Indians, Alcohol, and the Roads to Taos and Santa Fe by William E. Unrau

Author:William E. Unrau [Unrau, William E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: History, Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, United States, 19th Century, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, American, Native American Studies
ISBN: 9780700619146
Google: rkiyNAEACAAJ
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2013-01-15T04:09:08+00:00

“Prairie Schooners.” Illustration of an overland wagon train, in B. Kroupa An Artist’s Tour: Gleamings and Impressions of Travels in North and Central America and the Sandwich Islands (London: Ward and Downey, 1890), courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collections.

An especially dismal summary was a report from Superintendent David D. Mitchell to the Indian commissioner in 1843. Because the whiskey dealers were never found around the “poorer” (i.e., nonannuity) tribes, wrote Mitchell, more benevolent policy should be directed toward the payment of annuities in the form of merchandise that were attendant to individual Indians needs, not that of tribal leaders. Angrily, Mitchell castigated the “worthless characters” who were marrying Indian women with “the sole view of getting distributive shares [of the annuity fund].” The only interest of these detestable mortals was to keep the whiskey flowing, “which caused death among the tribes and a consequent increase in the annuity share of each member.”27

In this context it is important to remember that Indian people in the upper Arkansas country were unable to partake in the annuities-for-alcohol system monetarily until 1851, when the Treaty of Fort Laramie inaugurated the distribution of annuities to several of the Plains tribes, including the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and to the Kiowas, Comanches, and Plains Apaches at Fort Atkinson after 1853.28 In the meantime, individual outlets for alcohol cropped up along the roads to Taos and Santa Fe. “Traveling groceries,” as the business operations of many itinerant alcohol traders were called, became the source of frequent complaints by Indian agents and the military. A report from the Fort Leavenworth Agency in 1847 recounted how “retailers of [spirituous] liquors on the road” were banding with established caravans heading from western Missouri to the upper Arkansas to gain 100 or more safe miles into Indian Country.29 This happened in the summer of 1846 near Plumb Creek, a few miles west of the Great Bend of the Arkansas. Here a detachment of Missouri volunteers heading for Santa Fe encountered a trader who sold them whiskey at exorbitant prices, “$1 per pint for 18 cents whiskey.”30

Strong competition for the traveling groceries were the so-called stops or stations along the road between Westport and the mouth of Pawnee Fork, a landmark creek emptying into the Arkansas some 20 miles southwest of Great Bend. At 110 Mile Crossing, a day’s journey from Westport and not far from the Sac and Fox reservation, was a stop operated by Fry McGee of the prominent James Hyatt McGee family of Westport—one of the most notorious alcohol dealers in Indian Country. At Lost Springs, on the overland road 100 miles west of McGee’s, was a combination hotel and tavern where, on one occasion, the proprietor Thomas Wise was trapped on the roof of his establishment for half a day by unidentified Indians who demanded whiskey. A day’s travel farther west to Cottonwood Crossing, “Red Jacket Bitters, Hostetters, Ginger Brandy, cognac, sweet wine, and whiskey galore” were available for anyone (including Indians) with cash or market-quality trade goods.

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