Anatol:
 
In the West Central African case, the role of rum in the
acquisition of slaves was indeed primordial. That is why it was
first introduced in the mid 1600s. Rum thereafter came to play a
number of other roles throughout the region, many of which were
designed to foster slave trading. If you don't recognize this
centrality, then the rum trade in West Central Africa makes
little sense.
 
But it is also true that rum also played a number of subsidiary
roles. And these must also be taken into account if we are
to arrive at an understanding of how foreign intoxicants
changed the alcohol consumption patterns of West Central
Africans.
 
Only when you put all of this together can you start to "discern
aspects of control, hierarchy, and social formation." In the
specific case of western Africa, rum has been depicted in the
historiography as used solely in slave trading roles. Yet it was
also used in the form of "wages" paid to African workers, to
assist the process of prosetilyzation, to foster diplomatic
relations, to provide colonial governments with badly needed
revenues, etc. It was through ALL of these roles that rum (and
other fortified foreign intoxicants) became insinuated into West
Central African social formations during the era of the
Atlantic Slave Trade.
 
Jose
 
PS. I fail to see where any of this is based on "morality and
blame."
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jose C. Curto
Co-editor, Newsletter of CAAS
Center for Society, Technology and Development
McGill University
2020 University, suite 2400
Montreal, Qc.   CANADA  H3A 2A5
Phone: (514) 398-3070       Fax:   (514) 398-4619
Email: [log in to unmask]