I am a new subscriber to the group.  As a Ph.D candidate at the
University of Alberta whose interest in alcohol was aroused by my reading
of primary fur trade sources, I find myself pursuing a complex subject
while operating in a world of my own making since very few individuals
here seem to understand the intricate vein I'm determined to mine.
 
        This posting is a direct result of Melissa Raven's plea for
information and the subsequent responses to her query.  But, it is
prompted by the suggestion of a member of my committee, Dr. Patricia
Prestwich, who brought the correspondence to my attention and who insisted
that I should contribute my piece to the discussion.
 
        For whatever it is worth, here is a synopsis of what I'm doing.
Hopefully it will not prompt too many disagreements but, more
particularly, I will welcome any suggestions on anything that may help me
to make my work relevant and lasting.
 
        My dissertation seeks to uncover details of when, where, how, and
why West Indian rum became important to European traders who made their
living in the Canadian Fur Trade.  Tentatively entitled _West Indian Rum
in the Canadian Fur Trade: 1670-1850_, the subject will be divided into
two parts -- the formative pre-1760s when West Indian rum was not
important to the trade in furs and the expansive post-Conquest period when
it became integral to that trade.
        During the pre-Conquest period, three colonial mercantilist
trading traditions are distinguishable -- the French (New France), the
Dutch (New Amsterdam) and the British (Hudson's Bay Company).  A
considerable body of pre-Conquest and American literature delineates the
social norms under which traders from these three traditions provided
alcohol to Canadian native peoples but, historians have not integrated
this vast body of literature.  The primary purpose of the dissertation,
therefore, is to attempt a synthesis which will clearly distinguish
between the different types of alcohol traded under these three colonial
trading systems.  This synthesis will explore a much broader path than
that available in current Canadian fur trade literature; instead of
limiting the discussion to the Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay
Company experiences, it will anchor the discussion in the larger colonial
social context.
        I will argue that, during the post-Conquest period, the New France
and Hudson's Bay traditions were quickly replaced by Dutch mercantilism,
as implemented by the founders of the Northwest Company and the American
Fur Trade Company.  These two companies were shaped by New World, not
European, economic realities; the multicultural Middle colonists who
formed and built them were conditioned by that two hundred year old
trading culture which was first implemented by Dutch traders throughout
the New World colonies.  The primary ingredient of that frontier as it had
expanded westward from the Caribbean was unrestricted freedom of trade in
a variety of "products" such as salt, fish, furs, slaves, and timber.  The
1759/60 Conquest of New France gave these New World traders an ideal
opportunity to extend their trading culture northward and westward.
        After the Conquest, while Britain and France battled to settle the
monopoly over West Indian sugar, these traders persisted in their
variegated interests and managed to pull together members of the English
West India Faction, their island dependents, and French West Indian
planters in a new enterprise.  As war continued between the two imperial
giants, this disparate group claimed the market for West Indian molasses,
a by-product of sugar production and a necessary ingredient for producing
rum.  Throughout the Middle and New England colonies, enterprising traders
soon became industrial leaders, by launching an industry for producing
greater quantities of rum.  The product would soon bring social havoc to
their societies but it would also become the foremost staple of exchange
for Indian furs.  By the 1780s, based on easy access to West Indian rum,
New World traders were able to pursue the fur trade far more aggressively
than previously.  Thereafter, they would influence native communities to
an extent not experienced during the pre-Conquest period.
 
Anatol Scott
Department of History and Classics
University of Alberta.