Maize as a Transatlantic Trade Crop

Timeline

1. c. -7000–1492Valley of Mexico · Valley of MexicoCivilizations such as Teotihuacan and the Aztecs systematically cultivated maize on the Mexican highlands, forming the Three Sisters polyculture with beans and squash, providing high-yield, easily stored and transported varieties for transoceanic trade.
2. c. 1493–1620Seville and Lisbon · Atlantic portsMaize entered Iberia as ship cargo and spread to Italy, the Balkans, and the West African coast, becoming vital provisions for port cities, garrisons, and slave-trading fleets, and was rapidly localized in some African coastal regions.
3. 1631Caribbean and West African coast · West African coastBy the 1630s maize was a regular shipped crop of Caribbean sugar islands, coastal Brazil, and West African trading stations, used to provision slave ships, feed plantation draft animals, and supply European re-export grain markets, forming one of the Atlantic world's most stable transoceanic exchanged species.