE OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS Compiled by Everett E. Edwakds and Wayne D. Rasmussen x Bureau of Agricultural Economics INTRODUCTION If the Western Hemisphere had. been unoccupied by an aboriginal people, the story of its conquest by Europeans would have been quite different. Although the American Indian was the cause of the red line of conflict on the frontier, he made many contributions to our 2 present civilization (48 ). Not the least of these were his agricultural plants, methods, and processes. It has been estimated that four- sevenths of the total agricultural production of the United States, measured in farm values, consists of economic plants that were domesticated by the Indian and taken over by the white man (10-1— 105). The extent of the debt to the Indian for his work of domesti- cation is emphasized when we recall that the white man has not reduced to cultivation a single important staple during the 400 years that he has dominated the New World. In taking possession of the continents of the Western Hemisphere, among the first lands utilized by the Europeans were the clearings made by the Indians for their crude farms (315, 317-318). The whites attempted to use their European crops and methods but found it necessary to adopt many of those in use among the Indians. Out of the union of American Indian and European farming came the first solution of the food-quest problem of the colonists and the beginnings of modern American agriculture. Herein lies the reason that, in any adequate study of the history of agriculture in the United States, the agriculture of the Indians cannot be ignored. Anthropologists tell us that the remote ancestors of the American Indian came from Asia some 10.000 or more years ago, while in the Neolithic stage of development. At that time they had no food supply in the form of domesticated plants and animals, nor did they know how to use metals. Their only implements were bows and arrows, stone axes, and knives. The same was true of the tribes that remained behind in the Eastern Hemisphere. Eventually, each group developed a stable food supply from the plants and animals at hand, entirely ignorant of the way the other was solving the same problem (23, 105, 109). In this connection H. J. Spinden's chron- ological and economic diagram of the parallelism between the de- velopment of the civilization of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres is of interest (104). 1 Anne C. Chew has aided throughout the preparation of this bibliography. a The numbers in parentheses refer to the corresponding items in the bibliography. 2 MISC. PUBLICATION 4 4 7, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE For a long time the descendants of these first immigrants to Amer- ica knew nothing of agriculture, but eventually tribes in the high- lands of Mexico and Central America began the practice of protecting the plants relied on as their main source of food. Then, perhaps considerably later, they began to weed and, in a crude way, to culti- vate them. Still later, they undertook systematic gathering of seeds and roots for planting in protected areas. This invention of agri- culture in the Western Hemisphere, which occurred thousands of years ago, made possible noteworthy advances in human culture. The flowering of the Mayan civilization—which began about 1000 B. C.—was based upon the economic conquest of the humid tropics. The Mayas not only modified the old series of plants to meet wet- land conditions but also domesticated indigenous plants. The cacao plant, representations of whose pods appear as details of several sculptures at Copan dating from the fifth century A. D., was tended, and chocolate was prepared from its seeds. Other plants were also brought under cultivation, among them the papaya, the anona, the avocado, and the zapote (198, 201, 205-206, 208) As a result of the gradual spread of the cultivation of maize, beans, and squashes to the north and south, agriculture came to be practiced in widely scattered parts of the Western Hemisphere. The process of distribution was slow, for gradual acclimating of the cultivated plants to localities farther and farther from their original tropical or subtropical homes required many centuries. To supplement these nonindigenous plants, however, local plants were brought under culti- vation in the several regions. In South America the most important indigenous plant was the potato, a native of the Andes (446). In the Amazon Valley, the manioc, the sweetpotato, the pineapple, and the peanut were developed as sources of food. For North America, above Mexico, the indigenous food plants similarly utilized were lim- ited to the Jerusalem artichoke and the strawberry. Had it not been for their natural abundance, it is probable that the blueberry, the cranberry, and wildrice would have been domesticated. Paramount among the food plants domesticated and developed by the Indian and given directly or indirectly to the white man is corn, or maize. The white potato was destined to become one of the world's greatest food staples, along with wheat, rice, and corn. Tobacco is one of the most important of our present-day cash crops. Other plants originally used by the Indian are agave, alligator pear or avocado, arrowroot, barnyard grass, the many varieties of kidney and lima beans, cacao, capsicum or chili pepper, cashew nuts, cherimoya, cocoa, cotton (Gossyrriunb harbadense L.), gourds of all kinds, guava, Jeru- salem artichoke, madia, manioc or cassava, mate or Paraguay tea, oca, papaya, peanut, pineapple, pricklypear or Indian fig, pumpkin, quinoa,s, squash, star-apple, sweetpotato, and tomato (23, 65). The adaptation of European methods to American conditions proved a problem of extreme difficulty. For several years after their foun- dation the first colonies faced starvation and survived only because of the supplies they received from the mother country and the food they bought or took from the Indians. The permanence of the colonies was assured only when they were established agriculturally, and this came after the crops and tillage methods of the natives had been adopted. Governor William Bradford told how Squanto came to the . BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE AGRICULTURE OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS 6 relief of the Pilgrim Fathers, "showing them both ye maner how to set it [corn] and after how to dress & tend it. Also he tolud them excepte they gott fish & set with it (in these old grounds) it would come to nothing." The entire "maize-culture complex"—to use a term of the anthropol- ogist and the sociologist—was taken over by the white man (402).