Jack Gooding

HIST 444
Dr. Burton
April 17, 2023
6247 words

Alcohol Rituals among Caribs, Africans, and Sailors in the 17th and 18th Centuries

The use of alcohol for consumption or as a libation was a very common element of rituals

among numerous groups in the 17th and 18th centuries. This essay will provide an overview of

alcohol rituals among four groups during this period: Island Caribs of the Lesser Antilles, the

people of West and West Central Africa, the African slaves of the British and French Caribbean,

and the sailors of European ships. For the purposes of this essay, an alcohol ritual is any

organized and commonly repeated event that involves the consumption or offering of alcohol

and follows a particular script of activities that are performed. These rituals can be spiritual and

be enacted to commune with the divine, but they can also be completely secular and hold

purposes for the participants that do not necessitate the existence of supernatural forces. Within

these temporal and conceptual boundaries, this essay will argue that the alcohol rituals of Island

Caribs, Africans in West and West Central Africa as well as in French and British Caribbean

colonies, and sailors all exemplified the same central themes. The combination of ritual practice

and the physiological effects of alcohol helped to commemorate important life events, relieved

stress and tension from dealing with difficult circumstances, sought to garner support in life’s

endeavors through payment of libation, and helped surpass traditional social boundaries to form

bonds between members of different groups to unite them toward a shared cause. Additionally, I

will explore how new rituals developed and old ones were modified based on the unique

pressures felt by these groups and argue that in at least one example for each group, the alteration

or creation of drinking rituals reflected agency through the seeking of particular goals.
 I. The Island Carib Peoples of the Lesser Antilles

In this section, I will examine the ritual alcohol practices of the Island Carib peoples of

the Lesser Antilles. I will focus on the pervasive and widespread ritual ceremony called

‘Oüicous’, recorded libation rituals including those marking important life stages, and the

prominent role of alcohol in the gift-giving ceremonies that preceded trading. In the discussion

of the latter point, I will explore how Caribs utilized agency in these ceremonies. The final

subsection will deal with the loss of the spiritual importance of alcohol under the influence of

colonialism, leading to the end of many of their rituals.

The use of alcohol, for consumption or libation, was an important component of many of

the most important Carib rituals.1 While they created various kinds of alcohol such as ‘mobbie’

which came from sweet potatoes, oüicou made from the cassava plant was the primary substance

for their alcohol rituals.2 In Carib society, alcohol rituals involving Oüicou libations made to

gods known as zemis were frequently performed in both private and public contexts. Carib

Shamans known as Piaye or Boyéz were known to use oüicou to invoke spirits to help people

recover from illness or dispense curses.3

Some of these rituals marked important stages in Carib life. The elétuak or elétoaz

festivals were held to commemorate the piercing of a child’s ears, nose, and bottom lip. There

were additional festivals for the naming and puberty of Carib children. In all of these festivals,

alcohol was consumed in a ritualist manner and offered as a libation to zemis. The spiritual

nature of these ceremonies was magnified through the intoxicating effects of alcohol, making the

supernatural experience more convincing.4

1 Frederick H. Smith, Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. (Gainesville:

University Press of Florida, 2005), 35
2 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 34
3 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 35
4 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 36
 One of the most notable rituals the Caribs engaged in was also referred to as oüicous after

the beverage. After contact with the French, the Caribs referred to the festivals as ‘Vins’. This

demonstrates their desire to better relations with them by translating their customs into the

French language. Vins were hosted by a Carib village chief and involved participants from

multiple villages. These gatherings involved the consumption of large amounts of alcohol,

including foreign spirits received from trade with Europeans. A vin could be called for many

reasons but was almost always held before a group of Carib villages made war on European

colonists. Even larger variations of these ceremonies known as grand vins could have hundreds

of participants. Carib people would travel from other islands to attend these gatherings and

dance, use body paint, make offerings to gods, and consume lots of alcohol. These great ritual

ceremonies allowed Caribs from multiple villages to socialize and improved alliances between

these groups. Like their smaller variants, grand vins were often called to plan military

campaigns.5

The presence of alcohol at these ceremonies is notable for both its physiological effects

as well as its importance within the Carib belief system.6 Alcohol’s capacity to increase

sociability probably assisted in bringing participants of the ritual together. Given that especially

at grand vins, many of the participants had probably never met each other before, alcohol would

have acted as a social lubricant. Considering that ceremony attendees may soon be fighting a

battle together, alcohol was probably very useful in establishing trust and forming bonds between

participants.

