Corn - From wild grass to modern corn cultivation
It was first domesticated by native peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago and its culture spread as far north as southern Maine.

It was introduced into Europe by Christopher Columbus

By the time of European settlement of North America, Native Americans had already taught European colonists to grow the indigenous grains

It is the most important crop in the United States and is a staple food in many places.

In other words, it's not just corn flakes - it's also the corn deer feed on and e meat you eat.

Even more important than corn, over 50 million indigenous people died off, mostly from diseases, which made it much easier for the Europeans to take over the land that became the Americas. So many died that it cut the amount of carbon in the air in half and caused global cooling which shows a major world pandemic just may correct climate change someday.

'Land', entire continents.
As of course History cannot be rewritten, and compensated for; I was looking to improve my understanding of it. In my perspective, the Times of Columbus was also the period sea routes to India and the East were found and the ultimate colonization of Asians. A totally different set of factors, rules, etc. compared to the Americas.

I see this form of probing history on the Net. For example:

The Real Reason the South Seceded by Donald Livingston
Abbeville Institute
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S96iQYL0bw

Point is, most of us, including I; can hardly see through the cloud of tragedies.

In the case of native Americans, they are described as hunter-gatherer tribes.



My point is, if Mesquakie tribes were growing corn and veggies, then the 'tribes' perspective changes to 'society'.

This theory could be agreed upon if the M natives had also learnt to extract corn oil which seems to be purely an American invention.
--

Finally, with ethanol made from corn !!!

We sure owe the Native Americans so very much and beyond more then we can ever repay and even though we’re trying we still have a long way to go in doing so. God Bless all the tribes who helped us even though in our history we were not kind to them and make them out to be the bad guys when in truth we were. Let me be the first to say if any of my ancestors has done any harm in anyway to them I’m so very sorry for what they did.

But Madam Julia,
As said earlier, this thread is not on the transgressions in History. It's more of an exploration on the richness initiated from various races and cultures. That such richness / discoveries were extended to wealth generation by Americans to benefit themselves and the World - is a given de facto.

I'm sure that Native Americans in Mingle will appreciate your sentiment and I may even venture to say that most Americans particularly the young; carry a similar, special goodwill for them.

But your post forced me to check for more and if it's not rude for a waterfall to tell the mountain 'you are made of rock' here goes:



As far as rich contribution goes then it is

We must take the good with the bad as we are never going to change the past no matter how hard people try. First off you must be careful in praising Columbus as all the Native Americans, Blacks, Jews, and even many white people have come to hate him. He is somewhat over rated, but much of what happened due to him was not purposely done to do harm.
Native Americans, or Indigenous people, or Indians as the have been refered to for centuries which is really confusing trying to explain to an Indian form India. Any way they called them Indians because they thought they had found India while looking for trade routes mostly in search of spices, some worth more than their weight in gold. To talk about Indigenous people as a group is difficult because there are so many tribes involved and they all have variations. The Mayan, Inca, and Aztec of Mexico were the smartest and most advanced, most tribes were warriors but they would also trade so they had to decide when to fight and when to deal with others. There was even a tribe that was involved in cannibalism. When referring to them as hunters and gatherers, the gathering tied into their farming. They did not plow fields like Europeans, instead they hand planted each seed without turning all the land, this was very beneficial to the soil and their corn crops often out produced the wheat crops of Europe. They were very in touch with nature and it is said they thought about the next 7 generations for everything they did, something that should be thought about in other cultures. Columbus was not the first white person to "find America" and he wasn't the only one to establish America. Many Pilgrims came over because of restrictions on their religion in their home land and also to spread their religion to new people, so there we go again with religion having bad results. This coming Thursday we will celebrate "Thanksgiving" which is a fairy tale holiday where the myth goes the Pilgrims and Indians sat down together for a nice meal. Apparently there was a lot of turkey and everyone brought some food to share, and it was a very pleasant event. The thing is everything gets twisted thru time to glorify the story, we can read history all we want but to know what is fact and how much is fiction is always going to be a challenge. You can read three different books and you will come up with three different answers.

