Main Points

The economies of Native Americans before contact with Europeans depended and harmonized with the special conditions of their local habitats
Some Native American societies, notably in Central America--for example the Aztecs of Mexico--and in South America--for example the Inca of Peru--had economies based on large-scale agriculture which permitted high population densities
Some Native American societies, notably the Inuit of the Arctic, relied almost completely on fishing and hunting
Other Native American societies, notably the different tribes of Eastern Woodland Indians, for example the Wampanoags of Virginia, had economies based on a mixture of hunting, fishing, gathering--and planting crops
In general we can describe Native economies as being sustainable and diversified : they enabled Native societies to exist securely over long periods of time (barring extraordinary catastrophes), and not coincidentally, the variety of food types and sources was significant

Prologue

A number of years ago, a 'fellow' faculty member somewhat mockingly remarked about how much time I spent explaining to my history class the importance of fishing, and cod in particular, to New England.

Evidently he felt, as many 'normal' historians do, that it's more important to focus on a handful of powerful historical figures--you know, the Washingtons, the Hamiltons, the Lincolns.

But I look at history, or even the present, a little differently. I don't think that the world, or society, revolve or depend on a tiny handful of wealthy politicians or businessmen. I think history is made, actually, by legions of mostly anonymous women and men, farmers, workers, small business owners, and yes, even fishermen, people whose names are forgotten, people to whom no statue was ever dedicated, in whose name no city will ever be built.

But these are the people who built the Pyramids, who built the dams and dykes that held back the waters, who cut down the forests and built the fields, who built the Great Wall, who felled the trees whose wood was used to build the ships that crossed the oceans. And all the mothers who birthed those women and men--without them, there would be no ECONOMY, and therefore, no history, no civilization--and no Washington, and no Hamilton.

In my view therefore Economics precede Politics, the question of who or how a society is controlled comes after there is economic activity, i.e., the activity of individuals, households, and other groups to produce and build.

To use another metaphor, the questions of who might be steering the wheel of an automobile, or in what particular direction, don't matter if that automobile hasn't been built, and isn't moving.

Native American Agriculture

Main points: in the preceding sections on animals and on technology the main point I've tried to make is that despite being almost completely isolated from the rest of the world, the American peoples attained impressive cultural achievements, in fields as various as mathematics, architecture, or medicine.

The main points I want to make about Native American agriculture are:

agriculture: the most important invention ever, the systematic domestication and production of plants, was developed in the Americas as early or perhaps even earlier than other cultures
the productivity of agriculture in ancient Mexico was very high, and higher than the productivity of many other cultures usually considered 'more advanced'
Ancient Mexican agriculture was highly sustainable through the use of Milpas and Chinampas and can provide useful ideas for more environmentally sound farming in our own time
Two problems the agriculture of ancient Mexico faced were a shortage of protein-rich foods and, much more serious, periodic droughts which could cause deadly famines
While the societies of Ancient Mexico and Peru featured large-scale agriculture, many other Native American societies were made up of hunter-gatherers
It's a biased, subjective viewpoint to automatically consider hunter gatherer peoples as inferior or primitive compared to peoples living in agriculture-based societies. Native American hunter-gatherers living in rich ecosystems like the Northeast US were not only well-fed and healthier, they probably had to work much less than people in agriculture based societies

A map of North and South America showing the hypothetical areas where agriculture was first developed, one located where Peru is, the other located where Mexico, with arrows radiating north and south from these two locations, indicating the direction and sequence of the spread of agriculture

The map above gives a general theoretical idea of the areas where historians and archeologists believe agriculture was first, and independently, developed in the Americas, and how it later spread to other regions.

Another map, this one showing only North and Central America, with colored areas indicating zones with agriculture; there are three areas, one located in Mexico, another in what is today parts of the Southwestern US states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, and another zone including most of what is today the Eastern US, stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi

Large-Scale Agriculture

The most important invention humans ever developed was agriculture--learning how to plant, care for, and harvest crops. This breakthrough is often called the 'Neolithic Revolution', a profound change in the way some people on the planet lived, and which marked a time called the 'New Stone Age' (neolithic).

It's important to note that not all people on the planet made this change at the same time: indeed, there are people that even today have not made the switch to agriculture, and who are still living in their own stone-age, surviving through hunting and gathering.

Why did some peoples NOT switch to farming? Because they did not have to, they lived, or live, in areas where the environment allows them sufficient resources to survive without farming.

History seems to show that the Neolithic Revolution, the change to farming, began with people that were FORCED to find new ways to survive because of climate change, drought specifically.

True enough, a large-scale agriculture economy can feed more people than a hunter-gatherer economy, but such an economy entails major risks because it depends on adequate water for the crops, and the health of the crops themselves. Either inclement weather or diseases affecting the crops can be catastrophic.

The history of the Central American farming societies is continually marked by episodes of terrible drought. Sometimes the periods of dry weather were so long that civilizations were dispersed (like the Maya) or even entirely destroyed, for example the 'Mound Builders' of Cahokia.

natural maize

Estimated yield: 1 hectare (2.5 acres) can feed 20 people; Ancient Greece or Rome: 1 hectare feeds 1 person; in other words, the ‘stupid’ stone-age Mexicans are 20 times more productive than the ‘brilliant’ Greeks

An effective method of agriculture developed by the American Natives, was a system of growing several different plants in the same place, at the same time: it is sometimes referred to as the 'Three Sisters':

drawing of the Native American 3 sisters method of efficiently growing corn, beans, and squash in the same place at the same time

farming terraces

The people of South America living under the control of the Inca Empire also showed considerable ingenuity in getting the most out of their agriculture, including the use of ‘terraces’ which they called Adenes

Hunter-Gatherer Societies

a drawing by French artist Jacques Lemoyne in the 1500s, showing a Native American village and its garden, with a highly organized layout with maize and other vegetables

The drawing above is a useful and unique source of information. But we must be cautious in relying on it. Cameras or smartphones obviously didn't exist in 1562, so this was drawn by hand. In addition, the artist, Jacques LeMoyne had to go through terrible adventures to get back from Europe and he apparently lost the original drawings during his ordeal, which means that the drawing you're looking at was re-drawn from memory first, and then it was turned into an engraving, by the publisher, DeBry.

Therefore, can we rely on this drawing as an accurate representation of what a Native American village looked like, and how their farms were set up?

How good of a memory did LeMoyne have? How good of an artist was he? Did DeBry subsequently add/subtract or exaggerate the drawing when the book was prepared for publication? These are important questions we must keep in mind.

The advantages of the supposedly 'primitive' hunter-gatherer economy:

It is a common misconception to consider agricultural societies superior to hunter-gatherer societies, but this is incorrect, because not only is this an 'apples to oranges' comparison, it lumps all hunter-gatherer societies together
hunter-gatherers living in naturally rich ecosystems may only have to 'work' a few hours a day, hunting, fishing, and foraging--compared to people in many pre-modern agricultural societies who faced almost continuous back-breaking labor all year around tending their fields, building, maintaining irrigation channels, fences, and waging war on weeds, insects, and other pests
the varied diets of many hunter-gatherers was nutritionally superior to the mostly monotonous grain-based diets of farmers
studying the skeletons of genetically related Neolithic human groups in the Near East, some living in early farming villages and others still living as hunter-gatherers, two general conclusions emerged: first, the hunter-gatherers were bigger, and second, they lived longer