by danbrickman | February 7th, 2012
The indigenous farmers/pasturalists of both the Old and New Worlds have provided local ecological knowledge to invading imperialists, colonizers and traders respectively. The methods by which the European invaders extracted this knowledge and the extent to which native expertise was sought does shed light on the focus and biases contained in the exchange literature. Depending upon the author and source, the role the indigenous agriculturalists played in the development or inhibition of European purposes is highly variable and sometimes contradictory. Take for instance the tale of the Canadian Cree women from Environment and Empire. Essentially “pimped out” to British fur traders, who were stranded hundreds of miles from their base, these women provided creature comforts on behalf of the well being of the entire community. The authors treat them as victims of circumstance, pawns in a much larger game of European expansionism and tribal survival. On the other hand, Judith Carney’s and Richard Rosomoff ‘s work In The Shadow of Slavery, paints a different picture other than the typical “native as victim” narrative. Here, the African is a self-sufficient agriculturalist, whose ability to feed oneself is on par with those who wish to enlave him. Ironically, the European slaver depended upon indigenous knowledge and local African foods in order to supply their trans-Atlantic vessels. Upon arrival in the New World, enslaved Africans became courageous and resourceful survivalist, utilizing the seeds and methods from their native lands in order to add a traditional faire to their subsistence on plantations or to nearly fully sustain the maroon communities that were forming throughout remote areas of the New World rainforest regions.