Potawatomi Lima Bean Seeds

Lima beans are tasty, eaten dry or as a shelling bean. Vines are vigorous climbing “pole”-type. The beans are amazing in fall when beautiful seeds mottled with black, white and maroon pop out of the shell. This bean’s story is irrevocably linked to the story of indigenous Potawatomi people, who, before European colonization, lived and flourished in lower Michigan. As with most native tribes in North America, the Potawatomi lost land, lives, culture, and land rights due to European diseases, broken treaties, forced relocation, and genocide. Today many Native American tribes are restoring and celebrating lost food and agricultural traditions. We offer this bean to be able to teach about the history of the peoples and foods of the Great Lakes region as well as to encourage each of us to work to right the legacies of racism. We originally sourced our seeds from culinary historian William Woys Weaver, who got them from seed savers Andrew Bucienski and Cynthia Deardorff. Cynthia Deardorff re