THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE POTATO IN EUROPE

Although many crops were brought to Europe by Columbus and others soon after the discovery of the New World in 1492, the potato arrived much later. This is because it is a cool-temperate crop of the high Andes of South America, and these were not discovered by the Spaniards until 1532. Potatoes were not recorded in the literature until 1537 in what is now Colombia, and did not feature in published works until 1552. N o actual account has yet been discovered (and very probably does not e xist) of potatoes being brought to Europe. All we can do is to record, where possible, their earliest presence there. One of the problems in such a study is to recognize in the literature whether the Solanum tu berosum potato or the Ipomoea batatas sweet potato is under discussion , or whether they are being confused with each other. Even the word 'p otato' known in Spanish as 'patata' is obviously derived from 'batata' ; yet the early Spanish authors seem always to have clearly distinguis hed between them. We ourselves checked the Seville archive records to make sure that the Solanum potato records of 1573 and 1576 were correc t, and indeed we found that they were. The earlier English records, ap art from that of Gerard, seem to have referred to the Ipomoea sweet po tato. We report in this paper even earlier records from the Canary Isl es, where 'patatas' and 'batatas' are clearly distinguished, and the S outh American word 'papa' for Solanum tuberosum is also used sometimes (never, however, in continental Spain). Barrels of potatoes ('patatas ') were exported from Gran Canaria to Antwerp in November 1567 and fro m Tenerife via Gran Canaria to Rouen in 1574. Thus the potato was obvi ously being grown as a crop in Gran Canaria and Tenerife in 1567 and 1 574, respectively. We can therefore assume with some certainty that it would have needed some five years to bulk it up sufficiently as an ex port crop, and hence might well have been introduced in about 1562. Th is is only ten years after the first published account in 1552 by Lope z de Gomara, and only thirty years after its presumed first sighting i n Peru by Pizarro in 1532. It also seems to point towards the introduc tion of potatoes from South America into the Canary Isles, and not, as we had previously assumed, directly into continental Spain.