Native American temperance activists
Initially, these activists resisted the use of rum and brandy as trade items during the colonial era, in an effort to protect Native Americans from cultural changes they viewed as destructive.
Others led revitalization movements to restore Native American dignity by reverting to traditional customs and ceremonies or attempted to establish alcohol-free communities.
[2] Modern-day addiction specialists integrate the psychology of substance abuse treatment with traditional rituals and symbolism and with community rehabilitation to reduce stressors and help recovering alcoholics maintain a healthy lifestyle.
[3] Among the first Native American leaders to launch an organized protest to the distribution of alcohol in indigenous communities was Peter Chartier (1690-1759), a French-Canadian-Shawnee who became chief of the Pekowi Turtle Clan.
On 20 March 1738, he and 98 other Shawnee elders, including Neucheconeh, sent a letter addressed to Thomas Penn and Acting Governor James Logan, stating: We would be glad if our brothers would send strict orders that we might prevent the rum coming to the hunting cabins or to the neighboring towns.
[7][8][9]In response to Hagler's complaints, regulations adopted at the Augusta Conference of 1767 attempted to limit the amount of alcohol brought into Native American communities: "Any Trader who by himself, substitute, or servant, shall carry more than fifteen Gallons of Rum, at any one time, into any nation of Indians...shall forfeit his bond and license.
"[12] On 2 September 1772 the Mohegan missionary Samson Occom (1723 – 1792) was asked to preach a sermon at the hanging of Moses Paul, a Native American who had been convicted of murder during a drunken rampage.
Occom's sermon, later published as "A Sermon, Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian; Who Was Executed at New Haven, on the Second of September, 1772; For the Murder of Mr. Moses Cook, Late of Waterbury, on the 7th of December, 1771," ended with a lengthy speech to Native Americans about the sins of drunkenness: When we are intoxicated with strong drink we drown our rational powers, by which we are distinguished from the brutal creation--we unman ourselves, and bring ourselves not only level with the beasts of the field, but seven degrees beneath them...How many [drunkards] have been drowned in our rivers, and how many frozen to death in the winter season!
On 14 January 1802 he delivered a speech to President Thomas Jefferson and members of the US Senate: Father, nothing can be done to advantage unless the Great Council of the Sixteen Fires, now assembled, will prohibit any person from selling spirituous liquors among their red brothers.
[15]On 27 January 1802 Jefferson said in an address to Congress: These people are becoming very sensible of the baneful effects produced on their morals, their health, and existence by the abuse of ardent spirits, and some of them earnestly desire a prohibition of that article from being carried among them.
[18] In 1799, after a period of illness due to many years of alcoholism, the Seneca leader Handsome Lake (1735 – 1815) had visions that made him feel obligated to learn the English language and preserve the lands traditionally occupied by Native Americans.
[24][25] Yonaguska, with the help of his adopted son (William Holland Thomas, an attorney), drew up a temperance declaration in 1830 stating "The undersigned Cherokees, belonging to the town of Qualla, agree to abandon the use of spirituous liquors," and urged members of his community to sign it.
Facing starvation and incessant conflicts with white settlers, in 1808 Tenskwatawa and his older brother Tecumseh founded an alcohol-free community near present-day Lafayette, Indiana called Prophetstown.
[36] Although influenced by Christian teachings, Kennekuk's message contained an implicit ethnic nationalism which merged with, rather than contradicted, traditional Kickapoo beliefs.
Between 1833 and 1852 he urged his followers to resist efforts by Indian agents and missionaries to force his people to accept Christianity and standardized schooling, and to oppose the forcible division of tribal lands into individual allotments.
[37] The Ojibwa newspaper editor George Copway (1818 – 1869) used his 1851 publication The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of The Ojibway Nation to describe how alcohol was one of many tools used by whites to weaken Native American social fabric: The introduction of spirituous liquors...has been greater than all other evils combined.
[42] By the early twentieth century an ethical code known as the 'Peyote Road' had developed in the religion, emphasizing brotherly love, honesty, marital fidelity, hard work and economic self-reliance, trustworthiness, family responsibility, and strict avoidance of alcohol.
[43] The Indian Shaker Church, founded by the Squaxin Island prophet John Slocum (1838 – 1897) after he had a vision in 1881, is a syncretic combination of Native American, Catholic and Protestant belief systems that requires its members to abstain from alcohol.
