Firewater: The Impact of the Whisky Trade on the Blackfoot Nation

by Hugh A. Dempsey

"The whiskey brought among us by the Traders is fast killing us off and we are powerless before the evil...we are unable to pitch anywhere that the Trader cannot follow us."
Chief Crowfoot Between 1870 and 1875, hundreds of Blackfoot Indians died as a result of the whisky trade, either killed in drunken quarrels, shot by whisky traders, frozen to death while drunk, or from the poisonous effects of the whisky itself. Chiefs lost their authority, people traded everything they owned, and entire communities were decimated. At first, alcohol was only available during visits to the Hudson's Bay or North West Company trading posts, but when Montana traders began to pour unlimited supplies of whisky into Blackfoot camps in exchange for buffalo robes, the Blackfoot were swept into a malestrom of alcohol, violence, and death. Historian Hugh Dempsey offers a comprehensive and highly readable look at the people and history of the trade, the impact on Native peoples, and its effect on US-Canada relations. He includes new research and a thoughtful exploration of the events and circumstances that brought a proud people to their knees. "...a wonderfully written, magisterial history...a study of significance and sympathy... "With grace, insight and clarity, Hugh Dempsey once again leads us into a more human, more personal reconsideration of the Blackfoot and that flamboyant, opportunistic transborder world formerly known as 'Whoop-Up Country.'"
William E. Farr, Centre for the Rocky Mountain West, University of Montana "At last we have a history of the Whisky Trade in Southern Alberta from a Canadian perspective."
John L. Tobias, Red Deer College

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2002

About the author

Hugh Aylmer Dempsey is a well known Canadian historian and writer who has authored twelve books and numerous articles. He is an honorary chief of the Blood Tribe and was the chief curator of the Glenbow Museum. Among the many awards he has received for his writing are the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Alberta History and Award of Merit, Local History Section, Canadian Historical Association. He lives in Calgary.

Reviews

[Alberta Views Magazine]

One of the many Canadian communities hit hard by the ongoing fentanyl debacle is Standoff, Alberta, headquarters of the Kainai (Blood) First Nation, where a state of emergency was declared in 2015 to try and get control of the crisis. It is sadly ironic that Standoff should make the news in a story involving Indigenous people’s death and degradation from a substance foreign to their culture. It brings to mind Firewater, Hugh Dempsey’s in-depth look at the effect of a much earlier intoxicant on the Blackfoot people. Standoff, Dempsey explains, was a place name invented in 1871 by a party of American whisky traders. Trading alcohol to the “Indians” was made illegal in the US in 1834, and discontinued by the HBC in Canada by 1862, but there was no law and no law enforcement in the North West Territories until the arrival of the mounted police in 1874.

Review by Sid Marty
Full review at https://albertaviews.ca/firewater/