Another benefit of the use of alcohol at these events was the boost in confidence it could

give users. Alcohol consumption could allow Carib attendants of vins to speak like gods.7 Being

5 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 38

6 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 39
7 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 39.
intoxicated could also allow listeners to be more intensely inspired by the speeches they heard. A

rousing speech, with both the speaker and listener somewhat intoxicated, would have been great

for group morale and effective at raising spirits before a stressful upcoming event such as a war.

Additionally, the status of alcohol as a liquid with spiritual properties was also important to these

events. By pouring libations to zemis at these rituals, the Caribs invited divine assistance to their

worldly pursuits such as war.8

In trade with Europeans, the Caribs prized foreign alcohol for both its novelty and its

concentrated alcohol content. A particularly prized beverage was French brandy and by the end

of the 17th century, rum had become incredibly popular among Caribs.9 The arrival of these new

alcoholic beverages fit into the Carib system of a person’s choice of drink signifying their social

status.10 Their choice of which foreign liquor to drink may also have been an indication of their

support of one European power over another. For example, it was reported on one occasion that

the Carib chiefs of St. Vincent refused to drink rum but readily drank wine. “Afterwards, I

carried them on board the duke's sloop; and after opening their hearts with wine, for they

scorned to drink rum [...] they declared they would trust no Europeans: that they owned

themselves under the pro-tection of the French”11 This choice could indicate that the Caribs

avoided consuming a British drink because they understood that the British were there with plans

to develop a settlement. It could also indicate that these Caribs understood associated European

identity with the type of alcohol they consumed and wanted to show demonstrate their allegiance

with the French by only consuming drinks with French connotations.12

8 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 39.

9 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 34.
10 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 37.
11 Braithwaite, cited by Thomas Southey, Chronological History of the West Indies. Vol 2. (Longman,
Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, London: 1807), 234.
12 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 37-38.
 In either case, this choice is notable for the agency that these Caribs display in their

dealings with Europeans. Consuming one alcoholic beverage over another as part of greeting

rituals shows that the Caribs were active players in the struggle between European powers to

colonize the Lesser Antilles. A similar display of agency will be analyzed later in my discussion

of trade between Africans and Europeans.

While the Caribs had many spiritual and secular drinking rituals, their consumption of

alcohol was probably not high outside of these events. Their traditions of drinking rituals may

even have prevented the disastrous effects of a large amount of alcohol becoming quickly

available to a society that had no experience with it. Unfortunately, through cultural transmission

from Europeans who drank regularly in a completely secular context alcohol began to lose its

spiritual connotation.13 Additionally, through European aggression and the spread of deadly

diseases, many Caribs began to use alcohol much more frequently and as a coping mechanism

for dealing with terrible adversity.14

This section has shown that Carib alcohol rituals fulfilled many roles within their

communities. Libations to zemis allowed Caribs to invite divine assistance to overcome illnesses

and injuries or take revenge on enemies. Other rituals commemorated life events, providing

community stability and invoking the supernatural into the personal lives of the enactors. Vins

allowed for the lessening of social boundaries between Caribs of different Islands so they could

work together too. In all of these rituals, the stresses of daily life could be alleviated through the

consumption of alcohol with family and friends. Trade with Europeans and choice of one kind of

alcohol over another indicate Carib agency in dealing with colonial powers. Lastly, the loss of

13 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 39.

14 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 39-40.
the spiritual importance of alcohol indicates a change in alcohol rituals due to external pressures

against the community.

II. Africans in West and Central West Africa

This section of my paper will examine the use of alcohol in rituals practiced by African

groups and how using these rituals they interacted with Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries.

