Corn

Corn was the basis for most of North and South America’s advanced civilizations before European contact, and it immediately spread to Eurasia and Africa thereafter.

The species known to scientists as Zea mays has gone by many names. Corn in Old English meant generally a small particle or grain, but in particular the seeds of domesticated annuals such as wheat and by extension the whole plant. The members of CHRISTOPHER CoLUMBUS’s first voyage who discovered this new kind of corn recorded its name as mahiz, and maize in some form has always been its clearest name. The British took to calling it Indian corn, as opposed to British corn. Confusion over corn’s origins led to further names; for centuries Europeans referred to it as Turkish wheat.

Corn is native to the Americas. Like all cereals it is a grass, although almost unrecognizable as such after many centuries of domestication. There was and is no wild corn, only scattered tame escapees. American Indians changed corn by artificial selection, setting aside the most desirable ears for later planting. Sometimes they made hybrids by planting different varieties near each other, but usually they sought inbreeding. Single families sometimes even maintained their own pure strains of corn. By 1492 Indians had developed thousands of varieties in all the main types we recognize today, including flour corn, sweet corn, and popcorn. European Americans did not consciously try to improve corn until the late 1700s.

Corn was entirely reliant on people for reproduction. It was planted across most of North and South America

The oldest printed picture of an ear of maize. Woodcut from Oviedo's Historia natural, Seville, 1535 (The Granger Collection)

Except in present-day Canada and the thousand-mile tip of South America. It was densest from present-day PERU to central Mexico. The central grasslands of the modern-day United States, later famous for corn, were then a tough barrier of thick native sod, with only the riverbanks worth planting. American Indians had no hard metal tools or draft animals, so they planted corn by hand in untilled ground. Usually they prepared a field by killing the trees, hoeing the other vegetation, and forming small mounds about a yard apart. Fields resembled dot grids rather than rows. A planter poked a hole with a stick, counted a few seeds into the hole, and covered the seeds by foot to protect them from animals. Beans, squash, and potatoes were commonly planted between the mounds. Corn could be harvested very green or long-dead and dry because the husks protected the seeds. Some Indians maintained fields continuously through irrigation, terracing, and fertilizing, while others abandoned fields to forest and returned years later to reclear them once they had recovered.

Most Indians were almost as reliant on corn as it was on them. They worried and prayed over when and where to plant it, how to protect it from rats, birds, thieves, and wind, and how to store their harvested wealth. Native Americans ate corn parched, boiled, and roasted or ground into flour and baked into cakes. Sometimes the stalks of giant varieties were even used as building material. Corn played a religious role for many American peoples, varying in content but often deep in import, associated with blood, fertility, motherhood, and deities.

Corn amazed Europeans. Columbus returned with descriptions of it, and by at least his second voyage with samples of it that were propagated rapidly across Europe, first as curiosities but soon as agricultural goods. It spread from there along trading routes to northern and subSaharan Africa and by 1516 via Portuguese sailors to Asia. Giovanni Battista Ramusio included a picture of corn in his Navigationi e Viaggi, published in Venice in the mid-16th century, an image so durable that it was still being reprinted hundreds of years later. Corn’s adaptability made it only a minor trade good but got it adopted as a “native” of many countries (hence “Turkish wheat”), so much so that many would later claim credit for its origin.

Further reading: Betty Fussell, The Story of Corn (New York: Knopf, 1992); R. Douglas Hurt, Indian Agriculture in America: Prehistory to the Present (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987); Paul Weatherwax, Indian Corn in Old America (New York: Macmillan, 1954).

—Robb Campbell

Coronado, Francisco (1510-1554) conquistador, colonial governor

In 1540 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led a large, unsuccessful expedition into the American Southwest in the hopes of finding cities of GOLD.

In the 16th century Spanish CONQUiSTADORes had found vast treasures of gold and SILVER in Mexico and Peru. Later explorers hoped to find similar riches in northern Mexico and in the area that is now the southwestern United States. Rumors of fabulous cities in the Southwest began to spread when Alvar Nunez Cabeza DE Vaca and three companions returned from their eight-year sojourn among the Indians of Texas and New Mexico. Cabeza de Vaca had not found wealth in his travels, but he reported that he had heard stories of prosperous towns farther north. In 1539 a preliminary expedition set out under Fray Marcos de Niza. It was guided by one of Cabeza de Vaca’s companions, the slave Estevanico. Estevanico traveled ahead of the main party, erecting crosses at various sites to indicate that he had found riches. At Hawikuh, a ZUNI pueblo, Estevanico demanded turquoise and women.

The Zunis, angry and suspecting that he was a spy, killed him. Fray Marcos de Niza, hearing of Estevanico’s death, did not approach the pueblo. Viewing it from a distance, he reported that it was a rich city and even larger than Mexico City. He returned to Nueva Galicia and reported that he had seen Cibola, the smallest of the legendary Seven Cities of Gold.

Upon Fray Marcos’s return Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza appointed Coronado to lead an expedition back to Cibola. In the spring of 1540, Coronado headed north leading an expedition that included 336 Spanish soldiers, hundreds of Indian allies, and six FRANCISCANS. Some of the men brought their wives, children, and slaves with them. To transport and feed this army, Coronado brought herds of horses, mules, cattle, and sheep.

