In his latest book, Canada in the Age of Rum, Professor Emeritus Allan Greer examines Canada’s hidden history of “alcoholic capitalism” and how the overconsumption of rum fueled and shaped Canada’s early economy.
According to Greer’s estimates, the average consumption of spirits in the 1700s was about 15 times higher than today’s figures, and cheap rum coming in from New England and the Carribean, was deeply embedded in Canada’s growing economic life.
“In the 18th century, alcohol was considered good for the health and warming to the body: just the thing for people working outdoors in a cold climate,” writes Greer in his Op-Ed in The Conversation.
We spoke to Professor Greer about the research and archival work behind his latest book, how Canada’s staple trades were impacted by the influx of rum and how its trade impated Indigenous communities.
Q: How did the idea for Canada in the Age of Rum come about? What inspired this line of inquiry into Canada’s history?
AG: I spent decades rummaging around the archives of early Canadian history looking for one thing or another - and I kept seeing references to rum out of the corner of my eye. Eventually, I decided to examine the topic more systematically. Having found rum in the context of the fur trade and the grain trade, I looked for it in the records of the Atlantic cod fishery, and sure enough, it was everywhere. So it was just a matter of digging a bit and then connecting the dots.
Q: What kind of archival work and research did you undertake for this book? What were some surprising or interesting tidbits of history that you discovered throughout your research?
AG: A lot of this material is now online, but I had to travel to London to track down customs records on rum imports and to Ottawa to get into the correspondence of the naval governors of Newfoundland. Fur trade records are plentiful in the McGill Library Special Collections.
One finding that kind of shocked me concerned the sheer volume of rum that was coming into the colonies that now make up eastern Canada. When you divide the imports by the adult population, you get a rate of annual consumption that is about 15 times today's figure for all alcoholic beverages combined.
Q: How was rum used to “regulate labour relations” across various industries like the fur trade and the Atlantic fishery industry during the 17th and 18th centuries? What challenges did it present to workers across various industries?
AG: Men working in the fisheries and the fur trade drank a lot of rum. Wages in these extractive industries were quite high, but they were only paid out at the end of the season or the end of the year. Meanwhile, employers plied their crews with rum and charged five times the retail value of the alcohol against their accounts. It was a device to claw back salaries, and it worked like magic. By the end of their contract period, most men were financially underwater, and many were forced to sign on for another term. Fishermen and voyageurs laboured intensely for long hours in dangerous working conditions and in periods of downtime, they often drank. Their bosses were perfectly happy to watch them descend into roaring drunkenness as it saved them money. Rum kept these businesses profitable: you could call this alcoholic capitalism.
Q: Rum was also used in trade protocols between Indigenous leaders and representatives of trading companies like the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company. How did Indigenous leaders and communities incorporate rum into their social and ceremonial practices? What kind of resistance did some Indigenous leaders have to rum’s prevalence in their communities?
AG: Fur traders used rum to establish and nurture commercial connections with Indigenous societies. Liquor was rarely sold; rather it was gifted. Drinks were given as a reward for paying off debts and generally as an incentive to conform to the unfamiliar norms of capitalism. Many Indigenous hunters valued the mind-altering experience of inebriation, but few became addicted since rum was only available a few times a year. Still, drunken sprees could be destructive as lowered inhibitions often led to violent behaviour. In time, several Indigenous societies reacted against the harmful effects of alcohol, taking collective action to put a stop to the trade in rum. At Kanesatake, on the Ottawa River, for example, a force of young men was appointed to search incoming canoes, arrest rum traders and escort them back to Montreal.
Q: How did the age of rum come to an end, and how did it impact the social and commercial fabric of Canadian and Indigenous societies and industries?
AG: Rum drinking declined around the year 1830, earlier in some areas, later in others. The change was partly due to the rise of whisky distilling in Upper Canada, which introduced an even cheaper liquor to that province. Around the same time, the temperance movement was campaigning, with some success, to persuade people to shun alcohol altogether. It was part of a larger transition to a modern economy and social order, one in which employers wanted a sober, reliable workforce, rather than a crew of hard-drinking macho men.
Q: How has the book been received amongst your peers and colleagues? What discussions or dialogues are you hoping the book will facilitate going forward?
AG: It's too early to say how professional colleagues will assess the book. I hope they'll take up the challenge to consider the darker side of the "staples trades" that, according to many, laid the economic foundations of modern Canada. Indigenous and settler people paid a heavy price for that resource extraction.
Allan Greer is professor emeritus of History at McGill University and fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Specializing in the early history of Canada in the context of the Americas and the Atlantic World, Greer has published a number of books that have won national and international prizes. He has been awarded residential fellowships at Cambridge University, l'Institut d’études avancées in Paris, the British Library and the John Carter Brown Library. His work benefited from a Guggenheim and a Killam fellowship. Recently he received the Royal Society of Canada's J.B. Tyrell Historical Medal.