Sometime back I saw online where a Native American man found out that he’s the great grandson of famous chief Sitting Bull. Through DNA they still had a lock of Sitting Bulls hair and made the discovery not only that looking at Bulls picture compared to the grand son they even look the same.

Agreed Dust, quite pointlessness revisiting the Past.

Unless someone led us on to the path of tech: from corn --> ethanol and it's impact on fuel efficiency and climate change.

I could Google around for days but you already have big picture on similar matters.

Not sure it's "pointless" to learn from the past, but let's face the fact that tragedies have had a very big impact on our lives. Think of the advancements that happened during WWII that would have never happened if Hitler was not a nut case. Or how diseases have been delt with thru medicine to sewer systems and clean water. Beer was invented and used as a safe drinking alternative because something as simple as water can kill us just as easily as making us healthy.

The issue with ethanol is it is using valuable farm land and soil nutrients, often times they use natural gas to dry corn and large amounts of fuels to harvest and transport it. Ethanol is just alcohol so we have used it for fuel for over 150 years. Ethanol can be made out of any plant matter so there are millions of sources we could get it from, but it's a matter of how much energy you need to make it compared to how much you get in return. One positive outlook on ethanol is you can make plastics out of it that is biodegradable unlike plastics made from petroleum that last for thousands of years and are also taking a toll on marine habitat.

Another issue with corn and wheat is it has become a "mono crop". There are no longer variations in it's DNA so if something goes wrong we don't have alternatives to turn to. Wheat rust has always been a big issue, we have bread the wheat to be more resistant but that could also backfire. The "Great Depression" of 1929 was actually a result of wheat, prices were way up prior to that due to yield issues til 1929 when Europe had a bumper crop and prices crashed. Following that he "dirty 30's" people started farming in the mid south west of the US, there was a drought and having all the land plowed up actually affected the climate of that area. 90 years later farmers are finally starting to learn that turning your soil every year and tilling in old vegetation is far more harmful to soil then to just replant the field as it is, much like the Native Americans did 500 years ago.

Water power was an excellent power source for centuries and I can not figure out why more is not being done with it?, However we are now realizing some of the affects that can have on environments and habitats too. Something everyone should think about as the force wind and solar power on us without thinking of all the effects these things could have. Whale oil was once a big fuel until the whales became too hard to find, fossil fuels will also become more expensive to harvest, so what happens when we rob all our top soils of their nutrients and can no longer produce enough food?

The people struggle to improve the economy but the government spends money on wars.
The United States has spent more than $2 trillion on its military operations in 20 years in Afghanistan.
In addition to the cost of the war financed by the US borrowing, the borrowing interest is expected to reach $6.5 trillion by 2050.
The United States has provided more than $145 billion to implement reconstruction programs in Afghanistan and has spent $83 billion on training and equipment for Afghan security forces.
The United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) pledged to pay $4 billion annually by 2024 to help Afghanistan fund its forces.
In this period, 2352 US soldiers were killed, and more than 20,000 others were wounded.
According to the Washington Post, the events in the region since 2001 have killed 66,000 Afghan National Army and police personnel, 1,144 soldiers from NATO and other countries, 51,191 members of other groups led by the Taliban, 444 aid workers and more than 70 journalists.
And before that, similar losses in Vietnam.

Hello Lung,
Nice to hear from you and I agree ‘wars destroy economies’ but from what I read, times have changed. President Biden is continuing the policy of 'non- aggression' - open to business with China while asking China to free shipping through the South Seas by China.

I cannot imagine any major war with China over SS, because immediate stakeholders are Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and so on; whose economies could be devastated with just one of those big bombs. Come to think of it, Japan’s recovery is the greatest study and we have overlooked it.

