If there is one North American plant that deserves a place in the earliest chapters of English colonial trade, it is sassafras.
Long before tobacco became the great giant of English colonial commerce, sassafras had already caught English attention as a fragrant, promising, and highly marketable New World plant. It was one of the earliest North American plants to be treated not only as a curiosity—but as a commodity.
For the readers of Simples & Worts Herbal Apothecary, sassafras is especially meaningful when we view it through the lens of Cape Cod and Plimoth-era New England. In the world of William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, Myles Standish, and John Alden, English settlers were learning—often imperfectly, and often dependently—how to survive in a landscape already deeply known by Indigenous peoples.
That is part of what makes sassafras such a compelling “first herb of significance” in our regional storytelling. Its scent, flavor, and early commercial reputation made it important to English colonial ambitions, while its presence in the woodlands and edges of eastern North America places it firmly within the living botanical world that surrounded early settlers in Massachusetts.
And to tell the story honestly, we should say this plainly: the English did not “discover” sassafras in the sense of first use. Indigenous peoples had long known and used the tree. In the Plymouth story, the name Tisquantum (Squanto) reminds us that local knowledge—of land, foodways, and useful plants—was often the difference between failure and survival.
So when we speak of sassafras as one of the first herbs of commercial importance to the English, we are really telling two stories at once: the rise of a colonial export plant, and the deeper, older story of a native tree already woven into the life of this land.
Why Sassafras Mattered So Much to the English
Sassafras had nearly everything an early modern trading culture wanted:
A strong, memorable aroma
A distinctive flavor
A medicinal reputation
Multiple practical uses
The appeal of New World novelty
In the late 1500s and early 1600s, European markets were eager for substances that could be sold as remedies, tonics, or household goods. Sassafras quickly gained a reputation in England and Europe as a valuable plant, and its bark and roots became part of an early Atlantic trade in botanical commodities.
That makes sassafras more than a woodland curiosity. It was, in effect, one of the first North American plants to be pulled into the machinery of English commerce and promoted as something useful, profitable, and even fashionable.
For a historical herbal audience, this is a remarkable turning point: a native tree becoming part of a transatlantic market economy.
Cape Cod, Plimoth, and the Herbal Landscape of Early New England
When we imagine the world of early Plymouth Colony, it is easy to picture only hardship, weather, and survival. But there was also a constant practical education taking place—an education in plants.
The settlers did not arrive with a complete field guide to New England. They had to learn what grew nearby, what could be used, what should be avoided, and what might be traded. In this sense, every woodland edge and sandy opening could become a place of discovery, trial, and necessity.
Cape Cod and the surrounding regions offered a landscape rich with useful plants, shrubs, and trees. Sassafras, with its unmistakable fragrance and character, would not have been the sort of plant one easily forgot. Its very scent gives it away. Scratch or bruise parts of the plant and it announces itself.
In an era shaped by figures like Bradford and Winslow, and guided in crucial ways by Indigenous knowledge, a plant like sassafras would naturally stand out as both useful and potentially valuable.
The Indigenous Knowledge That Came First
At Simples & Worts Herbal Apothecary, we can tell this story in a way that is both interesting and grounded: the English may have recognized sassafras as commercially important, but Indigenous peoples had long known it as part of the living landscape.
This is not a small footnote—it is the foundation.
In the Plimoth story, Tisquantum (Squanto) is often remembered for helping settlers with practical survival. That broader reality should shape how we tell plant stories too. Knowledge of local conditions, foodways, and useful natural resources did not begin with English arrival. The colonists stepped into an already-known world.
That perspective adds depth and honesty to the story of sassafras. It was not “new” to the land. It was new to English commercial ambition.
How to Recognize Sassafras (A Delight for the Herbal Eye)
Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) is one of the most delightful native trees to identify because it often displays three different leaf shapes on the same plant:
A simple oval leaf
A mitten-shaped leaf (two lobes)
A three-lobed leaf
This alone makes it memorable and charming—especially for gardeners, nature walkers, and homesteaders who enjoy learning plants by form and habit.
Other identifying traits include:
A spicy, aromatic scent when the bark or leaves are bruised
Small tree to medium tree form
A tendency to appear along woodland edges, openings, and disturbed ground
A somewhat informal, natural shape that suits rustic or native plant settings
For those of us who love herbs, useful plants, and old botanical lore, sassafras feels almost like a bridge between a tree and an apothecary specimen.
Colonial-Era Practicality: Garden, Household, and Apothecary Thinking
One reason sassafras fascinates modern readers is that it comes from a time when the boundaries between garden, kitchen, household, and apothecary were very thin.
In the colonial world, a “useful plant” might be valued for scent, flavor, cleaning, comfort, craft, or traditional wellness practice—all at once. People did not always sort plants into modern categories. A single plant could pass through many rooms of life.
That is exactly the kind of thinking that makes sassafras such a good fit for our Simples & Worts storytelling. It invites us to see the colonial landscape not just as farmland or wilderness, but as a working herbal world filled with practical observation.
And this is where names like Brewster, Bradford, and Winslow help us as writers: not to claim they each wrote a sassafras recipe, but to place the reader in the real human world of early New England, where such plants mattered.
A Grounded Modern Note (Important for Today’s Readers)
Because sassafras has such a rich historical reputation, it is worth adding a practical modern note.
Historically, sassafras was widely used in beverages and traditional preparations. In modern times, however, there are safety concerns associated with compounds found in sassafras (especially safrole), and modern food use is treated differently than it was in the colonial period.
So, at Simples & Worts Herbal Apothecary, we can appreciate sassafras as:
a botanical and historical treasure
a colonial trade story
a native tree of remarkable character
…while also encouraging readers to approach modern use with care, good judgment, and current safety guidance.
That balanced approach fits our style: practical, respectful, and historically informed.
Sidebar
Why Sassafras Belongs at Simples & Worts Herbal Apothecary
Why this plant still matters to our community:
It is a living link to early English colonial commerce
It helps us tell a Cape Cod / Plimoth-era herbal story with real historical texture
It reminds us that Indigenous knowledge came first
It is a beautiful native tree with unmistakable character
It teaches an important lesson: history, tradition, and modern caution can all belong in the same conversation
Sassafras is more than folklore. It is a fragrant doorway into the layered herbal history of Cape Cod, Plimoth-era New England, and the wider Atlantic world.
Closing Thought
If you are building a series on the earliest herbs and useful plants of English colonial New England, sassafras is a splendid place to begin.
It has the scent.
It has the story.
It has the commercial intrigue.
And it carries us straight into the world of **Bradford, Winslow, Standish, Alden, Brewster—and Tisquantum—**where survival, trade, and herbal knowledge were all deeply intertwined.
At Simples & Worts Herbal Apothecary, that makes sassafras not merely an old plant name, but a true first chapter.