From: Rod Phillips, History, Carleton University, Ottawa
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Regarding Robin Room's query on Jefferson's policies on alcohol and
Indians, and the suggestion in a recent review that Jefferson advocated
using alcohol to destroy the Indian population:

The policies attributed to Jefferson the review are at odds with those
reported by William Unrau in  _White Man's Wicked Water_ (University of
Kansas Press, 1996).  On p. 17 Unrau quotes a speech by an Indian leader
pleading for Jefferson to help stop the flow of alcohol that was
devastatinng his people. Unrau suggests that this plea influenced
Jefferson's policies and that he decried the effects of alcohol on the
"morals, health, and existence" of Indians.

Jefferson recommended that Congress should consider prohibiting the
availability of "ardent spirits" to Indians, and Unrau describes this as
breaking new ground because no previous legislation dealing with the Indian
trade covered alcohol.  The Act that emerged from Congress did not provide
for prohibition, however, although it gave the President power to limit the
distribution of spirits to Indians.

Clearly there was no determined effort to restrict the alcohol trade to
Indians, but Unrau's research (and there's more on Jefferson in this book)
certainly does not suggest that Jefferson wanted to use alcohol to
eliminate Indians. It would indeed be interesting to know the basis for
the statement.

Rod Phillips

Roderick Phillips
Editor, Journal of Family History/
Professor, Department of History
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Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6
Tel: (613) 520-2600 ext 2824; fax: (613) 520-2819
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