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The Introduction and Spread of Maize in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Marvin P. Miracle
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Extract

Linguistic evidence strongly suggests that maize penetrated the interior of tropical Africa from the coastal regions, but the timing and mode of its introduction cannot be established. The commonly repeated assertion that the Portuguese brought maize to tropical Africa from the New World cannot be documented at this juncture, although they seem certainly to have had economic motives for doing so.

Maize was probably introduced to tropical Africa at more than one point and at different times. Maize was widely grown along the coast from the River Gambia to Sâo Tomé, around the mouth of the River Congo, and possibly in Ethiopia, in the sixteenth century. There is reference to it in all these places, in Zanzibar, and around the mouth of the River Ruvuma in the seventeenth century; and it was not only mentioned but described as an important foodstuff and a major provision for slave ships between Liberia and the Niger Delta during the same century.

Much less information is available for the interior, but it clearly seems to have been unknown in Uganda as late as 1861. Until well within the present century, it was neither a major export nor a mainstay of the diet in most of eastern and central tropical Africa, the bulk of the areas where it is now of major importance.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 1965 , pp. 39 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

1 The numbers in brackets refer to the works listed at the end of the article.

2 That is, assuming that Ramusio was responsible for the illustration. Mr Frank Willett speculates that it may have been added by an editor (71a, p. 3).

3 See 71a, pp. 1–13; 38a, pp. 115–31; and 50b, pp. 132–5, for discussion of the adequacy of evidence on the introduction of maize to Africa in pre-Columbian times.

4 The term milho zaburro is now used by the Portuguese to indicate sorghum or millet, but as late as 1873, Domingos Viera, in his Thesouro da Lingua Portugueza (67a), says that milho zaburro is a synonym for milho grosso (vol v, p. 1029), which he identifies as Zea mays (vol. xv, p. 241).

5 ‘Eentelijk groeit daer rijs, ook Turksche tarruw, Mays by d'Indianen genaemt, die de Portugesen allereerst uit Westmdien, daer het overvloedelijk wast, na het eilant Sinte Thomé, en van daer na de Gout-kuste tot hun nootdrust gebraght, en onder de zwarten verdeelt hebben: want den inwoonders was dit gewas voor de komste der Portugesen onbekent. Heden is het lant daer mede vervult en groeit daer overvloedelijk. Zy bakken daer broot van, met of zonder Mile daer onder tevrijven.’

6 Dapper lists maize as the most common grain in the vicinity of Cape Verde, but does not mention it between Cape Verde and Liberia (23, p. 231).

7 Another economic motive, introduction of maize to supply Portuguese sailors on ships engaged in the spice trade by the newly discovered route to the Orient, seems unlikely. It is probable that the Portuguese did not readily accept maize as a staple. Gerarde summarizes what was probably the consensus of European attitudes in 1597 with these words (quoted in 70, p. 45): … We may easily iude [sic] that it nourisheth but little, and is of hard and evil digestion, and a more convenient food for swine than men.’ One of the Portuguese writers of the same period, Duarte Lopez, noted in 1591 that maize was thevilest of grain and only fit for swine (55, p. 40). Moreover, descriptions of the diet of ships' crews and of garrison provisions of Mozambique for 1505–7 make no mention of maize (5, p. 732); and, as late as 1721, maize is described as a provision crews would use only in emergencies (43, p. 167). However, this concerns the use of maize flour or maize meal; we do not have evidence on when roasting ears, a popular but not staple use of maize, gained acceptance by Europeans. It could well be that maize was grown around provisioning stations at an early date as a vegetable to be used by shore personnel and by ships while they were in port.

8 Vi è il miglio bianco nominato Mazza di Congo, cioè grano di Congo & il Maiz che è il più vile de tutti che dassi a porci, & cosi anco il riso è in porco prezzo, & al Maiz diccono Mazza Manputo cioè grano di Portugallo, apollando essi Manputo Portugallo' (55, p. 40).

9 Andrew Battell says that at one juncture during his adventures in Angola (c. 1600) all he had to eat was ‘wheat’ which he roasted (8a, p. 319). This may refer to immature maize roasted on the cob.

10 Correspondence between Sir John Gray and A. C. A. Wright cited in 72, p. 64.

11 At another point (28a, p. 49), Viscount Grant states that Governor de la Bourdonnais had cassava brought from the island of Maderia.

12 ‘There are also the aloes, indigo, sugar canes, cotton, the anana, the banana, tobacco, the potato, the pumpkin, land and water melons, cucumbers, and an hundred and other plants, fruits, and roots, which grow everywhere, and without cultivation, even on the mountains. Turkey corn, or maize, millet, rice, wheat, barley, and oats, are also experimentally known to flourish there; and a twofold harvest of these grains may be annually gathered. All the plants and herbs of our European gardens have been cultivated there with great success’ (28a, p. 154).

13 See 68, pp. 37, 91, 189, and 249; 45, pp. 111, 278, and 498; 19, p. 474; 26, P. 136; 60, pp. 583, 227, 269, and 313; 42, pp. 113, 187, 189, 221, and 223; and 21, p. 257.

14 I am indebted to Dr Cyril Ehrlich, then of Makerere College, for use of a copy he made of this letter.

15 Patterson's parenthetical qualification.

16 See 20, p. 33; 31, pp. 18 and 19; 35; 12, pp. 38 and 39; 34, p. 4 and 30, pp. 16–17 27, 37, and 72.