Rebellious times
Ian Buxton looks at turbulent times during whiskey’s history
So begins William Findleyâs classic account of the Whiskey Rebellion, his History of the Insurrection, published in Philadelphia in 1796.
You have to admire his understatement.
âInteresting scenesâ indeed. This of a country that had less than 15 years previously been fighting a war of independence against the (then) greatest power in the world; where settlers at the new countryâs western edge were subject to violent attacks by the native population (Findley refers to them as âsavage tribesâ and relations between them and the settlers were often brutal enough) and where it was far from certain that the constituent states of the new republic were ever going to live in harmony anyway.
As so often, the dispute centred around taxation which, after all, was a sore point in the mind of the America frontiersman. He lived a life not so very far removed from Hobbesâ description some 150 years previously, in âcontinual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.â Having fought so hard to escape the yoke of the British crown, under the slogan âno taxation without representationâ the westernmost settlers were more than sensitive to the demands of their new government.
Life in Western Pennsylvania was very far removed and very different from life on the settled and prosperous eastern seaboard, where the new central government was to be found.
Indeed, many in the western states sought self government, preferri.....
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By Ian Buxton
Section : Whisky rebellion
Page number : 31
