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

Frits Pannekoek is an associate professor of heritage studies, director
of information resources at the University of Calgary, and the author of
A Snug Little Flock: The Social Origins of the Riel Resistance of
1869–70.

This book undoubtedly ranks as one of Hugh Dempsey’s best. Dempsey has
long been a leading historian of the Blackfoot peoples of Alberta.
Firewater is an in-depth analysis of the Southern Alberta–Northern
Montana whisky trade from 1870 to 1875. Dempsey is firm in his view that
while the whisky trade lasted only six years at most, it ruined the
Blackfoot Nation, “[devastating] their cultural and social life,
[creating] internal dissension, and [leaving] them helpless in the face
of the invasion of their hunting grounds by [their] enemy.” Throughout
the book’s 16 chapters, individuals like Montanans Joe Kipp and John
“Liver Eating” Johnson come alive; the Blackfoot figures emerge as
less dynamic.

Dempsey’s work involved bringing together—for the first
time—American, Montanan, Canadian, and Albertan historical documents
for analysis. Some of his conclusions are impressionistic (e.g., liquor
appealed to the young and the middle-aged), but Dempsey must be allowed
to make these, given his immersion in the documents. One
much-appreciated aspect he covers is the impact of the liquor trade on
women, and their attempt to control it.

While Dempsey’s work doesn’t really fit into any of the Canadian
historiographical traditions, it does place him solidly in the new and
growing field of trans-boundary studies. He very clearly deals with the
differing legal, economic, and policing structures on the two sides of
the border, and points out that they provided two differing historical
legacies. Dempsey’s interpretation with regard to the police is very
clear: without the coming of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the
whisky trade would have continued a few years longer, completely
destroying the Blackfoot peoples. No Western Canadian, Native, or
American history library collection should be without this book.