First, I will examine the alcohol rituals in West and Central West African groups, with emphasis

on characteristics shared between them. My analysis groups these alcohol rituals into two

categories: rituals performed before negotiating trade with Europeans, and rituals that were

overtly spiritual and performed to facilitate the communication with or honoring of ancestors and

deities as well commemorating certain life stages. In the former category, I will examine the

importance of foreign spirits in the trade negotiations between Europeans and Africans. Here, I

will argue that African traders displayed agency through their insistence upon receiving gifts of

alcohol from Europeans as a necessary prior to commencing trade and how they leveraged this

custom among Europeans and other Africans to obtain status. In my discussion of African

spiritual practices, I will utilize two primary sources as examples to set up my later analysis of

how African alcohol rituals were transmitted to the British and French Caribbean.

In most of the regions along the West African coast that Europeans traded, it became the

custom for negotiations between European and African traders to begin with a ritual gift of

alcohol. This custom may have developed from a Dutch strategy to gain an advantage in their

competition with the Portuguese. In any case, it quickly became a prerequisite all European

powers had to participate in to gain access to the lucrative African markets.15

From the African perspective, this custom can be seen as a demonstration of their agency

in choosing trading partners. The European traders were mobile and except in the case of

15 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 98.

territorial blockades from other powers, could trade anywhere along the West African coastline.

Conversely, the African traders operated only in trading ports close by. This meant that while

European traders were in direct competition with each other to secure African trading partners,

African traders were only in competition with each other on a local scale. In this context, the

trading rituals of providing the African party with alcoholic beverages before negotiating can be

seen as an expression of the power African traders had to treat or not treat at will. For the

Europeans to compete with each other, they were forced to capitulate. This process demonstrates

the agency of African traders.

The process of acquiring foreign alcohol through gifts or trade was also used by Africans

to gain status amongst each other. The ritual of gift-giving was often used to appease African

state leaders.16 In the eyes of other Africans, these leaders receiving expensive gifts from foreign

traders may have appeared as a strong expression of power. It is also important to note that

alcohol existed in West and Central West Africa long before contact with Europeans. The

consumption of prized foreign liquors could also have been seen by the non-ruling Africans as an

expression of status. On this point, Smith references the Dutch slave trader Willem Bosman who

noted that the richer Africans prefer brandy.17

In the cosmologies of many West and Central West African groups, it was believed that

the barrier between physical and metaphysical planes of existence was slim, the spirits of

ancestors and deities regularly influenced the lives of the living, and that this barrier could be

breached through the performance of rituals. Many of these rituals required participants to alter

their state of consciousness through activities such as fasting, sleep deprivation, and important

16 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 96.

17 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 98.
for the subject of this paper, the consumption of alcohol.18 In all of these groups, alcohol was

often used as an offering to ancestors or deities as part of a libation ritual.19

For example, in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; or, Gustavus

Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, Olaudah Equiano, a member of the Igbo group, recalls

from his childhood the practice of libation rituals by his family. “At one time I thought it was

something relative to magic; and not seeing it move I thought it might be some way the whites

had to keep their great men when they died, and offer them libation as we used to do to our

friendly spirits.”20 In this quotation, Equiano confirms that his people practiced ritual alcohol

libation to honor spirits. Equiano is an important source for the discussion of alcohol rituals

among African peoples in the 17th and 18th centuries. As a member of the Igbo, we can trust that

he better understands the context behind these alcohol rituals that European writers who were

never a part of this group. The Igbo and their practices will be mentioned later concerning their

presence in the British Caribbean.

The other primary source used in this section is from the aforementioned Dutch slave

trader Willem Bosman. He wrote that in Oidah, the Arada people practiced alcohol libation

rituals in service to the serpent cult.21 He recorded that offerings including alcoholic beverages

were given to the priest of the “Snake House” in service to what he characterized as a serpent

god.22 Because Bosman was not a member of the Arada group that practiced this religion, it is

likely that some of the context behind the ritual has been lost in translation. However, his

18 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 99.

