# A question about Charles Darwin's "The Voyage Of The Beagle" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 6, 2021, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-charles-darwins-the-voyage-of-the-beagle/943725 "2021-06-06T23:23:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2021, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-charles-darwins-the-voyage-of-the-beagle/943725/1 "2021-06-06T23:23:08Z")
I’m close to finishing this book, and at one time Darwin mentions the cultivation and consumption of sweet potatoes by the native Maori of New Zealand. Has the sweet potato been introduced by the British colonists to the islands, or had it been introduced earlier over the Pacific? I’ve heard about Pacific islands that had American cultivated plants in pre-Columbian times, but I can’t imagine that this exchange reached as far as New Zealand. I also seem to remember that the Maori were the only Pacific people who ever reached the islands, so they must have brought the sweet potato with them. What’s the straight dope? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2021, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-charles-darwins-the-voyage-of-the-beagle/943725/2 "2021-06-06T23:37:12Z")
The Maori brought the sweet potato with them. Later, whaling ships and trade vessels brought larger and better varieties with them and those ended up becoming more popular. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2021, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-charles-darwins-the-voyage-of-the-beagle/943725/3 "2021-06-06T23:44:18Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > The Maori brought the sweet potato with them. Wow, I’d never have guessed. Were there other originally American plants that reached that far? ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2021, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-charles-darwins-the-voyage-of-the-beagle/943725/4 "2021-06-07T01:03:27Z")
Plants from Polynesia > **[From Polynesia to New Zealand](https://teara.govt.nz/en/nga-tupu-mai-i-hawaiki-plants-from-polynesia/page-1)** > > Cultigens grown by Māori When Europeans arrived in New Zealand, six introduced cultigens (cultivated plants that have no known wild ancestor) were being grown by Māori. They were: kūmara (sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas) hue (bottle gourd... - kūmara (sweet potato, _Ipomoea batatas_ ) - hue (bottle gourd, _Lagenaria siceraria_ ) - aute (paper mulberry, _Broussonetia papyrifera_ ) - taro ( _Colocasia esulenta)_ - uwhi (yam, _Dioscorea_ species) - tī pore (Pacific cabbage tree, _Cordyline fruticosa_ ). The first came from South America, the second is considered a hybrid of American and Asian ancestry. The others are Asian. Being so far south and much cooler most of the other plant varieties which might be candidates for importation eg coconuts, sugar cane and bananas couldn’t be grown. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2021, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-charles-darwins-the-voyage-of-the-beagle/943725/5 "2021-06-07T01:08:42Z")
Not a plant, but bones of a particular breed of chicken from South America have been found in Polynesia, but I don’t think the chickens made it as far as New Zealand. Chick weed somehow made it from central America to Hawaii some time before Captain Cook’s arrival there in the late 1700s. Exactly how and when it got there isn’t known. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2021, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-charles-darwins-the-voyage-of-the-beagle/943725/6 "2021-06-07T01:50:03Z")
Broadly, the Plynesians and their ancestors left island southeast Asia with a large suite of domestic animals and plant cultivars, and knowledge of these were lost as they made it across many island hops. While sweet potato has its origin in Central America, there is still really ambiguous evidence as to when it entered the Pacific domestic realm. The evidence is so sparse that it is still possible to argue that [somehow - archaeomagic?] a cultivar headed west to be available at the time of Polynesian expansion, or that an early trip across the Pacific found it and headed back. This is why more archaeologists are needed to work on tropical islands. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2021, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-charles-darwins-the-voyage-of-the-beagle/943725/7 "2021-06-07T03:46:19Z")
DNA analysis of sweet potatoes in Polynesian supports a theory of natural spread, as a two century old sample indicates that its lineage split from South American lineages 100,000 years ago: [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04488-4](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04488-4) ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2021, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-charles-darwins-the-voyage-of-the-beagle/943725/8 "2021-06-07T05:00:17Z")
There’s Thor Heyerdahl’s _Kon-Tiki_ expedition to try and prove that natives from South America could have made it to Easter Island. But the locals were Polynesian, and apparently had come via the Pitcairn group of islands in the tradition of Polynesian expansion. Those islands were eventually uninhabited (abandoned?) due to size and lack of resources. I don’t recall reading anything about their domestic plants that would have indicated the Easter islanders got anything from South America.