ABSTRACT
I grew up in the land of the Chickasaws-western Kentucky. Bernard Romans ([1775] 1961) was among the first to record that Chickasaws claimed the territory north to where the Mississippi joins the Ohio River, and east to the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers. Until late 1818, this region was west of the United States, and Kentucky ended on the east bank of the Tennessee River. Then, through promotion by Andrew Jackson, the land was obtained by a treaty between the United States and the Chickasaw Nation on October 19, 1818. After that, the area became known as the “Jackson Purchase.” I recognized early that southeastern use of maize was a prominent feature of the region’s culture.
