Americana Ebrietatis / The Favorite Tipple of our Forefathers and the Laws and Customs Relating Thereto

by Hewson L. Peeke

Another writer says:

"The gentleman of fortune rises about nine o'clock. He may perhaps make an excursion to his stables to see his horses, which is seldom more than fifty yards from his house; he returns to breakfast between nine and ten, which is generally tea or coffee, bread and butter and very thin slices of venison, ham, or hung beef. He then lies down on a pallet on the floor in the coolest room in the house in his shirt and trousers only, with a negro at his head and another at his feet to fan him and keep off the flies; between twelve and one he takes a bombo or toddy, a liquor compounded of water, sugar, rum, and nutmeg, which is made weak and kept cool; he dines between two and three, and at every meal, whatever else there may be, a ham and greens or cabbage is always a standing dish. At dinner he drinks cider, toddy, punch, port, claret, and Madeira, which is generally excellent here; having drank some few glasses of wine after dinner he returns to his pallet, with his two blacks to fan him, and continues to drink toddy or sangaree all the afternoon. Between nine and ten in the evening he eats a light supper of milk, fruit, etc., and almost invariably retires to bed for the night. This is his general way of living in his family when he has no company. No doubt many differ from it, some in one respect and some in another, but more follow it than do not. Pewter cups and mugs were everywhere to be seen and now and then a drinking horn. There were in the house for the purposes of drinking a variety of receptacles, such as the tumbler, the mug, the cup, the flagon, the tankard, and the beaker. The cups were known by a number of names, such as the lignum vitæ, the syllabub, the sack, and the dram. Many planters in moderate circumstances were in possession of a quantity of silver plate."

MacMasters says of the Southern planter: "Numerous slaves and white servants attended them in every capacity that use or ostentation could suggest. On their tables were to be found the luxuries of the Old World and the New, and chief among these stood Madeira and rum. That the men of that generation drank more deeply than the men of this is not to be doubted." Another writer says: "The Maryland gentry ordered champagne from Europe by the cask and Madeira by the pipe and dressed in the latest fashion."

Betting and gambling were with drunkenness and a passion for duelling and running in debt the chief sins of the South Carolina gentleman.

The Indian Tribes

When Gladwyn wrote to Amherst, "If your Excellency still intends to punish the Indians farther for their barbarities it may easily be done without any expense to the crown by permitting a free sale of rum which will destroy them more effectually than fire and sword," he indicated the policy toward the Indian tribes which has been steadily pursued by all civilized nations on the American continent except the French. Irving, in his Knickerbocker's History of New York, has stated the truth on this, as he often does on other matters: "Our benevolent forefathers endeavored as much as possible to ameliorate their situation by giving them gin, wine and glass beads in exchange for their peltries, for it seemed the kind-hearted Dutchmen had conceived a great friendship for their savage neighbors; on account of their being pleasant men to trade with, and little skilled in the art of making a bargain." There is extant a letter of Ebenezer Hazard to Silas Deane of date February 25, 1775, in which Hazard says: "I am told the Committee appointed by the House to state the grievances of this Colony, though mostly Tories, have included all those complained of by Congress and mentioned some new ones, particularly the destruction of the Indian Trade by the Quebec Duty Act. You know that trade cannot be carried on without rum. By the Quebec Duty Act no rum may be sold in the Province but what is entered and the duty paid at Quebec or on Lake Champlain. The Virginians, etc., cannot afford to carry their rum to these places to be entered, and consequently can have no trade. This I am very credibly informed is one of the grievances they have enumerated."

