http://www.urc.ukans.edu/News/OreadAug25/page4/mancall.html fyi: > Book documents early history of Indians and alcohol > > Alcohol abuse has killed and impoverished American Indians since the > 17th century, when European settlers began trading rum for furs," > Peter Cooper Mancall, a KU historian, writes in his new book, Deadly > Medicine: Indians and Alcohol in Early America. > > Cornell University Press, Mancall's publisher, says this is the > first book to probe the origins of a social crisis among Indian > people that continues today. Deaths related to alcohol are four > times higher for Indians than for the general population, Mancall > said. > > Mancall explores why Indians participated in the alcohol trade and > why they experienced a powerful desire for alcohol. He discusses > current medical views on alcoholism and re-examines the colonial era > as a time when Indians were forming new survival strategies in a > world that had been radically changed. > > He concentrates on the years from 1650, "when the rum trade began in > earnest, to the early 1770s, when the American Revolution disrupted > the colonial economy." > > Acknowledging that many Indians today claim Indians and non-Indians > have innately different responses to alcohol, Mancall writes, > "clinical studies have found no identifiable genetic trait that > leads American Indians to abusive drinking." > > Colonists probably drank more - seven shots a day of 80-proof rum > for most people over age 15 - and more frequently than Indians, > Mancall says. And they encouraged trading liquor to Indians despite > some awareness that drinking was devastating the social and economic > order of Indian communities already ravaged by European diseases. > Drinking binges by Indians during trading often led to violence that > resulted in deaths or led to accidents such as burns from falling > into campfires. > > Yet colonial leaders expanded the liquor trade to nearly every > Indian community from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, according to > Mancall. Indian leaders in some communities responded by creating > "one of the most important temperance movements in American > history." Mancall particularly notes temperance efforts of the > Iroquois, Shawnees, Delawares, Miamis, Choctaws, Catawbas, > Nanticokes, Piscataways, Creeks, Mingoes and Conoys. Further, not > all Indians liked alcohol. A 1767 journal entry by a European > traveling along the Mississippi noted that the Naudowessie (Sioux) > "absolutely refused to drink alcohol." Other Indians used alcohol > ritually, particularly in mourning ceremonies. > > Some Indians adopted European drinking customs, including offering > alcohol as a hospitality gesture. Powhatan, for example, apparently > saved alcohol for such occasions. A colonist wrote that Powhatan > "caused to be fetched a great glasse of sacke, some three quarts or > better, which Captain Newport had given him five or seaven yeeres > since, ... not much above a pint in all this time spent, and gave > each of us in a great oister shell some three spoonefuls" before he > directed other Indians to provide lodgings for their visitors. > Indian temperance efforts were powerless to halt the liquor trade, > however. "The peculiar vice of Europeans had become a fixture in > Indian country, deadly medicine that remained to poison relations > between the peoples of North America," Mancall says. > > Deadly Medicine has been praised by Michael Dorris, author of The > Broken Cord: A Family's Ongoing Struggle with Fetal Alcohol > Syndrome. Dorris said: "Deadly Medicine is an important work of > scholarship, with powerful, concise and objective insights into the > complicated history of alcohol use among Native American peoples. > ... Mancall's book is both an eye-opener for the lay reader and an > invaluable resource for the expert." > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > Back to KU University Relations' Home Page | Back to KU News | Back > to August 25 Oread