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alcohol, where -- but lived previously. and certain alcohols don't travel well and kind of -- over the atlantic ocean. so there are people interested in making alcohol with some experience, making alcohol.

there are kind of a new products that they can experiment with. kind of fermenting to turn sugars into alcohol. and some of the equipment that eventually is necessary to make room, copper stills. the producing a number of -- bananas employees to also put sugar production. which becomes and its invented in barbados and reinvented is kind of the commodity itself but also the knowledge to make that commodity travel from barbados, to the caribbean and as well as north america, england and scotland even. >> and went on the island of barbados are they using? >> so, when they native people are brought from south america, they bring with them though some sugar cane. and so, at the base ingredient

for romney is usually the waste products of sugar. and so, that's kind of the base ingredient, usually. >> and how is it made? how days it being made at this time? >> so again, you would take kind of waste products you have, so we're talking about sugarcane that might have been damaged when it was eaten by rats, or damaged in a hurricane or the molasses that's kind of taken out of the sugar as it's being turned into the granular sugar. and they're taking all of these waste products together, mixing them together, mixing them with some water, some source of yeast, allowing the fermentation process to take place for maybe two weeks, as the sugar becomes alcohol. and then they're putting in a closed copper still, where you're able to attract extract most of the alcohol and some of the water to create a more concentrated alcohol. >> he's drinking? it >> again, everybody. a lot of the room it's been consumed all the plantations wears produce.

especially early on, the producers are the consumers. and i think that's an important point, it suggests to us that when we try to figure out why rum kind of gained the aesthetic qualities that it does, is probably because whoever is making it is also thinking about what they want to consume and wet properties they want to have. but eventually, it's also being treated. it's being traded out locally, to smaller plantations that might not have a distillery. it's been traded to africa, as part of the slave trade. alcohol is the second most traded item in the tribes and planted slave trade. in north america, it becomes an important part of european trade with a native people. so really, just about everybody, including people who would even consider basically children today would have been drinking rum and kind of large quantities. >> is that a lucrative commodity? >> right. so the thing that might differentiate run from beer or wine or brand essentially skis is that its value added rather

than a substitution cost. because you're able to harness the waste products of sugar production, turned them into run. it would increase the value of sugar production. so it's very lucrative and it is beyond just making money, it also encourages industrialists in places like north america to also start making rum. kind of on their own and kind of a centralized production anyways. >> when you look at documents from that time or a new research, how much are people paying for or whether they trading for to get rum and in wood quantities? >> it depends. individuals migratory backcountry tavern and might buy a small quantity of rum, kind of for personal consumption. >> and how much would that cost? >> i'm just sense. just pennies. again, it can get a little bit

of room for a little bit of money. if there's a lot of variety because this is already in an era where people asked are trying to invent why remiss, but also with the cultural meanings of drinking rum are, is spearmint with a, jim experiment with different qualities and different types of product. it also depends rum from the caribbean ended up being more valuable than rum produced in north america, for instance. >> and describe the evolution of who is making it at first and where does it go from there? >> so in the larger book project, i document how rum kind of emerges from the margins of society and barbados as the individual samantha likely kind of with the production in hand or in the cultivation of sugar in hand. so native people, enslaved africans start kind of experimenting with different types of alcohol production. i think early on, it's not really kind of become a commodity yet. so there's a lot of room for

individuals not part of the dominate culture to have experience with making. it becomes a commodity. it becomes incredibly lucrative and so, plantation analysts enslavers start to corral the process, eventually required slave individuals to carry out much of the stone work associated. so, overtime, especially over the late 17th century, the work becomes concentrated in the hands of enslaved individuals but the profits actually kind of their credit is given to inventors is given to enslavers rather than the actual bodies and minds that were producing. >> where does it get exported to and why? >> right, again, anywhere that a british ship is going. rahm is going with it. that suggests that a lot of rum is -- and again, the knowledge of how it's produced is being

circulated between the caribbean,8zaabq north america, britain. but later on in the end 18th century, you also see roam going far feel it is south asia and australia. so rum is kind of always on these ships. to be part of rations for sailors, but also sometimes as a trade item as well. >> what impact does this industry have on the colonies? >> it becomes one of the largest industries in north american cities. and so, there by 1770 there are about 140 rum distilleries throughout the british colonies. all the way from georgia up to what is present day new hampshire, but then even in what is now canada. and these are a particular type of industrial production, i would argue. they kind of experiment with larger scales of production that brings slavery and slavery

