Mark Brooks, site director at the Kaw Mission and Last Chance Store Museums in Council Grove, KS, shares historic tidbits regularly on social media. Since we're on the topic of corn, I found this one particularly interesting:
By Indian department contracts of April 22, 1843, J.M. Hunter was to deliver eight yoke of Oxen and yokes ( for $324.48 ), and J.C. Berryman was to supply 30 bushels of potatoes and 30 bushel of seed corn ( for $68.75 ), at the "Kanzas Village," before May 1. Agent R.W. Cummins subsequently reported, in September, that the Kansa had been "almost in a state of starvation" in the spring and had "subsisted a part of the year on roots"; that "at their pressing request" he had "employed about 18 hands and cultivated about 200 acres of corn & planted 30 bushels of Irish potatoes for them" after they agreed to "turn in and plant & tend as much corn as they could"; and to his surprise "they raised themselves more than they had done for many years" and would probably " have corn plenty to do them" over the winter. Cummins also mentioned that their horse mill was in contract, and would be soon completed.
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