American Rum 11: The “Drunken Indian
According to contemporary sources, the effect of rum, or better of alcohol in general, on Indians was devastating. Missionaries, merchants and crown officials all agree in saying that Indians were in constant seek of rum, and that they used to drink until collapsing. They didn’t drink for the pleasure of doing it, but exclusively to get drunk, and they never stopped drinking until they had finished all the rum they had, no matter how much it was. An Indian could be drunk for many days in a row. And while drunk he became dangerous and at the same time idle, not caring for his family or his work and de facto destroying his community. The settlers’ reaction to this was ambiguous since the beginning: on one side they sold rum in all the ways previously described, on the other the Colonies issued many laws trying to limit or to forbid to trade alcohol with the Indians. Laws that were hardly ever applied. And soon the “Drunken Indian” became one of the typical human types of Early America.
As early as 1675, John Josselyn, in his “Account of two Voyages to New England” writes: “their drink they search from the spring, and were not acquainted with other, untill the FRENCH and ENGLISH traded with that cursed liquor called RUM, RUM - BULLION . Or kill-Devil, which is stronger than spirit of wine, and is drawn from the drofs of Sugar and Sugar canes, this they love dearly, and will part with all they have to their bareskins for it, being perpetually drunk with it, as long as it is to be had, it hath killed many of them ... Thus instead of bringing of them to the knowledge of Christianity, we have taught them to commit the beastly and crying sins of our Nation, for a little profit.”
And a little later, William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, writes in 1683: “Ye Dutch, Sweed, and English have by Brandy and Specially Rum, almost Debauchtye Indians all. When Drunk ye most Wretched of Spectacles. They have been very tractable but Rum is so dear to them”.
About one century later things hadn’t changed. According to the colonists, to get some rum the Indians sold all their furs and their goods: “We furnish them with large Quantities of Rum, make them Drunk, and then defraud them of what they have” writes in 1753 a minister, and in 1758 a British official complains “The Indians in general are so devoted to & so debauched by Rum that all Business with them is thrown into confusion …the Indians selling the necessary they receive from the Crown thro me for Rum”.
But the source that best sums up the settlers’ thoughts about Indian drinking is, as usual, Benjamin Franklin, who in a much quoted passage of his Autobiography says:
“A treaty being to be held with the Indians at Carlisle, the governor sent a message to the House, proposing that they should nominate some of their members, to be join’d with some members of the council, as commissioner for that purpose. The House named the speaker (Mr. Norris) and myself; and, being commission’d, we went to Carlisle, and met the Indians accordingly. As those people are extremely apt to get drunk, and, when so, are very quarrelsome and disorderly, we strictly forbad the selling any liquor to them; and when they complain’d of this restriction, we told them that if they would continue sober during the treaty, we would give them plenty of rum when business was over. They promis’d this, and they kept their promise, because they could get no liquor, and the treaty was conducted very orderly, and concluded to mutual satisfaction.
They then claim’d and receiv’d the rum; this was in the afternoon; they were near one hundred men, women, and children, and were lodg’d in temporary cabins, built in the form of a square, just without the town. In the evening, heairng a great noise among them, the commissioners walk’d out to see what was the matter. We found they had made a great bonfire in the middle of the square; they were all drunk, men and women, quarreling and fighting. Their darkcolour’d bodies, half naked, seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire, running after and beating one another with firebrands, accompanied by their horrid yellings, form’d a scene the most resembling our ideas of hell that could well be imagin’d; there was no appeasing the tumult, and we retired to our lodging. At midnight a number of them came thundering at our door, demanding more rum, of which we took no notice. The next day, sensible they had misbehav’d in giving us that disturbance, they sent three of their old counselors to make their apology. The orator acknowledg’d the fault, but laid it upon the rum; and then endeavored to excuse the rum by saying: ‘The Great Spirit, who made all things, made everything for some use, and whatever use he design’d anything for, that use it should always be put to.
Now, when he made rum, he said ‘Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with,’ and it must be so.’ And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the sea-coast.”
Marco Pierini
-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 .