Bad Fruits of the Civilized Tree: Alcohol and the Sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation

2. A Struggle for Sovereignty

 A Struggle for Sovereignty At the turn of the nineteenth century, Cherokee society began to experience profound changes. A more sophisticated commercial economy emerged, and tribal government began to centralize and assert its sovereignty. Missionaries and U.S. agents attempted to instill a new value system of selfdiscipline and social reform. All of these changes involved alcohol. Culturally incorporated into the Cherokees’colonial society, alcohol and its consumption in the early nineteenth century began to be enmeshed more thoroughly into the politics of the Cherokee Nation. Alcohol regulation provided the Cherokees a way to assert their nationalism, and the Cherokee Nation and the federal government both manipulated the issue of alcohol to achieve political goals. By prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol only among Indians, the U.S. government insisted that it had jurisdiction over the liquor trade.The Cherokees countered that they had the legal authority to regulate the liquor traffic themselves. As a bone of contention between the Cherokee Nation and the United States, the regulation of alcohol in the s re- flected larger struggles over sovereignty. The United States did not immediately introduce alcohol regulations to Native societies. Intercolonial rivalry had hindered the enforcement of antiliquor laws in Indian coun2  1 a struggle for sovereignty try, and following the American Revolution, the Articles of Confederation failed to grant the federal government authority to establish regulations. When the U.S. government assumed sole responsibility for Indian affairs under the Constitution, however, it acquired the right to pursue Indian policy without the states’ interference. Yet in the first four temporary trade and intercourse acts, U.S. officials did not attempt to prevent the sale of intoxicating liquors among Native people.1 Only in the Jefferson administration did the federal government make its first effort to regulate the liquor trade in Indian territories.In his address to Congress in January , Pres. Thomas Jefferson announced that unnamed Indians, aware of the harmful effects of alcohol on their societies, had asked the federal authority to take legal steps.2 As an ardent advocate of the “civilization” program, Jefferson maintained that most trade functioned as a useful instrument for incorporating the Indians into mainstream American society. By introducing alcohol into Indian communities, however, traders and merchants hampered the efforts of the federal government to maintain peace and order, and they aggravated the destitute and demoralized condition of many Native societies .To keep the peace between the United States and the Indians and to continue its “civilization”program, the federal government believed that it had to take action. The presence of alcohol in Indian country particularly repulsed federal policy makers of the early republic who promoted Indian “civilization.” The “civilization” program aimed to turn Indians into yeoman farmers and to obtain the cession of their “surplus” hunting grounds. To accomplish this, policy makers expected Indians to speak English and to accept American ways of life. The policy also assumed that Native people would assimilate into American a struggle for sovereignty 1  society with full citizenship rights and responsibilities. The notoriety of Indian drunkenness, however, troubled the federal policy makers. Under the influence of alcohol, Indians could neither think rationally nor be industrious in learning Anglo-American culture and tradition. Neglecting their work, drunken Indians would never be productive farmers or good Christians. Intemperance threatened the patriarchal family as well: men could not become the heads of what traditionally had been matrilineal and matrilocal households if they were irresponsible, abusive drunkards.3 Because democracy required the informed judgment of rational citizens, Native drunkards could never learn to participate effectively in orderly government. U.S. policy makers concluded that intemperance challenged the fundamental tenets of “civilization ”and therefore jeopardized the whole Indian community. To “civilize” Indians properly, federal officials insisted, they had to regulate the liquor trade and shield the Indians from this source of vice.4 At the urgent request of President Jefferson, Congress inserted a special provision for restricting the liquor traffic in the Trade and Intercourse Act of  and authorized the president “to prevent or restrain the vending or distributing of spirituous liquors” among the Indians.5 In his official instructions, Secretary of War Henry Dearborn reminded Indian superintendents and agents that the law prohibited traders from selling any spirituous liquors to Native people.6 This provision, however, applied only to non-Indian traders who...