Africans- Not Benjamin Franklin- Brought Sorghum to the United States
R. Burgess, Portraits of doctors & scientists in the Wellcome Institute, London 1973, no. 1034.30 Full Bibliographic Record: http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1166317
Well, fellow weirdoes of Earth, I’ve decided to pursue our first white whale with a newfound spirit of will: Sorghum bicolor. But this time we will not haul the entire story of sorghum to our shores entirely alone (see: foreshadowing). We will release these articles as an asynchronous suite… a sorghum suite.
*the author winks at you
Today we will begin our journey by wagging a sword at one of the first dubious-sounding claims one may encounter when researching this popular staple food. Today we challenge a widely-believed fiction about sorghum in an article we will call:
Africans- Not Benjamin Franklin- Brought Sorghum to the United States
Let’s begin by reciting some prerquisite facts about Sorghum bicolor:
We are discussing a grain crop that is native to Africa.
It has a history of use in Africa going back thousands of years.
Colonial americans kidnapped, purchased, and enslaved African people.
This native African crop arrived in the Americas during the era of slavery.
Still, with the thinnest of threads blowing in the breeze, we tether the introduction of sorghum in the Americas… to Benjamin Franklin?
*Sniff sniff… what IS that awful smell?!
If this concept weren’t so weirdly persistent, I’d have gladly ignored it. However, as of this writing, the USDA, state governments, and university sources still assert this claim [5][6][7][14]. For example, here is a nifty coloring page for kids I downloaded today from the Kansas Department of Agriculture. Note my outstanding coloring skills:
[5] Accessed 16 Dec 2021: https://agriculture.ks.gov/docs/default-source/ag-marketing/sorghum-in-kansas-coloring-sheet.pdf?sfvrsn=4 16 Dec 2021
I’m not trying to singly take on the entire coloring book industry here, so let’s be fair and ask the question:
Did Benjamin Franklin Introduce African sorghum to the United States?
I’ll set aside the legend of Benjamin Franklin traveling to England in 1725 (as a 19-year-old), returning with a single sorghum seed nestled in a bed of cotton in a golden box, and planting that seed to singlehandedly introduce sorghum to the United States. Ben Franklin’s mythical “diary entry” detailing this story is rumored to be held deep in the vaults of somebody’s imagination.
It seems there are only two instances of Benjamin Franklin mentioning sorghum (known to him as whisk, whisk corn, or broom corn) in his correspondences. Mind you, it was Yale University and the American Philosophical Society who had identified Franklin’s “whisk” as Sorghum vulgare (a synonym of Sorghum bicolor) in the source annotations. The first correspondence is widely known and cited as the ultimate proof.
Benjamin Franklin Talking About Sorghum
A letter from Benjamin Franklin to Jane Mecom: His Youngest Sister
21 February 1757
I enclose you some whisk seed; it is a kind of corn, good for creatures; it must be planted in hills, like Indian corn. The tops make the best thatch in the world; and of the same are made the whisks you use for velvet. Pray try if it will grow with you. I brought it from Virginia.
Source Link: https://founders.archives.gov
From this correspondence, we learn that Benjamin Franklin obtained the seed in Virginia (this tidbit is sometimes omitted from the end). In this correspondence, Franklin tells us that sorghum was already growing in Virginia, and the seeds were most likely harvested during, at the very least, the 1756 growing season. We also learned that Mr. Franklin was aware of sorghum’s value as forage for livestock, thatching, and as a broom with applications in fabric arts. One would think, had he brought the grain to America, he would have said, “it is the plant I brought from England in a tiny golden box” instead of “I brought it from Virginia.”
We shall now move to Mr. Franklin’s lesser-known second mention of the broom corn about a month later.
A Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Samuel Ward: Minister of the Brattle Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts
24 March 1757
Dear Sir
I inclose you some of the Grain called Whisk Corn, or Broom Corn. It must be planted in Hills like Indian Corn, 3 or 4 Grains in a Hill. It looks like Indian Corn when growing, till the Top comes out, of which they make the Whisk Brushes for Velvet, and excellent Brooms. The Grain is good for Bread, and for Fowls, Horses, &c. being a kind of Millet, and of great Increase. The Stalks &c. make excellent Thatch. It grows 10 foot high, and I believe must have a little more room than you commonly give your Indian Corn; but plant it at the same time. When tis ripe, gather it; you may strip the Seed off by Hand, from the Whisk, or your Fowls will pick it off.
Source Link: https://franklinpapers.org/framedVolumes.jsp
From this correspondence, we hear Mr. Franklin describe this broom corn as “being a kind of millet.” Millets are plants of entirely different genera (Pennisetum, Setaria, Echinochloa, Urochloa, and Eleusine) [12]. While common names can never be used for forensic identification with 100% certainty, Franklin very-well-still could have been talking about Sorghum bicolor. Broom corn is a known colloquial term for a variety of sorghum used primarily for brooms [14]. I think it is most important to remember—for our purposes—that he obtained the seeds in Virginia.
Perhaps the most botanically-minded president of that era, Thomas Jefferson, knew something about sorghum?
What Did Other American Founders Say About Sorghum?
Moving ahead in time, we review the correspondences of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson about a then-little-known grain grown by the enslaved Africans of Jamaica known as Guinea corn. This particular name, “Guinea,” represents a greater than tacit acknowledgement that the crop was known to originate in western Africa, and was brought to this country on slave ships [15].
In a letter from James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Madison describes something that sounds much like sorghum as coming directly from enslaved Africans.
James Madison between 1829 and 1830 portrait by Chester Harding, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
James Madison to Thomas Jefferson
1 July 1791
…He sends a little of the true guinea corn from Jamaica where it forms a great proportion of the food of the Slaves. It grows on the top of the Stalk like broom Corn, and in a figure not unlike a bunch of Sumac berries. This the first time I have seen the grain, tho’ it may be familiar to you. The small-eared corn which I have seen in Virginia under the same name is a very different thing…
Source link: https://founders.archives.gov
Alright! This is the closest thing we have gotten, so far, to a botanical description. Madison’s description of “Guinea corn” as a “grain…in a figure not unlike a bunch of sumac berries” is a vividly poetic description of what we know today as sorghum.
I submit to you a side-by-side comparison of Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra), and a landrace of Sorghum bicolor for reference. Image 1 (Sorghum bicolor) [10]; Image 2 (Rhus glabra)[9]
Interestingly, Madison merely likens this grain to “broom corn,” but does not say it is the same thing. Also, there may have been a landrace of Zea mays known colloquially as “Guinea corn,” which Madison was referring to as an entirely different thing. Alas, another plant for another time.
Official Presidential portrait of Thomas Jefferson (by Rembrandt Peale, 1800). Image is in the Public Domain.
Reply from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
6 July 1791
DEAR SIR ,
I have duly received your favours of June 27 & July 1. The last came only this morning…The Guinea corn is new to me, and shall be taken care of.
[4]
So, after holding the Jamaican “Guinea corn” seeds in his hands, Jefferson noted that they were new to him. In 1781 (a whole ten years before the above admission), Thomas Jefferson had mentioned “broomcorn” as being one of the major crops of Virginia farms, stating, “besides these plants, which are native, our Farms produce wheat, rye, barley, oats, buck wheat, broomcorn, and Indian corn” [8].
At the very least, we can safely assume that— if these two plants are indeed Sorghum bicolor— they are landraces with remarkably different seeds. The Guinea corn was known primarily as a grain crop for human consumption, and the broom corn was known more for its use in thatching, broom making, and animal feed.
Of course, it was James Madison who identified the grain as being popular amongst those enduring slavery in Jamaica. And, guess what, there is a robust early record linking the Jamaican “Guinea corn” to the binomial: Sorghum bicolor as well [3][13].
The Journal of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (1915) stated, as a matter of fact, that “the chief grain from all over Africa is sorghum. In West Africa, it is practically the same as what call Guinea Corn, which was introduced here from that region” [2].
