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your local cable or is the provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> widener university professor jordan smith talks about the invention of rum and its impact on the atlantic world occurring the 17th and 18th centuries. we recorded the interview at the organization of american historians ian yul meeting in hiladelphia. >> jordan smith, you are here at the organization of historians each annual meeting and you're talking about rum, why? >> i'm working on a book project that exams the invention and production of rum in the 17th century and i think at the heart of this project one asks how rum was invented. not in one moment but over a period of centuries as different groups of people from the americas, from europe and from africa converged and kind

of combined their knowledge, cultures and experiences. >> and why rum? >> so i think what's really interesting about rum is it's something that, if we look at the example of george washington's mount vernon, everybody is serving rusm. it's served on washington's table. martha washington once said on her letter to the house manager that rusm may always be had. t's been imported from a dis tillery locally, from alex alexandria remarks virginia, and also from the caribbean. hired wake workers seeveped some of their wages in rum. and anything from child birth to getting a cow out of the meier. it's one of these -- mir,. it's one of these moments who you can see how different groups of people interact around an item that's a part of

everyday life. >> and when is where was it invented? >> i argue in the book project that rum was initially invented in barbados in the early to mid 17th century when europeans from england and scotland as well as native people from south america and africans arrive in barbados within about 18 months of each other. it's a moment when people want alcohol. all those groups of individuals were used to having alcohol but they're far removed from where they had lived previously and certain alcohols don't travel well over the atlantic observation. so there were kind of people interested in making alcohol with some experience making ommol. there are new products they can experiment. with fermenting to turn sugars into alcohol and the kind of

equipment necessary to make rusm. stills on the island for different purposeses. there was a period of spear men station drawing in these different groups of people and over decades, producing anything from bananas and plusms and also the waste products of sugar. so i argue that it was invented in barbados and kind of reinvented as a commodity itself but also the knowledge to make that commodity travels from bay bard -- barbados flout the caribbean, north america, england and scotland. >> what are they use something >> when native people come from south america, they bring with them sugar cane. the basic ingredients for rum is usually the waste products of sugar. that's kinds of the base ingredient usually. >> and how is it made?

how's it being made at this point? >> again, you would take whatever kind of waste products you have. smuring cane that might have damaged when he was -- it was eaten by rats or damaged in a hurricane or molasses that's taken out of the sugar as it's being turned into granular sugar. taking all of these waste products together, mixing them together. mixing them with some water. some source of yeast. allowing the fermentation process to takes take for maybe two weeks. the -- take place for maybe two weeks. the sugar becomes chop. and it creates a more concentrated alcoholic beverage. >> who's drinking it? >> everybody. a lot of the rusm is being consumed on plantations where it's produced. i think especially early on the producers are the consumers. i think that's an important point because it suggests to us

that why we figure out why rum gains the combaults that it does, probably whoever is make it is also thinking about what properties they want it to have. also, it's being traded locally , smaller plantations. traded to africa. alcohol is the second most traded item. in the north america it becomes an important part of european trade with native people. just everybody would have been drinking rusm and large quantities of rum. >> is it a luke reactive commodity? >> the thing that difrpbltsdz rum from beer or wine or brandies and whiskeys is that it's -- added. you're able to harness the waste products of sugar. the rum -- it would increase

the value of sugar production so it's very luke reactive and yond just making money, it helped -- in the caribbean it encourages industrialists in places like norments america to also start making rum. >> combhu looked at documents from that time or in your research, how much are people paying for or trading for to get rum and in what quantities? >> it depends. individuals might go to backcountry tavern and might buy a small quantity for personal consumption. >> and how much would that cost? >> i couldn't even -- like just cents. just pennies. again, you could get a little bit of rum for very little money. there's a loment of variety because this is already in an era where people are trying to

invent -- the cultural meaning of drinking rum, experiment with aging, different quantityies and times of products. the rum from the caribbean ended up being more valuable than that maybe produced in north america. >> who is making it at first and where does it go from there? >> in the larger book project i document how rum kind of emerges from the mar jinls of society in barbados as the individuals most likely have production and the cultivation of sugar in hand. native people as well as south africans start experimenting with different types of alcohol production. and early on there's a lot of room for individuals to experiment with making it but it becomes a commodity and becomes luke reactive so