19 Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum, 100.
20 Olaudah Equiano. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; or, Gustavus Vassa, the
African, Written by Himself. (London: 1789), 17.
21 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 100.
22 Willem Bosman, A new and accurate description of the coast of Guinea, divided into the Gold, the
Slave, and the Ivory coasts. (Translated by Sir Alfred Jones. Ballantyne Press, London: 1907), 369.
writings will still be useful later in this through the analysis of the transition of Arada alcohol

practices to the French Caribbean and in particular, to the colony of Saint-Domingue.

Rituals involving alcohol to mark important events were also a fixture in many West and

Central West African groups. These events included birth, naming ceremonies, and marriage.

Funeral rites also extensively utilized alcohol to ensure a safe transition to the spirit world. For

example, the Igbo typically sprinkled alcohol on their dead before burying them and consumed

large quantities of palm wine during the burial feast.23

Smith argues that the use of funerary alcohol rituals in these societies offered many

practical benefits. These include the relief of stress, the creation of a perception of order in a

chaotic time, and an increased cohesiveness of the group.24 I would go further, and venture that

rituals in general are very effective in achieving these outcomes. Having a set schematic for

dealing with changes in life, especially traumatic instances such as the death of a loved one, can

add much-needed stability to the experience of the individual and the group. The addition of the

physiological effects of alcohol can drastically reduce the stress felt and improve the lives of

community members. While these spiritual rituals do not seem to have been greatly altered in the

17th and 18th centuries through colonial processes, the discussion of them will be important in

my analysis of how they were transmitted to slave societies in the British and French Caribbean.

In this section, I have shown that West and Central West Africans used alcohol rituals to

mark life stages, alleviate stress, and gain support in their tasks from spirits. Additionally, I have

demonstrated how African traders displayed agency by leveraging their bargaining position to

force Europeans to give them gifts of alcohol that would magnify their status among other

Africans. The only point from my thesis that has not been addressed in this section is the use of

23 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 101.

24 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 102.
alcohol to transcend social boundaries. However, in the next section the efforts of slaves in the

Saint-Domingue revolution, many of whom belong to the Arada group referred to in this section,

will be explored to demonstrate how they used alcohol ritual practices originating in Africa to

unify slaves of differing ethnicities.

III. Africans in the British and French Caribbean

This section of my paper will discuss the alcohol rituals practiced by African slaves in the

British and French Caribbean Islands in the 17th and 18th centuries and how these rituals came

to be. First, I will relay Smith’s overview of the transfer of spiritual belief and practice from

Africa to Caribbean slave societies. I will spend a short time in the British Caribbean and

connect funerary rites among enslaved people there with funerary practices among the Igbo.

Next, I will focus on the French colony of Saint-Domingue, known today as Haiti, and the Boise

Caiman ceremony that preceded the Saint-Domingue revolution.

Smith points out that unfortunately, we do not possess the raw evidence that would allow

us to connect specific groups from Africa as the definite originator of recorded alcohol rituals

among slaves in the Caribbean. He credits probable causes as the secretive nature of slave

spiritual rituals and the fact that Europeans who recorded these events may have lacked

contextual understanding or omitted important details. However, he argues that evidence does

show that Caribbean slaves utilized drinking and libation rituals that embraced their shared

heritage of West and Central West African beliefs in the spiritual meaning of alcohol. 25

The British Caribbean saw the transfer of many religious practices involving alcohol

primarily from Igbo and Akan religious practices. This variety of practices came to be known as

‘Obeah’, a common form of medicine and spirituality that utilized ancestor worship. Among the

British, Obeah was used to characterize many forms of practices that integrated supernatural

25 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 109.

elements and were not of European origin.26 For example, many accounts of slave funerals

utilized alcohol consumption and libation in the British Caribbean colonies of Barbados and

Jamaica.27 Recall the use of alcohol in the funerals of the Igbo people. This connection may

indicate a direct transfer of culture and makes sense demographically as between 1700 and 1809,

as much as one-third of all slaves arriving in the British Caribbean from Africa were Igbo. 28

The continual practice of their traditions could have been a great source of comfort for

enslaved Africans in the Caribbean. Slaves being sent from their homes in Africa underwent the

traumatic middle passage and were forced to suffer the brutal conditions of Caribbean

plantations. In this environment, the connection to their home and their families through the

practice of traditional alcohol rituals may have offered a small respite from their harrowing

experiences. The act of performing the tradition itself would have been beneficial and so would

the effects of alcohol in rituals where it is consumed.

