Prehistoric agriculture on the Great Plains - Assignment Example

The Agriculture of the Culture American Indian Grade (April 2, The agriculture of the culture AmericanIndianThe American Indian culture represents the indigenous American culture that was historically based on agriculture as its sole economic activity. Contrary to the rest of the cultures such as the African-American culture or the Anglo-American culture that developed in America as a result of the immigration of these groups into the USA, the Indian American people were the traditional inhabitants of the USA territory.

It is estimated that the agricultural culture of the American Indian dates back to 7,000 years ago, when the Native American people started farming at around the area which is present day Illinois (Agriculture American Indian, 2003). The goosefoot, sump weed and sunflowers were the first crops to be domesticated and cultivated by the Native American Indians, most especially along the Mississippi River (Agriculture American Indian, 2003). The development of agriculture advanced with the invention of further agricultural methods such as irrigation, which allowed the American Indians to produce food crops constantly, resulting in the beginning of the cultivation of corn starting 3400 A.D. Thus, by 1000 A.D., the Native American Indians had already narrowed down their crop cultivation to three major food crops namely the corn, squash and beans (Nabhan, 1989).

By the time of the European contact, the Native Indian Americans were already producing food at a large scale, capable of keeping their community throughout the year without shortages. The food crop production methods of the American Indian did not entail fertilizing the land using organic matter. On the contrary, they maintained soil fertility through planting their crops as a mixture of corn, beans and squash within the same piece of land, allowing the crops to re-fertilize the land though nitrogen fixation.

The custom of the Native Indian Americans was to abandon the exhausted land once it proved to start becoming less productive, and in turn cleared other new lands (Hurt, 1987). Further development and civilization saw the development of village sovereignty, which claimed certain territories of land as their own, and then tilled the land to provide for the village community. The family lineage system was also recognized as the basis of land ownership among the village residents, where the family heads could be allocated specific pieces land for their own agricultural production (Agriculture American Indian, 2003).

However, following the European contact and the subsequent settlement of the Europeans in North America, different Native American Indians tribes such as the Cherokee started adapting the Anglo-American agricultural culture, which consisted of cattle rearing (Nabhan, 1989). Nevertheless, the European settlement would cause a disruption of the agricultural culture of the Indian Americans, considering that the whites started confiscating land from the Indian Americans at around the 18th century.

The disruption of the agricultural culture of the Indian Americans would further occur at around 1830s, when the USA government adapted policies for starting teaching the Natives on the English agricultural methods (Agriculture American Indian, 2003). This was resisted by the American Indians, owing to the fact that it altered their culture by requiring the males to learn farming, yet in the traditional Native Indian culture only the females were involved in land farming (Agriculture American Indian, 2003).

Further disruption of the Indian American agriculture culture would come in 1887, when Dawes General Allotment Act was enacted, requiring that land be allotted to individuals, as opposed to the prior community ownership (Hurt, 1987). This opened up the Indian American land to white settlement. Thus, the agriculture culture of the Indian was effectively replaced by the Anglo-American agricultural culture, which is rampant in the modern day USA. ReferencesAgriculture American Indian. (2003). Dictionary of American History.

Retrieved April 07, 2015 from: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401800063.htmlHurt, R. (1987). Indian Agriculture in America: Prehistory to the Present. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Nabhan, G. (1989). Enduring Seeds: Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant Cultivation. San Francisco: North Point Press.