The Myth of Johnny Appleseed

February 20, 2020 7:49 AM

From Dr. Sarah Taber (previously on the blue): come for the hickory milk recipe, stay for the description of how John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, co-opted Native American agricultural practices that far pre-dated his supposed seed-sowing. [twitter]
posted by Halloween Jack (32 comments total)

Johnny Appleseed? More like Johnny-Come-Lately amirite
posted by jedicus at 7:58 AM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]

Also--and I regret I cannot cite this better--but I read that they say he was interested in raising a young girl alongside the apples. He had the "grow your own wife" idea that some men in those days used to have, believing that if you raised a girl child to your specifications, you would make the happiest couple when she was grown. But he never did marry.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:13 AM on February 20, 2020 [8 favorites]

Ok, so every single person I was taught to admire in elementary school was terrible

Pretty much.
posted by Fizz at 8:17 AM on February 20, 2020 [8 favorites]

Ok, so every single person I was taught to admire in elementary school was terrible

Turns out that Animal was the only good Muppet, too.
posted by Etrigan at 8:44 AM on February 20, 2020 [10 favorites]

Ok, so every single person I was taught to admire in elementary school was terrible

in what way, exactly, do you think Chapman was terrible
or if you prefer: in what way do you think Taber is suggesting he was terrible that was not absolutely inherent in the schoolchild's myth of a roaming white frontiersman to begin with

is this about his swedenborgianism, or ?

anyway lots of good & cool & well-cited explanations of early U.S. laws about land claims and the purpose and usefulness of establishing nurseries for a would-be settler or for a would-be salesman to other would-be settler hopefuls, very instructive, thank god we didn't try to explain any colonialist historical practices through crop science alone
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:44 AM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

or if you prefer: in what way do you think Taber is suggesting he was terrible that was not absolutely inherent in the schoolchild's myth of a roaming white frontiersman to begin with

Well, I've got to say that "I planted these orchards myself on land that, though it did not belong to me, appeared to me to be unused and unclaimed" is a lot better than "I claimed as my own a bunch of orchards planted by native people, sold their products and assisted in the transition of this extremely useful and valuable riverside land to white ownership".

Admittedly the whole story hinges on the idea of "empty" land when good agricultural land was actually thickly settled, so it's already got an embedded falsehood in it.

If there were no moral difference between "white people innocently did [whatever] thinking nothing but the best even though the consequences were bad" and "white people knowingly did [whatever] in order to fuck over native people", white people wouldn't be so eager to tell the first version.
posted by Frowner at 8:51 AM on February 20, 2020 [30 favorites]

"...white people wouldn't be so eager to tell the first version."

Sure they would. You underestimate the appeal of simple fantasy/stories. Especially if they're supposed to be true. Of course that's all mixed in with the other stuff. The early times did a lot of searching for simple/easy stories. We seem to do a lot of that too.
posted by aleph at 9:07 AM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

So... Johnny Crappleseed?

When I was working in agricultural education, I had to review a children's biography of John Chapman for possible inclusion in our database of educational materials. We ended up not recommending it for public school because it was a little too heavy on the religion. (Stating as a fact that God sent him on his mission rather than that he believed God sent him on his mission is the example that stands out in my head years later.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:13 AM on February 20, 2020 [5 favorites]

I spent most of an hour on the first of this year being too polite to disengage with an older man who was pretty excited about his home-made hard cider (and while I like a tart cider, this was alcoholic vinegar). I tried to bring up Johnny AC, saying that the myth didn't address grafting. He was only happy to say it did or should. When I brought up native peoples, he finally left me alone.
posted by es_de_bah at 9:17 AM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]

I tried to bring up Johnny AC

The young man on a mission from God to randomly spread cooler indoor temperatures throughout Arizona?
posted by LionIndex at 9:28 AM on February 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

The implication that almond milk is, what, a 20th century invention? is kind of weird and ahistorical.
posted by zamboni at 9:32 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

Just don’t tell me that Johnny Wallflower is neither a wall nor a flower.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:53 AM on February 20, 2020 [5 favorites]

I did think the root cellar/storage pit distinction was questionable, since I would think the big distinction would be whether the hole in the ground in question was near/under a house, completely covered with earth, and/or more accessible. Of course, on further consideration, any house near a root cellar was almost certainly built on land expropriated from indigenous people, so it’s still bad.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:56 AM on February 20, 2020

Actually *plant nerd glasses on* the Wallflower is it's own genus of plant, with multiple species. Endearingly to me, it's a member of the cabbage family of plants. On topic- it's interesting to me is that as an individual in the San Francisco school system we learned that Johnny Appleseed was kinda full of crap- but this is way more fleshed out. So in conclusion J. Wallflower>J. Appleseed.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 10:03 AM on February 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

Johnny Rockets: Not actually an astronaut.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:33 AM on February 20, 2020 [5 favorites]

Interesting stuff for sure, but it's hard to tell what's going on with the whole stream-of-consciousness-list-of-tweets format, lack of citations, etc. It's... not really presenting an argument or evidence so much as presenting a list of claims as truths?

