Roots in the Valley: Ginseng and the New York-Iroquois Borderlands, 1752–1785

Roots in the Valley:Ginseng and the New York-Iroquois Borderlands, 1752–1785 Sherri Goldstein Cash (bio) At the end of summer 1774, merchant Jelles Fonda penned instructions to "Send word to all the Indian Castels to gather wat theay Can."1 Writing from Caughnawaga, some twenty-seven miles west of Schenectady in the Mohawk Valley, Fonda sought ginseng roots. Ginseng, an indigenous plant that Native Americans, the Chinese, and European settlers and merchants knew well. In "sending word," Fonda called into visibility the economic relationship among these three far-flung groups. For centuries, people had used ginseng root to mitigate a variety of ailments from fatigue and headaches to infertility. The combination of this medical technology and economic impulses in Europe and Asia conjured an international market that put down commercial roots on the New York-Iroquois borderlands, some thirty years before the opening of direct U.S.-China commercial relations in 1784. Scholars of ginseng's human history have explored the emergence of the plant as the focus of European scientific inquiry and as a lucrative extractive commodity in international trade, especially in the late 1740s and early 1750s, when prices were exceedingly high. In Montreal, good quality ginseng that had fetched less than 2 francs per pound in 1747 brought 33 francs five years later. Meanwhile, ginseng prices increased by up to 3,000 percent as the commodity changed hands on its mercantile journey from Canada to China.2 [End Page 7] Yet, neither demand in China for ginseng nor the high prices asked for this commodity adequately explain the emergence of the ginseng market on the frontier. Analysis of the ginseng supply chain on the New York-Iroquois borderlands reveals that pre-existing conditions, the needs and desires of settlers, Native Americans, and slaves, and the establishment of commercial partnerships involving men and women planted the seeds of the market. Unpacking the human element in the broad concept of "market" reveals the actions and relationships among individuals and groups, helping to explain what was "in" ginseng for suppliers, and shedding light on the contours of frontier society. As an economic opportunity for frontier residents, however, ginseng was a short-lived panacea. It helped to fortify the more secure status of some, while offering a temporary, partial, or weak remedy for others. Ginseng's social history has interconnected places and peoples over millions of years. The very look of it, with its root splitting into two legs, suggested a human shape. The Chinese called it jen shen or ren shen; the Iroquois called it garent-oguen. They both boiled down to "resemblance to man."3 Chinese and Native American bodies of medical knowledge recognized ginseng root as a drug that invigorated and restored the body. For the Chinese, ginseng was a marvelous panacea, but for Native Americans, it was an ordinary medicine.4 Reminiscent of the migration of people from Asia to the Americas, the plant had moved across land masses through geologic time.5 In 1709, Pierre Jartoux, a French Jesuit in China, predicted that the plant grew in North America; he was right.6 In 1716, Mohawk Indian women at Kahnawake, Canada, helped French Jesuit Joseph Francois Lafitau to find it.7 American ginseng's habitat stretched from the wooded areas of Montreal to the Gulf Coast. The plant stood a few inches above ground, and sprouted five green leaves and a bunch of red berries. Asian ginseng, panax schiseng, is different from the North American variety, [End Page 8] panax quinquefolium. Chinese and Europeans believed that the American variety provided inferior medicine.8 Nevertheless, it sold. Many European botanists, physicians, and philosophers agreed with the Chinese exaltation of the root. Jartoux was "perswaded that it would prove an excellent Medicine in the hands of any European who understands Pharmacy."9 The Virginia colonist William Byrd reported that "it gives an uncommon Warmth and Vigor to the Blood, and frisks the Spirit, beyond any other cordial. It chears the Heart even of a Man that has a bad Wife."10 Philosopher John Locke referred to its powers to treat fevers and venereal disease."11 Benjamin Franklin recommended it for kidney stones.12 Indeed, Franklin announced...

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