American colonists drank large amounts of alcohol, in partbecause they did not have much else to drink. Drinking water was tainted with the stigma of poverty, and it could be unhealthy, often carrying refuse and excrement teeming with disease. Those families that had cows reserved the milk to make butter and cheese. In addition, before refrigeration and pasteurization, there was no way to prevent fruit juices from fermenting. Naturally occurring airborne yeast entered any fruit juice and caused fermentation. Coffee was unfamiliar to most colonists until the late 18th century. Tea remained an expensive luxury until tea duties were lowered in 1745. Therefore, when colonists drank, they drank alcohol.

Alcohol was an important part of early modern culture. Colonists drank for religious and secular celebrations, including weddings, births, and funerals. Holidays were commemorated with long rounds of toasts drunk with alcohol. In addition, nearly everyone--including the very young--might use alcohol as medicine, to enhance beauty, and with meals. Men and women of the time believed that alcohol was salubrious. Employers and their workers shared morning toddies and afternoon drinks to cement their relationships. A daily ration of alcohol was the standard practice in the Continental army and for seamen aboard both merchant and military vessels. Extra rations were often handed out before battle or after some emergency. Militia musters usually ended at taverns and with heavy drinking.

During the colonial period, rum produced from molasses and cider from apples were the forms of alcohol available to most people. For this reason, the British believed the Sugar Act (1764) would be an important source of revenue since it taxed imported molasses--a crucial ingredient in producing rum. The Sugar Act also affected the importation of Madeira wine from Portugal--a product that was gaining in popularity in the second half of the 18th century in North America. Wines, however, were favored more by those from the top, rather than the bottom, of society.

In the late 18th century there was a shift in the type of alcohol consumed as whiskey became more popular and more available. European-American settlers who moved west grew corn but needed an efficient way to transport and market their crop. The country's poor roads meant that farmers could not get their corn to market while it was still edible. Western farmers realized that if they distilled their corn into whiskey, they would have a profitable product that would not spoil before it could be sold. This production dropped the price, and levels of consumption increased. In 1791 Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton hoped to take advantage of this development for the national government by having Congress pass an excise tax of 25 percent on all production. Efforts to collect this tax from the many independent producers--farmers often had their own stills--led to complaints and the Whiskey Rebellion (1794). In 1810 Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin estimated that about 15 million gallons of distilled liquor was produced each year, with about 10 million more imported from overseas (at least when shipping was unfettered by embargoes).

Although beer had been produced in the colonies from the earliest days of settlement, overall production per capita decreased in the 18th century. However, it remained an important product. Samuel Adams really was a brewer at one point in his life, and many of the Founding Fathers, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, brewed beer on their own. After independence, beer brewing expanded. In 1810 breweries were so ubiquitous that Gallatin believed that it was impossible to estimate the total production.

Alcohol was an important trade item between European Americans and Native Americans. Unfortunately, many Indians became dependent on alcohol, with devastating effects on their culture. In order to obtain alcohol, Native Americans frequently engaged in overhunting for furs and often made bad bargains with unscrupulous traders. At times Indians would waste an entire season's hunt in an alcoholic binge. Some Native Americans engaged in violent behavior while drunk; others agreed to sell land to European Americans under the influence of alcohol. Many Indian leaders recognized this problem and sought to discourage drinking. A key element of the revitalization movements of spiritual leaders such as Neolin, Handsome Lake, and Tenskwatawa (the Shawnee Prophet) was to prohibit or limit the drinking of alcohol as Native Americans reasserted their traditional cultures in opposition to European Americans.

African Americans had limited access to alcohol under slavery. Some masters would allow slaves to drink during the Christmas holidays; others would not. For the most part, slaves would only have access to alcohol surreptitiously. From the master's point of view, a drunken slave was unproductive and potentially dangerous.

Bibliography:

W. J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).

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