Here's a few issues I'm confused about:
I'm not really clear on how indigenous people using the apples to set dye has much to do with settlers using them to make hard cider and applejack. She seems to imply they didn't... because they wanted red dye too? Why not both?
Michael Pollan makes a big deal in Botany of Desire about Chapman spreading booze, which settlers really wanted. Granted maybe he was intentionally or unintentionally misrepresenting the case, but at least that's a semi-serious pop-sci book with citations and footnotes.

Also: the most charitable reading here is that he stole the idea but it's just as likely he flat-out stole the orchards.

Again, why not both? Kind of weird to assume that he didn't plant anything at all.

I'd like to read an article by her about this. I looked on google scholar for her work but all I can see is someone who appears to be a different Sarah Taber. I looked at the previously's and all I see are links to tweet lists. So if anyone can point me to her published work, I'd appreciate it.

I'm all for tearing down the mythical hero to reveal a truth of theft and injustice to natives, I'd just like to see the scholarly work.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:41 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

At this point I am left wondering if there is anything that white people haven't stolen from indigenous people, made inevitably worse for everyone but a tiny group of ultra rich people, while lying about where it came from to the aggrandizement of the appropriators and pushing a narrative of savages nobly rescued from their own filth by kind-meaning, if stern, white men with guns.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:10 AM on February 20, 2020 [5 favorites]

Less consequential point: why did we stop calling hickory nuts "pokickery nuts"? It's just way better.
posted by dlugoczaj at 11:19 AM on February 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

captain afab: Ok, so every single person I was taught to admire in elementary school was terrible

When so much of U.S. history taught in grade school is about the brave and noble white men of the past, it might be worth looking for the histories that are whitewashed.

Or, as I will now be saying, behind every story of a noble white man is a complicated, diverse story.


SaltySalticid: I'm all for tearing down the mythical hero to reveal a truth of theft and injustice to natives, I'd just like to see the scholarly work.

Exhibit A: Kendaia, known as Appletown, was a village of the Seneca and Cayuga Nations of Iroquois located in what is now the Town of Romulus, New York (Wikipedia).

During the American Revolution, the Sullivan Expedition of 1779 found the village to be the "oldest town we have passed, here being a considerable orchard, trees very old as are the buildings, very pleasantly situated about a quarter of a mile from the lake on a high piece of ground." The village consisted of "twenty or more houses of hewn logs, covered with bark, and some of them were well painted. Here was one apple orchard of sixty trees, besides others; also peach trees and other fruits...

Exhibit B: "Apples on the Border: Orchards and the Contest for the Great Lakes,” Michigan Historical Review, Spring 2008, by William Kerrigan (Jstor; apparently scanned and posted by Kerrigan to Academia.edu).

Also, people don't read Twitter for academic citations, they come for brief comments, strung together to form a longer narrative, because long-form web doesn't spread as far or fast as tweets.


seanmpuckett: At this point I am left wondering if there is anything that white people haven't stolen from indigenous people, made inevitably worse for everyone but a tiny group of ultra rich people, while lying about where it came from to the aggrandizement of the appropriators and pushing a narrative of savages nobly rescued from their own filth by kind-meaning, if stern, white men with guns.

Do you not recall that, as recently as 1945 (!!), indigenous communities were referred to as "these people, barely out of savagery," in comparison to"us whites, with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind us"?

This systematic racism that is white-washing history robs both indigenous people of their history, culture, and prominence, and elevates the works of white men, above and beyond what they are due.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:19 AM on February 20, 2020 [12 favorites]

You know, I don't think I ever learned that "Johnny Appleseed" was a real person until today.
I'm 43.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:46 AM on February 20, 2020 [5 favorites]

Thank you so much for this post! I always enjoy the deep digs into US history!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 11:49 AM on February 20, 2020

Also--and I regret I cannot cite this better--but I read that they say he was interested in raising a young girl alongside the apples. He had the "grow your own wife" idea that some men in those days used to have, believing that if you raised a girl child to your specifications, you would make the happiest couple when she was grown. But he never did marry

Well, that’s horrifying.