The Importance of the Haitian Revolution of 1791 to the history of slavery cannot be

understated. It was the largest slave revolt since the Third Servile War led by Spartacus against

the Roman Republic from 73-71 BCE and unlike Spartacus, the Haitian revolutionaries were

successful in overthrowing their oppressors. Two key events are credited by historians as

precipitating the revolution: the Lenormand Meeting and the Bois Caiman ceremony. The

Lenormand Meeting, which was held on August 14th, 1791, was a conference held by elite

slaves who together made the decision to rebel and drafted war plans. The historian David

Geggus has argued that The Lenormand meeting should be seen as the crucial event in the study

of the Haitian revolution. Sean Dane Anderson disagrees with this assessment and counters that

without the Boise Caiman ceremony on August 21st, the revolution would not have been

26 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 112.

27 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 114-115.
28 Smith, Caribbean Rum, 111.
possible.29 To connect the monumental Boise Caiman ceremony to the topic of this essay, I will

first demonstrate the influence of the Arada religious rituals on the ceremony, including the use

of alcohol as an important component of the ritual. Then I will apply Anderson’s argument that

the leaders of the Boise Caiman ceremony actively utilized the blood-oath ritual which involved

alcohol consumption as a syncretic cultural practice to transcend ethnic boundaries and unite the

diverse slaves of Saint-Domingue toward a common goal.

In the mid to late 1790s, Médéric-Louis-Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, a French lawyer

living in Philidelphia after being exiled from France, created an extensive work drawing on his

experiences living in the colony of Saint-Domingue. The first chapter of his book: Description

topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l’isle Saint-

Domingue, contains a detailed description of a secret Voodoo initiation ceremony. Within this

ritual, a snake is kept in a cage at the central altar and the priestess of the ceremony, referred to

as the queen, stands on the cage and is possessed by the snake god.30 Additionally, Moreau

mentions the importance of alcohol consumption in this ritual. “But the delirium keeps rising. It

is augmented still more by the use of intoxicating drinks, which in their frenzied state the

participants do not spare and which helpt to sustain them.”31 The connection to the practice of

offering a libation to the snake god in Oidah is clear. Moreau even says explicitly that members

of the Arada tribe are the votaries of Voodoo in Saint-Domingue and that it is natural to link

Voodoo to the serpent cult which the people of Oidah are devoted to.32

29 Sean Dane Anderson, "The King, a Queen, and an Oath Sealed in Blood: A Cultural Re-Evaluation of
the Bois-Caiman Ceremony and its Impact on the Early Haitian Revolution" (Bethlehem: Lehigh
University, 2016), 23-25.
30 Médéric-Louis-Elie Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description Topographique... de la Partie francaise de
l'Isle Saint-Domingue. In A Civilization the Perished: The Last Years of White Colonial Rule in Haiti.
Translated and edited by Ivor D. Spencer. Lanham, MD: (University Press of America, 1985), 1-3.
31 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description Topographique, 5.
32 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description Topographique, 1, 5.
 The question of the truthfulness of Moreau’s account cannot be avoided. It is obvious that

Moreau is trying to present this religious practice as terrifying. “In a word, nothing is more

dangerous, according to all accounts, than this cult of Voodoo.”33 However, demographic

estimates of the slave population of Saint-Domingue indicate that in the 18th century, most

enslaved Africans sent to the French Caribbean departed from the Bight of Benin where Oidah is

located.34 The similarities between the religious practices described by Bosman and Moreau,

coupled with these estimates of population transfer between Oidah and Saint-Domingue, suggest

that enslaved Africans brought their religious practices with them across the middle passage and

as we will see from the Bois Caiman ceremony, were able to adapt them to serve new purposes.

Before the famous Bois Caiman ceremony can be analyzed, the presence of alcohol at the

event must be discussed. Antoine Dalmas, a French national who lived in Saint-Domingue when

the revolution began and fought against it as part of the colonial militia, created the first known

written account of the ceremony. In this account, he does not mention the presence of alcohol.

