Well, maybe not the beginning, but early evidence of the corruption of indigenous peoples' diets. Sarah Vowell notes in The Wordy Shipmates that back in the 1637, when the Massachusetts Bay folks were aligning with the Narragansett against the Pequot, Roger Williams (banished to Providence and acting as go between) writes to Boston that Canonicus, Narragansett sachem, would "gladly accept a box of eight or ten pounds of sugar" to seal the alliance.
A tale of the human sweet tooth, and the trail that leads to today's high rates of diet related disease among America's first peoples.
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