Just don’t tell me that Johnny Wallflower is neither a wall nor a flower.

Johnny Law is a beautiful cat.
posted by rodlymight at 11:54 AM on February 20, 2020

And then Appletown was burned to the ground by the Sullivan Expedition, which was a punitory campaign against indigenous nations which sided with the British and Loyalists.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:55 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

filthy light thief Thanks, but I'm not sure what Kendaia has to do with the the idea that European settlers didn't use apples for booze, or the implication that Chapman didn't plant apples. Are you saying these claims are discussed in the book Apples on the Border? Because those are the implications she makes that I find hard to believe. Or maybe she's not even implying those things?

I'm not contesting native cultivation of apples, I'm looking for some reason to believe some of these claims that don't seem right to me, other than someone on twitter says so. Maybe I'm being too critical but imo part of the whole problem of these myths and glorification of white people is that so much was accepted and propagated, simple because someone said so.

I know twitter isn't really for scholarship, that's why I'm looking for some scholarship which I assume she's done. I tried to make it clear that my intent is not to defend Chapman so much as to understand why some of these seemingly bizarre claims are made, other than as you say, This systematic racism that is white-washing history robs both indigenous people of their history, culture, and prominence, and elevates the works of white men, above and beyond what they are due. I'm curious about the specifics here, not a trend of generalities.

Basically, I think unraveling the myth of Champan absolutely deserves long-form writing and citations.
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:09 PM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

I don't know if it mentions Chapman, but Dr. Taber does cite Susan Sleeper-Smith's Indigenous Prosperity and American Conquest: Indian Women of the Ohio River Valley, 1690-1792.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:38 PM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm a bit bothered when we're so quick to say "citation needed" when something challenges our preconceived notions, but we don't seem to think it's nearly that important to demand those same citations of our preconceptions.
posted by Aleyn at 2:14 PM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

I want to see more scholarship because this is presented as overturning the previous scholarship, and the previous work I’ve personally read about Chapman has citations and presents a cogent argument for the case that he was spreading booze. Also that he was basically an asshole and a thief. But a thief who probably planted some apple trees.

You can make me out to be the bad guy if you want, I just happen to be literally a scholar of plants who works with crop scientists sometimes and has a personal interest in ethnobotany. Scholarship works by explanation, demonstration, evidence, citation etc. I’m only asking for more info on the process and evidence here, and I don’t think that should be out of bounds for information that comes from someone who styles themselves as a scientist presenting facts.

Put it another way. When I’m at my next conference and mention that Chapman didn’t plant any apple orchards, I’d like to have a better explanation than ‘I read it in a tweet’.

I’ll bow out now, apparently this is not the right thread for this kind of question.
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:56 PM on February 20, 2020 [8 favorites]

The story of Johnny Appleseed founders on the point that it take a long time for seedlings to become productive orchards. Either he covered a lot of ground with his planting but rarely waited for the trees to mature or he stayed in place longer that the story allows... or he appropriated existing orchards. I mean, this is a bit reductive, but it seems a pretty good argument that the lore is missing something.
posted by sjswitzer at 3:07 PM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

The story of Johnny Appleseed founders on the point that it take a long time for seedlings to become productive orchards.

Yeah, I was kinda wondering the same thing.
posted by fimbulvetr at 5:07 PM on February 20, 2020

I don't have anything to add about Johnny Appleseed, but the part about the native orchards fits with what third-hand accounts I've read in the small-town-boosterish histories produced by whites in the late 19th century (mostly thinking here of local histories for New York state, Ohio and Michigan). I've seen several accounts that specifically mention native orchards already being in place when the first white settlers arrived.
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:27 PM on February 20, 2020

Dr. Johnny Fever: actually hot.

Yeah, most of the U.S. history I learned in the first few years of school was borderline anti-British propaganda.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:24 PM on February 20, 2020

My elementary school aged son was disciplined for lying when he told his teacher, correctly, that when Johnny Appleseed was planting apple trees he was doing so for people to make booze not eat apples. This necessitated a conversation with her on my part and an apology on her part.

Smithsonian article for reference
posted by ShakeyJake at 11:28 AM on February 21, 2020 [2 favorites]