However, it should be noted that Dalmas’ summary of the ceremony is only a single paragraph

long.35 In comparison, Moreau’s account is six pages. It is reasonable to assume that the absence

of alcohol in Dalmas’ account is not strong evidence that it was not a part of the ceremony.

Furthermore, Anderson has argued that because the participants of the blood-oath ceremony that

Moreau describes drank alcohol, it is more than likely that participants of the Boise Caiman

blood-oath ceremony also did.36

The Boise Caiman ceremony was overtly religious, but it also served numerous practical

purposes. One was the enforcement of secrecy. The revolutionary leaders wanted their rebellion

33 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description Topographique, 6.

34 Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum, 111.
35 Antoine Dalmas, Histoire de la révolution de Saint-Domingue: Volume 1. Translated by Jonathon B.
Schwartz. (Bradford Colonial Press, Williamsburg: 2022), 94-95.
36 Anderson, "The King, a Queen, and an Oath Sealed in Blood", 107.
to remain hidden from the White inhabitants of the colony until a carefully timed moment when

the violence would begin. However, they also needed the help of a very large number of their

fellow slaves or there was no way the revolution could succeed. To bring more revolutionaries

into their ranks while still preventing the leak of information, the insurgent leaders used a blood

oath ritual at Bois Caiman to ensure the large number of slaves now aware of the uprising would

not notify the colonial authorities. It was understood by those who underwent the ritual to initiate

into the Voodoo cult that to break their oath of secrecy invited death as a punishment. This death

could be supernatural as a result of angry spirits, but it could also come at the hands of a fellow

initiate, who was encouraged to murder anyone who broke the oath. Through this safeguard,

secrecy could be maintained.37

Another function of the blood oath that was perhaps even more important to revolution

than the secrecy was the creation of a new community. The cultural divisions among the

enslaved population of Saint-Domingue should not be underestimated. There are documented

cases of slaves of one ethnic group actively preventing a slave from a different one from

partaking in their ceremony. There is a recorded instance of an Igbo man attempting to enter a

‘calenda’ dance ceremony held by members of the Arada group. Despite many attempts and

offers of alcohol, money, and chickens, he was denied entry. This has been interpreted by

scholars as demonstrative of the rigidity of ethnic lines in Saint-Domingue.38

At Bois Caiman, however, a heterogeneous group of elite slave leadership and non-elite

followers who came from many ethnic backgrounds united together to revolt against their

masters. The blood-oath allowed the slaves of Saint-Domingue to transcend the boundaries

between them and unite together.39 Their decision to do this should not be taken lightly. They

37 Anderson, "The King, a Queen, and an Oath Sealed in Blood", 105, 106.
38 Anderson, "The King, a Queen, and an Oath Sealed in Blood", 93.
39Anderson, "The King, a Queen, and an Oath Sealed in Blood", 107.
needed to put their faith in one another and the cause to overthrow the colonial regime. If the

revolution failed, it is almost guaranteed that the French would have exacted terrible

punishments upon the rebels and their families. Upon the completion of the ceremony, the

African slaves of Saint-Domingue had transcended the boundaries between them and were ready

to launch forward under one cause on a mission of liberation and vengeance.

Anderson’s analysis of the importance of the blood oath in the shedding of cultural

boundaries is sound, but he overlooks the importance of alcohol at this moment. The

consumption of alcohol is often used to facilitate openness in social settings. Between enslaved

groups that may have harbored resentment or at least distrust towards one another, the

physiological effects of alcohol must have been a potent ingredient in the formation of a new

community and could have been invaluable to the success of the plan.

This aspect of the Boise Caiman ceremony is also notable for its syncretic nature.

Combining practices of different cultural groups present in Saint-Domingue, the Boise Caiman

ceremony is not only an example of the syncretism of various African beliefs and practices it is a

purposeful combination of these practices to achieve a common goal, demonstrating agency.

IV. Sailors

In common imagination, the sailor of the Atlantic Ocean in the 17th and 18th centuries is

a legendary consumer of alcohol. In the historical record, this assessment is largely corroborated.

