The First Agriculturalist in Tennnessee
by Lindsey King, Ph.D., Western Kentucky University
Plant knowledge has played a very important role in Cherokee healing traditions. Historically, natural plant and herbal remedies were commonly practiced among Cherokee families and medicine men; many of these are still in use. Wild plants and vines that contributed food, medicine, and vegetable dyes to the Cherokee include bloodroot, hepatica, wild strawberries, mayapple, angelica, wild potato, pokeweed, sumac berries, huckleberries, blackberries, and raspberries, many of which grew in the cleared old fields near villages.
Cherokee and other Native Americans have cultivated soil and encouraged the growth of certain plants as early as the late Archaic Period (3,000–900 BCE). Until British colonial settlement, however, there is no conclusive documentation in the historical record of Cherokee agricultural practices in the late seventeenth century other than mention in a journal kept by an early Spanish explorer, that corn (maize), beans, and squash were under cultivation by the Cherokee when contact was made by Hernando DeSoto in 1540. Later, from the records of the British, it can be verified that the Cherokee subsistence pattern was one of intensive maize, bean, and squash horticulture that was supplemented by hunting and gathering.
The Cherokee actively modified their environment by clearing woodlands for villages and cultivated fields. Their main agricultural practice could be called "slash and burn" or swidden agriculture in which land is cleared by the felling of larger trees and the intentional burning of lower shrubs and grasses. New fields would be cultivated with simple technology such as a digging stick. These fields would be used until the soils became depleted and then would be allowed to lie fallow, and new fields would be cleared. The Cherokee would take advantage of the natural vegetation that would appear as first growth in these fallowing fields such as persimmon, red cedar, red mulberry, and sassafras. Women gathered the wild fruits of the persimmon and mulberry, making a type of bread from the flour from dried persimmons. The mulberry, in addition to having edible fruit, has a very pliant bark. From this bark Cherokee women wove floor mats and wall coverings as well as an apron-like garment. The growth of nut and fruit-bearing trees near their settlements was encouraged by the Cherokee women. Hickory nuts were gathered and the nutmeats were removed to be mixed with water into a nourishing beverage of hickory milk (ganu gwala sti). Walnuts also played a major role in the diet of the Cherokee. Their meats were eaten whole, pounded to extract their oil, or made into a "milk" beverage. The bark and roots of the walnut tree had medicinal properties and were used to treat toothaches and act as an antiseptic. The roots and hulls of the nuts are also used in the making of a rich dark brown or black dye for staining basket making materials. Nuts and acorns from the abundant chestnut trees and oaks were gathered to be stored as staples for winter, to eat whole, or to be made into bread.
Gardens and their produce belonged to women and they tended household gardens near their homes, but the entire community, women and men, also participated in communal gardening in the cleared fields further from the settlements.
In the household gardens were grown a smaller variety of corn, native American species of beans, and squash. In the community gardens were planted other varieties of corn, beans, and other staples. To plant corn, women would dig small holes about two inches apart, place in each hole seven kernels of corn, and then cover the hole with a small hill of dirt. The rows of corn were about three feet apart with other plants such as pumpkins, beans, and sunflowers growing in between. Cherokee women planted wisely, pairing nitrogen-depleting corn with nitrogen-fixing plants such as beans. In addition, by planting climbing plants like beans with corn, the beans could be supported by the tall stalks of corn.
By the late 1700s Cherokee women had incorporated several introduced foods that were most compatible with their traditional crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, sunflowers and squash into their gardens. Watermelon, an African plant, had been adopted by the Spanish and was brought to the Southeast in the 1500s. These melons became an important supplement to the Cherokee diet. In a similar fashion, peach trees were also introduced to the region by the Spanish. Peaches (khwa na) were pounded and mixed with flour to make bread, cooked and dried for winter storage, or used to flavor soups and beverages.
By the 1820s, due to the influence of white culture, many Cherokee had abandoned their traditional towns and were living as nuclear families in log cabins similar to those of their white neighbors. Men tended their own farms while their wives tended to domestic chores. Even though the land was still owned communally, the Cherokee practiced, not unlike their white counterparts, a type of subsistence agriculture supplemented by small-scale woods ranching of hogs and cattle, by hunting and gathering, fishing. These farms usually ranged in size from two to ten acres and were arranged in kin-based groups along the stream and river valleys. Through the gradual encroachment of the European culture of the white farmers, many Cherokee intermarried and assimilated into the dominant culture of the whites. By the time of removal there was a small economic middle class of Cherokee in southwestern North Carolina who participated in commercial agriculture and other economic ventures.
Plant knowledge has played a very important role in Cherokee healing traditions. Historically, natural plant and herbal remedies were commonly practiced among Cherokee families and medicine men; many of these are still in use.
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