Why Did Native Americans Begin Farming?

Archaeological evidence suggests that rather than abruptly shifting from hunting and gathering to farming, Native Americans gradually incorporated food-growing into their lifestyle. The transition to food growing in eastern North America was not a revolution, but a nuanced evolution. And Native peoples across America became farmers at different times and in different ways in response to a diversity of needs, beliefs, and ecological conditions.

Apart from growing food, Native Americans actively “managed” the landscape by burning undergrowth and forest litter to make nut gathering easier and to facilitate hunting. Early historical accounts make mention of park-like forests: “Neare their habitations is little small wood or old trees on the ground by reason of their burning of them for fire. So that a man may gallop a horse amongst these woods any waie, but where the creekes or Rivers shall hinder. ” John Smith 1608. John Smith, A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Hapned in Virginia, (1608), in Lyon Gardiner Tyler, ed., Narratives of Early Virginia, 1606-1625 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907, p.101).

It was during the Transitional Archaic time period that Native Americans first became food growers by encouraging useful plants in and around their campsites. These acts formed the beginnings of a food production system which had far reaching effects on many aspects of culture – from the size of settlements, to mobility, to the health of individuals, to social and political relationships. Clear lines of evidence from the Midwestern United States document that at campsites located on alluvial floodplains weedy plants were tolerated, encouraged, and eventually propagated. These acts of husbandry ultimately formed a system of Native horticulture that was unique to the Eastern Woodlands of North America. Sunflower, sumpweed, cucurbit gourd, knotweed, chenopod, maygrass, and little barley were grown. Together, these crops are referred to as the Eastern Agricultural Complex. While wild relatives of all of these plants persist in nature, the cultivated types grown in prehistory are now mostly extinct.

The tropical cultigens corn (or maize), beans, and squash, which feature so prominently in early colonial accounts of the New World, were actually latecomers to the farm fields of the Eastern Woodlands. In the Midwest and on the Allegheny Plateau here in the East, maize was incorporated into the gardens of Indians who had a long history of growing the crops of the Eastern Agricultural complex. In these areas, we believe that maize first appeared in small quantities and at scattered locations after AD 200. For centuries maize was a minor crop in these areas. After AD 1100, farming economies focused on maize flourished, and beans, fleshy squashes, and pale-seeded amaranth also become archaeologically visible.

Here in Maryland and Virginia, very different patterns of prehistoric plant use are evident east and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. To the west, the Midwestern pattern prevails – there is evidence of pre-maize agriculture, and maize occurs at some Middle Woodland period sites. On the piedmont and coastal plain, however, the story is a bit different: there is no convincing evidence that pre-maize crops were ever an important part of the Native food system. In these areas, maize first occurred around A.D. 1100, and all early maize remains in the Chesapeake region have been found at archaeological sites thought to have ceremonial or political significance. This suggests that maize may have served an important symbolic or ritualistic role as well as being a food plant.

These differences in the timing and traditions associated with becoming farmers reflect the differences in the ecological settings and culture history of prehistoric Native Americans. One explanation for the differences in the adoption of maize (as a food) and sedentary farming (as a lifestyle) in the Chesapeake region is that the Bay and its many estuaries provided a food-rich “breadbasket.” A great variety of wild food resources were easily accessible via waterborne travel.

The first English visitors to the Americas described maize as “corne” (corn) – which was their word for wheat or other staple starchy grain.

The effects of prehistoric farming on Maryland’s environment are difficult to discern. We know from early colonial narrative accounts that the Chesapeake Indian peoples managed the forest understory for hunting and gathering, and cleared land for gardens. These activities would have increased soil erosion and modified the natural succession of plant species. The opening of arable land would also have created more forest edge – resulting in an increase in the diversity of plant and animal life. Hunting, fishing, and gathering activities would also have affected local biology. Growing populations living in larger, more concentrated communities certainly impacted Maryland’s landscape. But the toll of humans as ecological factors prior to the time of European contact remains incompletely understood.

Innovations in food production throughout the Woodland period were intertwined with cultural, political, and social changes. Horticulture enabled people to stay for longer periods of time in one place, which resulted in the development of more complex social and political relationships. We see the material expression of cultural identity and beliefs in Woodland period artifacts. These stylistic patterns reveal complex networks of communication and exchange throughout the Middle Atlantic region.

By the Late Woodland period there is evidence that populations had grown significantly, and that people lived in larger, year-round villages organized in complex political alliances called Chiefdoms. At this same time, archaeology reveals big changes in horticulture (with the adoption of maize agriculture), innovations in tool and weapon technologies, the creation of new pottery styles, and the practice of complex burial rituals.

Further Information:

Dent, Richard J.
1995   Chesapeake Prehistory. Old Traditions, New Directions. Plenum Press, New York.

Potter, Stephen R.
1993   Commoners, Tribute, and Chiefs: The Development of Algonquian Culture in the Potomac Valley. University
           Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.

Smith, Bruce D.
1992   Rivers of Change. Essays on Early Agriculture in Eastern North America. Smithsonian Institution Press,
           Washington D.C.