Ned Ward, a British Satirist, wrote in 1795 that drinking, along with thieving, whoring,

swearing, killing, back-biting, and cozening, are the 7 liberal sciences taught in the sailing

vessel.40 Along with the other groups this essay has already examined, sailors employed a variety

of alcohol rituals. A notable aspect of them is their lack of religious or spiritual meaning. This

section will first relay possible reasons for the sailor’s anti-religious nature. examine three types

40 Ned Ward, The Wooden World Dissected (London: 1706), 8.

of these rituals, the toasts sailors engaged in, the oaths they swore, and the ‘sailor’s baptism’. In

the examination of each of these customs, I will argue that they demonstrate the sailor’s agency

through the adaptation of alcohol rituals, including through the shedding of religion, to fit the

needs of sailors trying to survive in a blatantly hostile environment.

While some sailors held religion as an important part of their character, they were on the

whole a distinctly irreligious, and sometimes anti-religious, bunch. This outlook likely stems

from them the unique pressures of a marine environment. The isolation of the ship and its crew

was certainly a factor in the lack of religion. Although church leaders printed pamphlets and

gave sermons denouncing the religiously apathetic mariners, they had no real control of life at

sea and this was well known to both parties. Another reason for the lack of religion among

sailors was the impracticality of its beliefs and practices. There was no sabbath day to take rest

on for the sailors. Work needed to be done every day or the lives of those on board and the

success of the mission could be compromised. The doctrine of never letting religious practice get

in the way of work was even more important during times of danger. Prayers to God during a

time of crisis could prevent the seamen from achieving their tasks quickly and accurately as

possible. This being the case, the religious act of prayer took on an ominous reputation. For the

sailor, the only good time to pray was when everything humanely possible had already been

done.41 In essence, a sailor praying for his life became akin to accepting that is doomed.

In the case of a dangerous situation like mutiny, sailors would often pledge oaths to one

another. Pirates were known to be required to take a very severe oath to not betray each other.

These oaths were often accompanied by ritual practices that included drinking. 42 These sailors’

41 Marcus Rediker. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University
Press, 1987), 173-175.
42 Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 166.
oaths are notable for their function in gaining control in a largely uncontrollable situation. Sailors

who mutinied or needed to cover up some other secret would be at the mercy of their colleagues.

If one of them decided to notify authorities in an attempt to gain favor, the sailors could be

doomed to execution. By swearing an oath to one another, their names were put on the line as

something akin to an insurance policy. If word was spread around that a mariner had broken an

oath, he may never be able to gain the trust of other sailors again. Additionally, if he was on a

ship and a new situation arose like a mutiny, his fellow sailors may decide that because he cannot

be trusted, their only option is to kill him. In another form of insurance, sailors were known to be

superstitious and the breaking of an oath may have carried all sorts of negative consequences

from supernatural sources. In either case, this drinking ritual was used by sailors to exert some

control over a dangerous situation, allowing them to trust one another.

The next mariner’s ritual I will analyze, and the one most directly tied to alcohol, is the

custom of toasts. Sailors, like other groups in the 17th and 18th centuries such as aristocrats,

were very fond of drinking toasts. Who they drank to largely depended on the crew of the vessel

and the individuals who composed it. Common targets of these toasts were the wives and

mistresses of the sailors, their friends, their voyage, their luck, and their king. Pirates, being

natural contrarians, were known to drink to the health of the pretender and hope to see him take

the throne. These toasts had the function of tying sailors together and building trust and devotion

between them. They also had the function of reducing tensions and stresses aboard the ship.43

The last alcohol ritual to be analyzed in this section, and certainly the most dramatic, is

‘the sailor’s baptism’ also known as the ‘line-crossing ceremony. When novice sailors crossed

the equator or another important geographical boundary, they would be subjected to a hazing

ceremony which they were only able to avoid by giving. As we will see, these gifts typically

43 Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 192-193.
included alcohol of some kind. One of the most typical recordings of these ceremonies can be

found in the journal of Francis Rogers.