There were but few storekeepers in Virginia in early days who were not engaged in the Indian trade. Guns, ammunition, rum, blankets, knives, and hatchets were the articles in greatest demand among the tribes. When in the ordinary course of events a young American in Virginia or elsewhere felt himself impelled to leave the paternal roof he put aside his gun and fishing rod, and asked of his father some money, a slave, and a canoe. His brow grew thoughtful, and he adopted a pipe. With his money he purchased beads, trinkets, blankets, guns, powder, not forgetting for various reasons a supply of rum. With these he purposed laying the foundation of his fortunes as an Indian trader. If the trader had several servants with him or was associated with other traders he would fix his quarters in some large Indian town and send his subordinates to the surrounding villages, with a suitable supply of blankets, guns, hatchets, liquor, tobacco, etc. This wild traffic was liable to every species of disorder, a fruitful source of broils, robberies, and murders. The fur traders were a class of men held in contempt among the Iroquois and known among them by the significant title of Rum Carriers. The white trappers seem to have been as dissipated as the Indians. One writer declares that most of the Canadians drink so much brandy in the morning that they are unfit for work all day. Another says that when a canoe man is tired he will lift a keg of brandy to his lips and drink the raw liquor from the bung-hole, after which, having spoiled his appetite, he goes to bed supperless, so with drink and hardship he is an old man at forty. The type of French trapper left in the old Northwest may still be seen far north in the great fur land; he is idle, devoted to singing, dancing, gossip, and drinking to intoxication; having vanity as his besetting sin. The Jesuits denounced the traffic. Their case was a strong one, but so was the case of their opponents. There was a real and imminent danger that the thirsty savages, if refused brandy by the French, would seek it from the Dutch and English of New York. It was the most potent lure and the most killing bait. Wherever it was found, there the Indians and their beaver skins were sure to go, and the interests of the fur trade, vital to the colony, were bound to go with it. Cadillac was especially incensed against the Jesuits on account of their opposition to the sale of spirits. So strong was their hostility that Louis XIV, in 1694, referred to the Sorbonne for decision the question of allowing French brandy to be shipped to Michilimackinac. The decision of the Council gave to the Northwest its first prohibitory law; and the commandant was not more willing to enforce the order than his successors have been to carry out similar laws. "A drink of brandy after the repast," he maintained, "seems necessary to cook the bilious meats and the crudities which they leave in the stomach." Again, at Detroit, Cadillac quotes from a sermon by Father Carhail, whose wing he was engaged in plucking. The Jesuit had maintained that there was "no power, either human or divine, which can permit the sale of this drink." Hence, you perceive, argues the crafty commandant, "that this Father passes boldly on all matters of state, and will not even submit to the decision of the pope." The question was indeed a hard one for Cadillac. He understood clearly that unless he had liquor to sell to the savages he might as well abandon his post; for the Indians would go straight to the English at Albany where goods were cheap and rum was unlimited. To give up Detroit never entered Cadillac's plan. He therefore chose the middle course. Instead of prohibition he would have high license. In the restrictions which he threw about the traffic in liquors he was both honest and earnest; and, as events proved, he was far in advance of his times. In the report of M. d'Aigrement, who inspected Detroit in 1708, it is mentioned as one of the grievances of the savages against Cadillac that "in order to prevent disturbances which would arise from the excessive use of brandy, he caused it all to be put into the store-house and sold it at the rate of twenty francs a quart. Those who will have brandy, French as well as Indians, are obliged to go to the store-house to drink, and each can obtain at one time only the twenty-fourth part of a quart. It is certain that the savages cannot become intoxicated on that quantity. The price is high, and as they cannot get brandy only each in his turn, it sometimes happens that the savages are obliged to return home without a taste of this beverage, and they seem ready to kill themselves with disappointment. Though the Jesuits refused absolution to all who sold brandy to the Indians, they sold it themselves. LaSalle had detected them in it." Count Frontenac declares that "The Jesuits greatly exaggerate the disorders caused by brandy and they easily convince persons who do not know the interested motives which have led them to harp continually on this string for more than forty years.... They have long wished to have the fur trade entirely to themselves." Appeal was made to the King, who with his Jesuit confessor, guardian of his conscience, on the one side, and Colbert, guardian of his worldly interests, on the other, stood in some perplexity. The case was referred to the fathers of the Sorbonne and they pronounced the selling of brandy to the Indians a mortal sin. It was next referred to the chief merchants and inhabitants of Canada. Each was directed to write his views. The great majority were for unrestricted trade in brandy, a few for limited and guarded trade, and two or three declared for prohibition. Decrees of prohibition were passed from time to time, but they were unavailing. The King was never at heart a prohibitionist. His Canadian revenue was drawn from the fur trade, and the singular argument of the partisans of brandy, that its attractions were needed to keep the Indians from contact with heresy, served admirably to salve his conscience. The Dutch and English being the heretics, he distrusted the Bishop of Quebec, the great champion of the anti-liquor movement. He wrote to Saint Vallier, Laval's successor in the bishopric, that the brandy trade was very useful to the kingdom of France, that it should be regulated, not prevented, that consciences must not be disturbed by denunciations of it as a sin, that the zeal of the ecclesiastics might be affected by personal interests and passions.

From the time, in 1620, when Samoset and Tisquantum brought Massasoit to Plymouth to drink strong waters with the Puritans, liquor played a steady part in all negotiations between the white men and the red men. When Hamor went to visit Powhattan he was received with royal courtesy, "bread was brought in in two great wooden bowls, the quantity of a bushel of sod bread, made up round, of the bygnesse of a tenise-ball, whereof we ate some few." After this repast Hamor and his comrades were regaled with "a great glasse of sacke" and then ushered into the wigwam for the night. From this time on at all Indian negotiations a large percentage of the Indians expected rum or whiskey to be produced.

No other cause has been as prolific of Indian wars as the liquor traffic.