that resembles caribbean slavery more than other forms of northern slavery. to places like boston and new york, philadelphia, places we are today. >> what do you mean by that? >> the way in which these distilleries work in the northern cities is that they often would have maybe as many as eight or ten enslaved people working in them. and they would usually be supervised by a higher distiller. that's a little bit different than what i see, or historian suggested happening in other industries such as ship building or iron forging where workers tended to work alongside each other. it's has more of a hierarchy, and it is one of the larger uses of industrial slavery in the north. >> what impact does it have on slavery and the institutions? >> i think the invention and production of rum has several influences on slavery. the first, and it's one of the

most frequently traded items in the slave trade. it shows connections between boston and newport rhode island, and this trade in human beings. run production also at moments encourages the movement of enslaved bodies. so, i have found and documented in the book, i documented cases where individual enslaved people are moved against their will from plantations, in barbados, for instance. to boston, where they are kind of a valued for their expertise. i tell the story in my book, or in the manuscript, of a man by the name of -- in the 17 thirties. he's removed from barbados and carry it around to distant front distilleries in boston and advertised as an expert in rome production. or an expert in making barrels that are necessary for rome. i think that this is a powerful reminder of how slavery was not just kind of the -- it was not just taking a

physical body but also taking a mind. and it tells us something else about an intellectual history of slavery, where individuals are producing knowledge. they are not just carrying knowledge, but producing expertise. it adds value to the system. >> and was that person worth more because of the expertise? >> yes. yeah. with him in particular, there are other complications that make it a little bit harder to weigh, but in general i have taken a look at the sorts of plantation records and records of individual reduces to understand how they valued skilled workers. and i find that enslaved distillers and people who might fix the stills or might make the barrels necessary to carry around out of those distilleries or often kind of valued higher than other enslaved people who did not get those sorts of jobs. >> when did you develop your interest in the history of rum?

what was it? >> yeah! even as an undergraduate student when i was first kind of calling in love with the discipline of history. i thought that alcohol was a way to think about how a variety of different people were interacting because it was so ubiquitous in american society. and societies of the atlantic world. so, i was initially interested in how rome was consumed, and i spent some time working at mount vernon, george washington's house that has a re-constructed 18th century distillery. as part of early efforts, namely different out nichols, using historically inspired methods, and it was a hard work. it did not go as we planned. so that suggested to me that there was a lot of kind of information and expertise that individuals in the 18th century and especially sage individuals might have had that we took for granted. so, it made me rethink the part of the alcohol process and the production and what that tells

us about the history of the atlantic world, but also how we think about expertise and what expertise means. >> you were making rome and the way that people were doing its -- >> yes. initially i was making whiskey. and eventually i did have a chance to make room as well. again, it was inspired by houston, it's not always exactly how it's done in washington's time. but the physical process raised questions that dovetailed nicely with what i was learning about the industries, and the work and early america. >> when you say did not turn out as you expect it, did you take some really bad room? >> more so than that, i just remember when we didn't know how to mix our fermented batches. and we would come in one morning in the floor was covered in foam. and so, we had some time to reflect as we are cleaning up the foam that had developed because of something that wasn't really written in distillation guides from the 18th century. but that people enslaved

distillers, and also higher distillers would have known, from their own experiences. >> what do you think people should know about learning history by doing history? >> well, i think that we have to -- they can really add to our understanding of the materiality of some processes. what it means to -- to kind of, create alcohol, or create any sort of commodity. i think that can be very valuable. i think we also have to be mindful that when we kind of use that sort of technique, we will never be able to replicate the broader meteor of the 17th century, nor should we want to. so, it will never be the same. i cannot kind of speak to certain experiences, tied up in the system of slavery or something else. but i can learn something from momentarily working with the same sort of tools that people in the past might have worked with. >> jordan smith, thank you.

>> thank you. >> thursday, a house committee hearing on the business practices and policies of the nation's largest banks, live coverage begins at 2 pm eastern on c-span 3. online at c-span.org, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. >> weeknights this month, we are featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span 3. thursday night, american history tv's lectures in history series takes years into college classrooms across the country. in this program, thomas kidd lectures about the great awakening in the americas, a period in the mid 18th century of cushion revitalization that swept through the colonies. he explains how the salem witch trials on the decline of puritanism led to a period of traveling creatures, inevitably on evangelism. watch thursday, beginning at 8

pm eastern, enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span 3. to abilene kansas, up next, kansas state university history professor james sherow talks about his book, the chisholm