Seems the Chinese fully understand that their growth is dependent on world market and now that Covid is down (they escaped) they look forward to a revised relationship on their terms with US.

I have no opinion on this except to say that the smaller nations cannot look out for themselves. So how will the new world order play out after 2030s, with China a great economy – I’ve no idea. Maybe someone should start a thread and we may catch a glimpse.

Hi Dust,
Thanks a lot for sharing this huge chunk from History
The section on energy starting from 'whale oil' and the disappearance of whales to the no-win potential of alternate energy sources - is a chilling read. My whole brain is now molasses.


By the way, not to detract from your post, we had Grapes of Wrath in final year school. Imagine us Indian teenagers reading, with no idea at all on this history and causes that led to the Depression. I'm not sure if our Lit. Teacher had any idea at all.

Hi all:
This site is full of very good surprises, gratitude for the posts about the contribution of indigenous people in North America to the economy, the rich culture, the preservation of the environment, the role of each female and male in the communities. How blessed are we in this site. I am grateful and have much to learn from so many people.
Good night and blessings,
Jeena

Of course Biden is buddy, buddy with China, he is learning how to make the United States even more socialist while moving the country closer to communism. He is currently trying to get a $2 trillion socialist package passed. From the cold war with Soviet union, war in Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam, if you can't beat them, join them. If you were to make a gauge with Communism....Socialism..... Capitalism The democrats keep pushing the needle farther to the left. The needle would never go all the way to the far right, you would have to pay to use the road in front of your house, the government couldn't exist unless it was privately owned. But on the other side if you went all the way left you would have North Korea. Some socialism is good like public education, good army, roads and infrastructure. But when the government wants to play Robinhood and take from the rich to give to the poor, hand out free money for no reason (besides maybe buy votes). To force people into buying "affordable health insurance" while price gouging is going on at so many levels. The government shouldn't have to break up Monopolies, the people have the right to boycott them and come up with better options. The government keeps spending more, and more money and taking more, and more control of the people. It's a slippery slope as we slide closer to the communism side of that scale. It's almost like we are looking to flip flop with China over the next couple of decades.

Things got a little off coarse but still some what relevant to the topics. On the subject of "lifted the US economy" I am inside the box looking out, you are on the outside looking in. I feel that different perspectives on a subject are good, but when looking at history you could have 2 outcomes for the same event. Often we get trapped in our box and people from the outside can easily see the problems and the solutions. People come to America for a number of reasons, "the land of opportunities" and "the land of the free". People who have the courage to leave their land often use that courage to start a new business or find a successful path. They see the "opportunities". However I see after a few generations the family loses this train of thought, they get lazy, that's how I see many Americans now, they are no longer great full for what they have and take it for granted. The the "free" part, some come for the free education, free food and housing, freeloaders is what they are. Sometimes we need to step out of the box and see what we are doing.

Clearly there is only space here to touch the surface of a subject, but those who are interested can read books, watch documentaries, or of coarse just Google it! I'm not going to pretend to know everything about these topics, just enough to get me in trouble.

One outlook I have on what has made America what it is. My kid probably isn't going to beat a kid from India at a spelling bee. My kid probably isn't going to beat a 6' tall black kid at basketball. But my kid can probably beat the Indian kid at basketball, and the black kid at a spelling bee. It's almost like rock, paper, scissor. At this point many will be shaking their heads at this point calling this a racist stereotype, but I say do what you are good at and pay somebody to do those things you are not good at. There is a reason these things became stereotypes in the first place. America is a melting pot of all these people, and things, working together, and as I was pointing out many took the "opportunity" to make something out of their talents, or learn new talents from others. That was what America was about at one time, maybe we can get back to those standards soon?

That you took time off to explain
For that, alongside Jeena's message, I add my thanks

W/o these conversations, the mind floats like a kite with string cut

'Kati patang', they say in Hindi

Cutoff Kite, haha