ONEOFMANYFEATHERS'
Indian Alcohol
Alcohol was used by the fur traders to acquire the Indians fur, and indirectly by the federal government to take the Indians territory. Despite opposing the sale of liquor to Indians, the federal government wanted to control the Indian fur trade as a means of “civilizing” the Indians in order to acquire their lands.
Congress passed four Trade and Intercourse Acts pertaining to Indian affairs and commerce between 1790 and 1799 (see. Reader Response ). Under this act, the “Factory System” was established in 1791. The government believed if trade goods were provided at a fair price it would keep the Indian villages close to the factory posts, and eventually lead to the Indians assimilation into the white man culture.
President Jefferson (1801 - 1809) attempted to regulate the Indian trade within the Factory System. He believed the Indian culture and the American culture were incompatible, but that Indians had the oratory skills and family values to climb the ladder of cultural evolution. Indians could be incorporated into the young republic, but not in the hunter-gather state. As long as Indians had hunting grounds, they could not be civilized. His belief was that the tribes not accepting the white man’s civilization should be moved west of the Mississippi. He regarded this as a temporary solution, and that eventually, the Indians must adapt to the American way or be eradicated. President Jefferson’s new republic with liberty and equality for all did not apply to the Plains Indians. The creation of the new republic sealed the fate of the Indians as roving hunters (Wallace).
Jefferson’s Indian Policy centered around extinction of the savage way of life, assimilating the surviving Indians into the white economy, and the purchase of Indian hunting grounds for white settlements. His policy had three basic steps for acquiring Indian land. (1) If necessary bribe influential chiefs to sign treaties, and if that failed any chief would do. (2) Establish posts for protection against other tribes in exchange for land. (3) To use cessation of trade, and/or declaration of war, to force Indians into giving up their hunting grounds.
During his presidency, Thomas Jefferson acquired close to 200,000 square miles of land primarily along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. This isolated the eastern tribes between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains making them easier to dominate. The land cessation treaties also allowed for roads running east and west to pass through Indian lands (Wallace).
The only factory post established west of the Mississippi was built in 1808 on the Missouri River fifty miles below the mouth of the Kansas River. William Clark built Fort Osage (Fort Clark, and after 1828 Fort Leavenworth). The fort was established to check boats for illegal whiskey, as well as, placate the Osage. Clark promised the Osage that the “Great White Father” would build a fort to protect them from the Sioux, provide the Osage people with annual annuities, and to establish a nearby trading post for their trade. For this, the Osage relinquished territorial claims east of a line running from Fort Osage to the Arkansas River. The land given up by the Osage Indians amounted to fifty thousand square miles along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.
Outlawing the sale of liquor while granting licenses to private traders doomed the Factory System from the start. The federal trading license allowed the traders to take liquor with them for use by the boatmen. The factory posts could not compete with traders that illegally, or legally, took alcohol to the Indians. Traders were allowed to take some alcohol for their own use. The government run Factory System was abolished in 1822, but the laws making it illegal to sell alcohol to the Indians was still on the books.
By enlarge the federal government tried to implement a fair policy towards the Indian Nations, but the government departments were staffed with too many incompetent bureaucrats and people, including some military leaders, that hated Indians. Any federal Indian Policy that dealt fairly with the Indian tribes had little chance for success. In addition to this, there was too much money involved in the whiskey trade to stop it. With the use of liquor, American traders reaped huge profits, and they needed it to compete with the Hudson's Bay and North West traders for the Indian fur and hide trade in the areas of the Canadian boarder. Canada had no restriction on the sale of alcohol to Indians, however, Hudson’s Bay and the North West Company officials realizing the dangers involved...intoxicated Indians hanging around the posts did bring in furs...made their traders use it in a responsible manner.
The Missouri River boats were stopped at Fort Osage for inspection, but this did little to stop the flow of liquor into the Indian country. If the boats carried more alcohol than they were legally allowed, some traders sneaked by the fort late at night and unloaded the excess liquor then floated back downriver. Other traders unloaded across the river and packed the illegal whiskey above the fort.
In 1824, William Ashley abandoned the Missouri River route and sent his trade caravans overland to the Rocky Mountains. It was virtually impossible to inspect the overland parties. Small parties went without being licensed, and those with a license were allowed to take liquor for their boatmen. In the spring of 1832, William Sublette renewed his annual license. He was allowed to take four hundred and fifty gallons of whiskey, but was compelled to post a bond not to sell whiskey to the Indians. That year Sublette went overland to the Pierre’s Hole rendezvous without the use of a single boatman (Chittenden).
The liquor used in the Indian trade was in most cases transported to the Indian country in the form of alcohol. Once there it could be cut two or three times with water and still produce the desired effect. Tobacco, red pepper, black molasses, and anything else the trader could come up with was added to the diluted alcohol to give it a kick. Since it was illegal to sell whiskey to Indians, it was often given away the day before the trading started. By the next morning, Indians gave up their furs clamoring for more whiskey, which by this time was almost straight water with tobacco juice added for color.
In July 1832, Congress passed a law that totally banned alcohol in the Indian country. The American Fur Company, which had been the chief lobbyist against the Factory System, was the most affected by this law. The company’s mode of transportation to and from their posts was by steamboat, and these boats were subject to inspection at Fort Osage.
Afraid the American Fur Company would loose the upper Missouri trade to the Rocky Mountain and Canadian fur traders, Kenneth McKenzie brought the necessary equipment up the Missouri in the spring of 1833 to build a distillery. At the mouth of the Iowa River, he left men to raise corn for his still (Chittenden).
M. S. Cerre´, one of Captain Bonneville’s chief lieutenants, and Nathaniel J. Wyeth visited Fort Union in August of 1833. Proud of how well his new still was working, McKenzie showed it to his visitors. When Wyeth and Cerre´ left, they were outraged at the prices McKenzie charged for his goods and that he would not sell them any of his liquor for their own trade. When the two men reached Fort Leavenworth, they reported the presence of a whiskey still at Fort Union. The still was shut down a year later. The distillery at Fort Union effectively ended the career of the American Fur Company's best field trader, Kenneth McKenzie (Chittenden).
Not all tribes were susceptible to the liquor trade, but for those that were, it reeked havoc. In fairness it should be pointed out that the Indians willingly accepted the traders whisky and soon reach the point they would not trade without it. Still, there is no question, that once the American Indian's inherent weakness for alcohol was known, fur traders and land speculators used alcohol to get their furs and land.
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