American Rum 11: The Indian Trade
A part of the rum produced in the Colonies was destined to the Indians.
Before the arrival of the Europeans, the Indians that inhabited the east coast of North America did not know alcohol. The first to introduce them to alcohol were the French. At the beginning of the 17th Century, when the French started building their American Empire, wine and brandy immediately became one of the most widely traded goods with the Indians.
The French Empire in America was quite different from the one the English were building in the same years: only a few French settlers immigrated to America seeking for land to cultivate.
Around 1750, on the eve of the French and Indian War (called in Europe Seven Years War) no more than 80.000 whites inhabited the French Empire in America, a huge territory included between the Saint Lawrence and the Mississippi Delta. Moreover, the French were mostly soldiers, officials, coureurs de bois and merchants and they were interested first of all in trade, not in agricultural settlements. The Indians soon became part of a vast commercial network which, starting from the Atlantic Ocean, developed on the Great Plains and beyond. The French traded beaver and deer furs and many other products with weapons, gun powder, flour and brandy.
The devastating effects that alcohol was having on Native Americans were immediately clear and missionaries and officials tried to limit the traffic, but Indians wanted alcohol and if the French were not going to provide it, the English would, in exchange for many precious furs and for an even more precious military alliance. So, the French continued selling Indians alcohol until the end of their American Empire, in 1763.
The British Empire in America was, since the beginning, totally different. A vast number of people left the British Islands and emigrated to the colonies, seeking land to settle in and farm: on the eve of the war up to 1,500,000 Europeans inhabited the English Colonies. Obviously trade was important also to the English, but the majority of them were interested mainly in the land. Indian communities, with their traditions and lifestyle, might have been integrated into the French Empire, but it was difficult to have enough room for them in the British one.
Also the British supplied Indians with plenty of alcohol, especially with New England rum. And from the very beginning, Indians loved rum. The taste was not that pleasant, but it was cheap, relatively easy to transport and very strong. So rum soon became a strategic instrument for settlers to establish profitable trade relations with the natives.
It was always used in the gift-giving ceremonies that started trading or negotiations meetings between the English and Indians. Even though selling rum to the Indians was generally forbidden, the same British officials of ten gave it to them in exchange for commercial advantages or to obtain support in the wars against the French; or to avoid offering their enemies an advantage.
Then, one of the most natural places for rum was during the Toasts, so important in 18th Century’s etiquette. People used to drink to the King, the Queen, the Governor and basically everyone else. Indians immediately adopted this use as an excuse to drink more rum, toasting to everything, including the God of the Whites!
Last, but not least, selling rum was highly profitable. Often white traders used to get the Indians heavily drunk to buy their goods at very low prices, but also in normal conditions the Indians were willing to pay a lot for rum. This is how Peter C. Mancall describes it in his book “Deadly Medicine. Indians and Alcohol in early America”:
“The logic of trade was obvious. The Indians’ demand for durable commodities such as guns and blankets declined over time as they acquired as many of them as they could reasonably use. Their demand for alcohol, by contrast, seemed to be constant. … Thus, alcohol became a highly valued object of trade. … Many colonists, even farmers who traded with Indians to supplement their income, found the alcohol trade extremely profitable. While profits on most trade goods averaged around 100 percent, rum could bring prof its of 400 percent or more, at least in part because virtually all traders watered it first. Most of the rum that traders sold to Indians was one- third water”.
-Article written by Marco Pierini-
My name is Marco Pierini, I was born in 1954 in a little town in Tuscany (Italy) where a still live. I got a degree in Philosophy in Florence and I studied Political Science in Madrid, but my real passion has always been History. And through History I have always tried to know the world, and men. Life brought me to work in tour ism, event organization and vocational training. Then I discovered rum. With Francesco Rufini, I founded La Casa del Rum (The House of Rum),that runs a beach bar and selects and distributes Premium Rums in Italy, www.lacasadelrum.it. And finally I have returned back to my initial passion: History. But now it is the History of Rum. Because Rum is not only a great distillate, it’s a world. Produced in scores of countries, by thousands of companies, with an extraordinary variety of aromas and flavors; it has a terrible and fascinating history, made of slaves and pirates, imperial fleets and revolutions. All this I try to cover in this column, in my FB profile, www.facebook/marco.pierini.3 and in my articles on the Italian webpage www.bartender.it .