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R Douglas Hurt, Native Foods: Agriculture, Indigeneity, and Settler Colonialism in American History, Journal of American History, Volume 111, Issue 2, September 2024, Pages 336–337, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaae104
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Scholars have given considerable attention to the removal of Native Americans. Less has been written about Native American foodways. Michael D. Wise links Native agriculture and food to show how white concepts of landholding systematically led to the erasure of tribal domain and food production. Historically, whites have considered agriculture a gift to Native Americans, an idea that Wise addresses by emphasizing four myths: most Native communities did not practice agriculture; most lived by hunting; most usually went hungry; and most did not care about the flavor or taste of food. Wise refutes these myths in five chapters that emphasize Native American agriculture and food in colonial New England and among the Iroquois, Cherokee, and Blackfeet as well as regarding twenty-first-century food activism. This is neither a comprehensive history of Native American agriculture nor an overview of Native American foodways. Wise's purpose is to encourage further study of Native American foodways and sovereignty.
