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]