lantation owners -- eventually requiring enslaveped individuals to carry out most of the work associated with rum production. so over time, especially the late 178th and throughout the gets into ry, work the hands of ep slaved individuals. and the credit, instead of being given to inventors is slaves. the >> where does it get exported to and why? >> anywhere a british ship is going, rum is going with it. that suggests that a lot of rum -- and again, also the knowledge of how it's produced s being circulated between the caribbean, north american -- america and great brifpblet

later on you see it as far as outheast asia and australia. >> so what impact does this new industry have on the colonies? >> it becomes one of the largest industries in north american cities. rum 70 there are about 140 distill rills throughout the british colonies from. georgia up to present day new hampshire but then even some into what is nowa days canada. it's a type of strip production, i'm argue, with larger scales that bring enslavery and enslavery that resembles plantation slavery from the caribbean. two, places like boston and new

york and philadelphia. >> what do you mean by that? >> the way these work in the northern cities is they often would have maybe as many as eight or 10 enslaved people working in them and were supervisored by a -- that's a little bit different from what i've seen in other industries in the north like shipbuilding or making iron where the workers tend to walk alone alongside each other. eventually one of the largeo industrials of savery in the north. >> what effects -- affect does it have on slavery and the institutions? >> the production of rum has one of the main influences on slavery. it shows connection between boston and newport, rhode island, and this trade in human

beings. rum production also at moments encourages the movement of ensaved bodies. in the book i document cases where individual enslavepled people are moved against their will from plantation inns. boar bailedos, for instance. i tell the story in the book man you script of a man who in 1730 is removed from barbados. and carried around the different facilities in boston and advertised as a -- and i think this is really kind of a powerful reminder of how slavery was not just kind of the -- it wasn't just taking a physical body but it was are also take mind. an individual history of slavery where individuals are

not just carrying knowledge but they're providing expertise. >> and was that person worth more because of his exerp tease? >> yes. with -- in particular, flash other complications that make it harder to weigh but in general i have kind of looked at the plantation records and records of individual producers to understand how they valued skill workers. and i found that distillers and people who might make the stills or barrel necessary, to carry rum out of their facilities were often kind of vietnammed higher than the other ensaved people. >> when did you develop your from in the history of rum? what was its? >> even as an under grant student when i first fell in love with the discipline of

history. i thought that chop was a way to find out how a variety of people interact. initially itches interested in ow rum was consumed then i spent some time working out -- at mount vernon, george washington's house that has an 18th century disk -- distim. i was trying to make different types of control. it was really hard work and sometimes didn't go as we'd planned. there was a lot of information and expertise that individuals in the 18th cinches mauf -- must have had that we dook for granted. the par of the alcohol production and what that might be, a history of the economic world. >> so you were making rum the way that people were doing it over time?

>> yeah, initially i was making whiskey and eventually i had a chance to make rum well-. - as well. it's not always exactly how it was done in washington's time but the physical props raised questions about how we talk about industry and work in america. >> and when you say it didn't turn out as you'd expected, did you taste some really bad run? >> mostly when we didn't know how to mix our fermented -- we came in one morning and the floor was covered with foam. the foam had involved of something 245 wasn't britain -- written from guys in the 18th century that people who hired the slaves would have known from their own experience. >> what should people know

about learning history by doing history? >> i think it can really add to our understanding of the materiality of -- what it means o create alcohol, create any sort of commodity. i think that can be really valuable. i think we also have to be mindful that when we use that sort of technique, we're never going to be able to replicate e broader milieu of the 18th century, and nor should we want to. it will never be the same. momentarily working with the same tools -- >> jordan smith, thank you. >> thank you. >> you're watching american history tv. all weekend every testimony of truth was filmed

in 1966 and 1967 and details the civilian injuries and deaths caused by u.s. bombing in north vietnam. the documentary debuted in may of 1967. it comes to us courtesy of swarthmore college. it contains graphic scenes of war that some viewers may find disturbing.