White Man's Wicked Water: The Alcohol Trade and Prohibition in Indian Country, 1802-1892

Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1996. 1st Edition 1st Printing. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Clean, tight, unmarked; very light wear to spine extremes of dust jacket; otherwise absolute minimal wear; Unrau tells the story of how an alcohol-sodden society introduced drink to the Indians. That same society then instituted futile policies to control the flow of alcohol. He dispels the racial-deficiency theory and debunks the belief that prohibition was carried out by well intended reformers. Scholars have often viewed the sale of alcohol to Native Americans to trick them into unfair land and trade deals. But Unrau makes it clear that alcohol consumption by Native Americans was the inevitable consequence of cultural confluence, not of conscious white subversion. Indian inebriation in the 19th century, he shows, essentially mimicked the habits of white Americans who were aspiring to integrate the natives into the cultural mainstream.