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Quotations
| "Anno: 1621 [April] Afterwards they (as many as were
able) began to plant their corn, in which service Squanto stood them in
great stead, showing them both the manner how to set it, and after how
to dress & tend it. Also he told them except they got fish & set
with it (in these old grounds) it would come to nothing. . . . Some English
seed they sew, as wheat & peas, but it came not to good, either by
the badness of the seed or lateness of the season, or both, or some other
defect." William Bradford, Of Plimoth Plantation |
| "An other work [of Indian women] is their planting
of corn, wherein they exceed our English husband-men, keeping it so clear
with their Clam shell hoes, as if it were a garden rather than a corn-field,
not suffering a choking weed to advance his audacious head above their
infant corn or an undermining worm to spoil his spurns. Their corn being
ripe, they gather it, and drying it hard in the Sun, convey it to their
barns, which be great holes digged in the ground. . . . But our hogs having
found a way to unhinge their barn doors, and rob their garners, they are
glad to implore their husbands' help to roll the bodies of trees over their
holes. . . . " William Wood, New England's Prospect, 1634. |
| "We must explain the stunning, even awesome success
of European agriculture, that is, the European way of manipulating the
environment. . . . Let us examine four categories of organisms deeply involved
in European expansion: (1) human beings; (2) animals closely associated
with human beings-both the desirable animals like horses and cattle and
undesirable varmints like rats and mice; (3) pathogens or microorganisms
that cause disease in humans; and (4) weeds. Alfred W. Crosby, "Ecological
Imperialism," The Texas Quarterly (1967). |
| "Much of human history has consisted
of unequal conflicts between the haves and have nots, between peoples with
farmer power and those without it, or between those who acquired it at
different times." (p. 93) . . . "After 900 A.D. the Mexican crop trinity
(corn, beans, and squash) triggered a population boom, but that boom came
much too late to prepare Native Americans for the impending disaster of
European colonization." (p. 152) Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel:
The Fates of Human Societies. (1998) |
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