More than 300 years ago, the first English colonists survived thanks to corn, through trading with the Powhatan Indians around Jamestown, in what is now Virginia, and New England.
Survival in winter was an ordeal in those days, particularly during the harsh winter of 1609–10, known as the “Starving Time,” when many harvests failed and trade dwindled. The famine magnified the importance of a lifesaving crop—corn—which the Native Americans had known about for a long time.
