Deadly medicine

Description:

Alcohol abuse has killed and impoverished American Indians since the seventeenth century, when European settlers began trading rum for furs. In the first book to probe the origins of this ongoing social crisis, Peter C. Mancall explores the liquor trade's devastating impact on the Indian communities of colonial America. The author follows the trail of rum from the West Indian producers to the colonial distributors and on to the Indian consumers in the eastern woodlands. To discover why Indians participated in the trade and why they experienced such a powerful desire for alcohol, he addresses current medical views on alcoholism and reexamines the colonial era as a time when Indians were forming new strategies for survival in a world that had been radically changed. Finally, Mancall compares Indian drinking in New France and New Spain with that in the British colonies. Forever shattering the stereotype of the drunken Indian, Mancall offers a powerful indictment of English participation in the liquor trade and a new awareness of the trade's tragic cost for the American Indians.

subjects: Alcohol use,  Indians of North America,  History,  Ethnology,  Alcohol,  Industria y comercio,  Alcoholic Beverages,  Consommation d'alcool,  Alkohol,  Indiens d'Amérique,  Histoire,  Alcohol Drinking,  Adverse effects,  Indianer,  Alkoholkonsum,  North American Indians,  Indians of north america, social conditions,  Indians of north america, first contact with europeans,  Alcohol drinking--history,  Alcohol drinking--ethnology,  Indians of north america--alcohol use--history,  Alcoholic beverages--adverse effects,  Indians, north american,  Alcohol drinking--ethnology--united states,  Alcoholic beverages--adverse effects--united states,  Indians, north american--united states,  American indiansalcoholismhistory,  United states,  E98.l7 m28 1995,  1995 h-828,  Wm 274 m268d 1995,  362.29/2/08997