The Franklin Myth Conclusion
Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench was first published in 1794, has 177 historically used binomial synonyms, and represents a dizzying amount of morphological diversity [11]. Since Linnaean nomenclature and taxonomy was a very new thing in Franklin’s day, it must remain unsettled if Franklin was, or was not, even mailing seeds of the plant we know as Sorghum bicolor, however, I’ve got to admit it is likely.
Further, the above Franklin correspondence to his sister is put forth as the very best evidence of his introduction of sorghum to the United States that we have. Benjamin Franklin did not claim to have introduced the plant (assumedly Sorghum bicolor) to the Americas in any correspondence. He simply shared some seeds being grown in Virginia with his sister, and his minister friend.
Further, Jefferson, a man intimately familiar with Virginian broom corn, upon holding the type of sorghum seed used for a human staple food in his hand, admitted that it was entirely new to him. He was informed that it was a grain used as a staple food by African slaves in Jamaica. It seems as if sorghum’s use as a staple grain cereal was very new to Virginia as late as 1791.
There is no evidence that Benjamin Franklin singlehandedly introduced sorghum to the United States. We have, on the contrary, direct evidence of a plant called Guinea corn—also known as Sorghum bicolor— passing from the hands of African slaves to those of Thomas Jefferson.
I argue that it would be most appropriate and accurate to attribute the introduction of sorghum to the United States to Africans… without whom there would be no such nutritious drought resistant grain selected and improved over the millennia.
Or the tiny golden box thing… sprites… dragons… or whatever.
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References are available in the comments. While you are there… I’d love to hear from you!
References
[1] American Folklore Society. Journal of American folklore. Items of Folk-Lore from Bahama Negroes, p. 37, Volume XVII, Washington [1904].
[2] The Journal of the Jamaica Agricultural Society. p. 49, Volume XIX, Farmer. Kingston [1915].
[3] (1867). Papers on Jamaica: descriptive of its soil, climate, productions, & physical aspect ; selected and arr. for the information of intending colonists. Kingston, Jamaica: M. De Cordova.
[4] Jefferson, T., Ford, P. Leicester. (1904-05). The works of Thomas Jefferson. New York: G.P. Putnam's sons.
[5] Accessed 16 Dec 2021: https://agriculture.ks.gov/docs/default-source/ag-marketing/sorghum-in-kansas-coloring-sheet.pdf?sfvrsn=4 16 Dec 2021
[6] Accessed 16 Dec 2021: https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2016/sep/sorghum/
[7] Accessed 16 Dec 2021: https://www.uaex.uada.edu/yard-garden/resource-library/plant-week/sorghum-9-11-09.aspx
[8] Accessed 16 DEC 2021: https://www.thefederalistpapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Thomas-Jefferson-Notes-On-The-State-Of-Virginia.pdf
[9] Smooth Sumac by Terry Howes attributed under Creative Commons licensure from https://www.flickr.com/photos/tlhowes/35716627162
[10] Sorghum bicolor obtained through Creative Commons licensure from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sorghum_bicolor_Bild0902.jpg
[11] Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science. (2021). Plants of the World Online. Retrieved December 16, 2021, from https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:422090–1
[12] Myers, R. (2018). Growing Millets for Grain, Forage or Cover Crop Use. MU Extension. Retrieved December 19, 2021, from https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/g4164
[13] Olcott, H. Steel., Wray, L. (1857). Sorgho and imphee, the Chinese and African sugar canes: a treatise upon their origin, varieties, and culture, their value as a forage crop, and the manufacture of sugar, syrup, alcohol, wines, beer, cider, vinegar, starch, and dye-stuffs : with a paper by Leonard Wray, Esq., of Caffraria, and a description of his patented process for crystallizing the juice of the imphee : to which are added, copious translations of valuable French pamphlets. New York: A.O. Moore.
[14] Accessed 31 Dec 2021: https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/broomcorn.html
[15] Judith, J. A. (2009). Black Rice: The African origins of rice cultivation in the Americas. Harvard University Press.
