n 1557 a French scribe named Andre Thevet was the first to record that maples in North American yielded a sweet sap. According to the journals of early explorers dated 1609, Native Americans made maple syrup and maple sugar long before the earliest settlers set foot on the American shores. A good portion of the native American diet was made up of maple sugar or as the Indians called it, Sinzibuckwud (drawn from the wood). Sap from maple tress was gathered by boxing the trunk of a maple tree with a tomahawk to form a "V" shaped slit and catching the sap in small birch bark baskets.

Because the white man had yet to bring iron kettles the Indians poured the sap into hollowed out logs or stone troughs bringing the sap to a boil by placing hot rocks from a near by fire into the sweet liquid. When the sap reached the right consistency it was poured into a wooden trough then stirred and worked with a wooden paddle. As the sap cooled crystals began to form taking the syrup from a liquid to a cookie dough consistency and finally to a lumpy granulated sugar. Because Indians had no easy way to store liquid syrup, they produced dry maple sugar which stored easily for latter use. This was either in a granulated form or "cake sugar" made by pouring the thickened syrup into wooden molds to become hard cakes or blocks. The sugar was used as gifts, in ceremonies, for trading, and for cooking. One of their dishes was a mixture of maple sugar, berries and bear fat.

When the white man arrived the Native Americans showed them how to make maple sugar and it became the colonist's principal sweetener. The Indians also showed them how to boil venison in maple sap to add flavor and nourishment. With the colonists came iron and copper kettles and they began to be used for sugaring. The earliest method was to hang one large kettle over an open fire and cook a single batch. Latter several kettles were hung over a fire by long hooks made from tree branches. The sap was transferred from kettle to kettle as it became more concentrated. Fresh sap being added to the first kettle. Sometimes as much as a thousand pounds of sugar was made per family. The valuable excess provided income because it could be sold or traded at local stores for other food and supplies.

Maple was an important component of the fur trade with packed makuks full of sugar being traded alongside firs, wild rice, meat and fish. Makuks were large heavy birch bark containers with a rectangular base and narrower round oval opening. The sides were sewn together with basswood fiber or spruce root and some times sealed with pitch. These large sugar containers, which could weight 60-70 pounds, often had a birch bark cover stitched closed on top.#

It is likely that the fur trade stimulated an increase in the production of maple sugar by Native Americans in the Great Lakes region. The French and English Traders on the frontier had little access to cane sugar and were interested in acquiring maple sugar from the local Indians. Fur traders seldom traded goods such as blankets for sugar, instead trying to force the natives to accept liquor. # In addition to trading for maple sugar, many traders themselves engaged in the making of maple sugar. This was particularly true around some of the wintering forts. Sugaring came at a time of the winter when it was becoming difficult to move about with the ice breaking up and the melting snow in the woods. Voyageurs that wintered at a fort could be put to work making sugar for the following year's provision.# In the spring practically every soldier at early French Canadian forts had to manufacture a years supply of this staple for himself. Maple sugar was as common on a dinner table in the 17th and 18th century as salt is today.

The Quakers in 1788 promoted the manufacture of maple sugar to protest the use of cane sugar made by the slaves of the West Indies. New Englanders, including Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Benjamin Rush, James Fennimore Cooper and George Washington favored the Quaker's protest. Thomas Jefferson was so taken with maple sugar that he had a grove of maple trees planted at his home, Monticello.

By 1818 maple sugar was selling for half the price of cane sugar. This was due to the high import tax on and scarcity of the "slave" sugar. According to a USDA report, 1860 proved to be the United State's peak production year with the manufacture of 40 million pounds of maple sugar and 1.6 million gallons of maple syrup being made in 23 states.

During the civil war maple sugar use was used by the North as a protest against the South. The South produced most of the molasses and all of the sugar cane. Northerners refused to use it and insisted on using maple sugar instead. By 1880 Cane sugar and maple sugar equaled in price. Up until the later part of the 20th century, 1 gallon of syrup equaled the price of a mans wage for a day. As late as the 1920's more maple sugar was sold than maple syrup. Beet and cane sugar eventually took over as America's sweetener and maple sugar became very hard to find. As the price of cane sugar began to undercut maple sugar prices, many sugar makers began to make a shift to producing more and more maple syrup, a luxury item, and less maple sugar.

The manufacturing process change little from the beginning. It has always been 40 gallons of sap to 1 gallon syrup and 1 gallon of syrup to 8 pounds of sugar. The equipment took a very slow change. The tapping of the tree started with the slashing of the trunk and inserting hollowed sumac or elderberry branches for spills (spiles). Then in the early 1800's augers were becoming popular to bore the holes into the trees instead of the crude "gashing" or boxing techniques. Then in 1859, the first metal spouts were invented. These remained the standard of the industry.

The dropping of hot rocks into hollow logs of sap changed to heavy iron pots and the cauldron method remained unchanged until around the start of the American civil war when the flat bottomed tin pan was invented. Towards the last part of the 1800's , the flu pan (or crimped bottom pan) was invented. And now for the last 100 years the cooking method has changed very little. The syrup still needs heat to help the flavor develop. From the first sugar the American Indians made as they set up in their sugar camps to the syrup on the tables today, the process is virtually unchanged.

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# Matthew M. Thomas, An Archeological Overview of Native American Maple Sugaring And Historic Sugarbushes of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. 1999 Lac du Flambeau Tribal Historic Preservation Office and the George W. Brown Museum P. 73,74

2 Ibid. pg. 46

3 Ibid pg. 46