Governor Blacksnake Quotes
But who is it that has made my people drunk? Indians cannot make whiskey. Indians do not sell it. But white people make it and bring it among us. It is they that have brought the evil upon us and we cannot remove it. The white people can remove it and now we call upon them to do it. We ask them to take their whiskey and run away, and leave us sober as they found us.
Black Snake, ~1760-1859, Tah-won-ne-ahs -- Chainbreaker, Seneca War Chief, Quoted in E. Cherrington, 1920, The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States, Statement to white officials
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
At the time, the traders were mostly French who traded all kinds of goods and especially alcohol—usually rum—for fur animal pelts. Many of the Indians were partial to the French and French oriented traders who did not covet their land and would provide the Indians with alcohol and guns, lead and powder while English traders sometimes tried to restrict these items. Many tribes of American Indians are genetically very susceptible to alcohol—both in terms of immediate impairment—getting drunk and in developing a dependency on having alcohol—addiction or alcoholism.
From the earliest days of the nation, alcohol has been a competitor for the resources and time of people, especially native Americans many of whom have a genetic predisposition to the deleterious effect of alcohol.
American Indians not only had no culture of alcohol and drinking in moderation, but most Native Americans have a genetic susceptibility to alcoholism.
The English had sent a cask of rum as a “token of friendship” It was returned
The great poet was trying to get a job with the BBC and Nicholson was to be his boss.
Alcoholism is a disease that has affected people of every occupation, every socioeconomic class, every color and nationality, and we all have seen instances so often that most people realize that anyone might be addicted to alcohol. The result is any accusation that someone is an alcoholic is plausible to most of us. As a result of this, it has become a favorite untrue slander in political attacks. Even when false it is believable as in the earlier decades of America, drinking heavily was a part of political culture and many would become addicted.
He was describing the way that the Colonial America, Native American communities coped with the adverse consequence of violence brought about by liquor which had been given to the Indians by white traders for the purpose of impairing the Indians’ judgment so that they would trade more easily and on better terms. Since then and into the 21st century, business people have entertained’ potential customers with alcohol for the same general purposes.
Tah-won-ne-ahs or Thaonawyuthe (born before 1760, died December 26, 1859), known in English as either Chainbreaker to his own people or Governor Blacksnake to the European settlers, was a Seneca war chief and sachem. Along with other Iroquois war chiefs (most notably Mohawk leader Joseph Brant), he led warriors to fight on the side of the British during the American Revolutionary War from 1777 to 1783. He was prominent for his role at the Battle of Oriskany, in which the Loyalist and allied forces ambushed a force of Patriots. After the war, he supported his maternal uncle, Handsome Lake, as a prominent religious leader. Chainbreaker allied with the United States in the War of 1812 and later encouraged some accommodation to European-American settlers, allowing missionaries and teachers on the Seneca reservation.
