How Cassava Conquered The Americas

A military history of the South American maize

When Sir Walter Raleigh sacked the isle of Trinidad in the Spanish Caribbean during 1595, he took inventory of the edible plants and animals that future sailors would find there. Along with other flora and fauna, the island “hath also for bread sufficient maize, cassavi, and of those roots and fruits which are common everywhere in the West Indies.”¹ Exploring the mouth of the Orinoco, Raleigh recorded the local food prices. “They also trade in those rivers for bread of cassavi, of which they buy an hundred pound weight for a knife, and sell it at [Isla] Margarita for ten pesos.”

The Spanish had Panama, but their power along the northern coast of South America did not extend to the Orinoco. Raleigh published his pamphlet to promote his colonization scheme for what is now Venezuela and Guyana. Along with fabled cities of gold, he held out the prospect of profitable cash crops: sugar, tobacco, cotton, flax, pepper, and other species that were unfit for the English climate could be grown in the tropics, indeed the natives were already growing them and happy to trade for European goods. Some Native Americans were eager to form friendships, even alliances against their enemies.

Conquest was possible because nonperishable, nutritious foods were available in South America for sailors to eat on a river expedition or during the Atlantic journeys home. Cassava in particular had conquered the region in advance of the Europeans, making way for new actors by creating a food economy. Emulating Cortez, Englishmen could find plunder fortunes and seek cities of gold. By plantation, on the other hand, they could also create great fortunes more safely. Raleigh lost his head in the end, a victim of King James I’s politics, and El Dorado never existed. But the latter idea — settle, plant, and reap the rewards in London — survived him because there was food to eat upon crossing the ocean. Usually, it was cassava.

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