In July 1540 Coronado reached Hawikuh. The small pueblo of stone and brick did not fulfill the Spaniards’ dreams of wealth, and Coronado had to prevent his disappointed men from attacking Fray Marcos de Niza, whose story was now revealed as false. Coronado sent the friar back to Mexico City (see Tenochtitlan) and reported “He has not told the truth in a single thing that he said, but everything is the opposite of what he related, except the name of the cities and the large stone houses.”

The Zuni of Hawikuh did not welcome the Spanish invaders. Zuni men laid down lines of sacred cornmeal at the entrance to their pueblo to indicate to the Spanish that they were not welcome. The Spanish, for their part, read the Requerimiento to the Zunis, declaring that the Indians must submit to the Pope and the Spanish Crown or face conquest by the Spanish. The Zuni attacked, but the battle ended quickly and the Spanish overran the pueblo. Despite this poor start, relations between Coronado’s expedition and the Indians temporarily improved. Coronado visited other Zuni pueblos and met their leaders, who presented him with turquoise, deer and buffalo skins, and yucca fiber blankets. Two leaders from Pecos pueblo, whom the Spanish called Cacique and Bigotes, allied themselves with the Spanish.

Coronado still hoped to find rich cities. He sent Pedro de Tovar northward, into the Hopi villages. Tovar and the Hopi fought, and the Hopi surrendered. They told Tovar that a great river (the Colorado) existed farther west. Coronado sent approximately 25 men under the command of Garcia Lopez de Cardenas to find the river. He hoped that they would meet up with Hernando de Alarcon, who had sailed from Mexico with supplies for the expedition. Cardenas found the Grand Canyon but could not find a way down to the Colorado and so did not meet up with Alarcon.

Winter was approaching, and without the supplies carried by Alarcon, the Spanish faced a difficult time. The Pecos leaders, Cacique and Bigotes, told Coronado that there were vast herds of cattle in the east, and Coronado sent another expedition, this one headed by Hernando de Alvarado, to explore farther east. Alvarado and Bigotes were welcomed by the men of 12 pueblos north of present-day Albuquerque. The Spanish named the area Tiguex, and because the area seemed richer than Zuni, Alvarado suggested that the entire expedition spend the winter there. The Spanish also visited Taos and Pecos pueblos.

Because Alvarado wanted to explore the plains, Bigotes lent him two slaves from eastern tribes, a boy named Ysopete, who came from Quivira, and a man whom the Spanish called “the Turk.” The Turk assured the Spanish that the land of Quivira held fabulous riches and claimed that Bigotes had a golden bracelet from Quivira. Alvarado decided to return to Pecos and ask Bigotes about the bracelet. Both Bigotes and Cacique denied having any such bracelet, whereupon Alvarado seized them and took them back to meet Coronado. According to the historian Elizabeth John, this “shocking violation of hospitality brought the Pecos warriors out fighting” and sowed “hostility and distrust where there had been valuable friendship.”

The Spaniards’ relations with the Indians continued to deteriorate. When Alvarado reached Tiguex he found Coronado planning to spend the winter there. The presence of the Spanish and their Mexican Indian allies placed great strain on the resources of the pueblos. The Spanish made the Indians vacate an entire pueblo so that they could move in and also imposed levies of food and clothing on each of the twelve pueblos of Tiguex. Tensions between the Spanish and the Indians increased, and when some Indians killed Spanish HORSEs, Coronado struck back brutally. He destroyed the pueblo that he thought was leading the resistance and burned its survivors to death. The Spanish forced Bigotes, Cacique, Ysopete, and the Turk, in chains, to watch the destruction of the town and its people.

In the spring of 1541, Coronado and his men left Tiguex to cross the plains in search of Quivira. By the end of May, they believed that the Turk, who had told them so much about the wonders of the city, was a liar. Coronado sent most of his force back to Tiguex, while he and a group of about 30 Spaniards led by Ysopete continued on to Quivira. In July 1541 Ysopete led them to Quivira, but it, like Hawikuh, was a disappointment to the Spanish. Quivira was not a fabulous city of gold, but a Wichita Indian village. The Spanish killed the Turk and in mid-August turned around and headed back to Tiguex. The golden cities of Cibola and Quivira had proved imaginary, and the Spanish could think of no reason to stay. They spent another winter in Tiguex, again levying supplies from the Indians, and returned to Mexico in the spring of 1542.

Coronado never fully recovered from his travels. In the winter of 1541-42, before returning to Mexico, he had suffered a severe head injury in a fall from his horse. He had also lost much of his wife’s fortune, which he had invested in the expedition. Upon his return to Mexico, he was charged with misconduct in his behavior toward the Indians and spent several years in litigation. He was never convicted, although Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, his lieutenant, was convicted of offenses against the Indians and died in prison. Coronado died in Mexico City in 1554.

Further reading: Elizabeth A. H. John, Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confron-tation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1975); Edward H. Spicer, Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1962); David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992); Richard White, “It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).

—Martha K. Robinson