“Five of our men, not being willing to pay a bottle of brandy and pound of sugar, were

ducked according to custom, it being the first time they had passed [the equator]. The manner of

ducking is this; there is a long rope, one end whereof comes down on the Quarter Deck, and at

once let run. His own weight from that height plunges him under the water as low as the ship’s

keel; then they run him up again as fast as they can and so serve him three times, then he is free

and may drink with the others that paid.”44

This example of this ritual demonstrates that the line-crossing ceremony is an important

rite of passage for the sailors which included payment of alcohol and celebratory drinking.

Recall that in previous sections this essay examined how in Carib, West African, and West

Central African groups, alcohol rituals were used to mark particularly important life stages. In

the career of a sailor, these line-crossing ceremonies acted in the same way. They celebrated his

passing into the next stage of his professional life through a ritual that prominently featured

alcohol. Rogers did not specify in his account where the alcohol of the sailors who did not wish

to be dunked went. However, another account of sailor’s baptisms from The Buccaneers of

America does indicate who it went to and it is reasonable to assume it was the same. “But as for

other gifts which the newly baptized frequently offer, they are divided among the old seamen,

and of them, they make a banquet among themselves.”.45 The custom of newer sailors giving

gifts of alcohol to the older ones to be admitted into the marine brotherhood seems to be a

dominant system in these rituals.

44 Francis Rogers, The Journal of Francis Rogers, 152, quoted in Marcus Rediker. Between the Devil
and the Deep Blue Sea, 187.
45 John Esquemeling, The Buccaneers of America: a true account of the most remarkable assaults
committed of late years upon the coast of the West Indies by the buccaneers of Jamaica and Tortuga,
both English and French. (London: 1684.), 3.
 This process takes on interesting connotations if compared to the libation rituals of

Indigenous peoples in the Lesser Antilles and West and West Central Africa. Those societies

made offerings of alcohol to spirits to obtain good fortune, especially at rites of passage. As

detailed earlier, sailors did not put much faith in religion. They did, however, put a lot of trust in

the older members of their crew and often leaned on them for their wealth of experience. The

average mariner was in his 20s or 30s and the high mortality rate meant that few members of the

crew were old men. However, these older mariners fulfilled a crucial role in the transmission of

culture and oral tradition. Important events like powerful storms were always gaged upon the

experiences of the older members of the crew. Because of their knowledge and experience, older

seamen commanded the respect of their younger colleagues.46 In this context, the payment of

alcohol to these older mariners can be seen as a sort of libation ceremony. While alcohol did not

carry spiritual importance for the sailors it was still a valuable commodity. The payment of it by

neophytes to veterans can be seen not only as making an offering to be allowed entry to the

fraternal association but also to gain the favor of the older members of the crew who like

benevolent spirits, can provide support the trials and tribulations of life in a dangerous

environment. In this way, the social function of this ritual is similar to the libation ceremonies

analyzed in previous sections.

In the 18th century, Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, became a frequent staple of line-

crossing ceremonies. However, sailors did not believe in this pagan deity. His presence can

instead be seen as an example of the irreligious sentiment of sailors. Compared to the Christian

baptism from which it takes its name, the sailor’s baptism was stripped completely of religious

46 Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 156-157.
significance. It did however serve multiple secular purposes. The rites bound seamen together

and dramatized the hierarchy of experience.47

In these ways, the status of older sailors was maintained, but the newer sailors were also

brought into the fold. These ideas are not as mutually exclusive as they might seem. While some

distance between older and younger sailors was certainly maintained as a sign of respect, the

line-crossing ceremony allowed for the lessening of social boundaries between age groups. If the

older and younger sailors did not have mutual respect and trust for one another, they could not be

expected to function together.

The development of the line-crossing ceremonies as well as the rituals analyzed in this

section demonstrates agency on the part of the sailors to adapt to cope with the challenges of life

at sea. It should also be noted that as was the case in other groups analyzed in this essay, the

physiological effects of consuming alcohol would have worked in tandem with the other parts of

the ritual to make up customs that served to add a sense of stability to the practitioner’s lives,

relieve stress, and surpass social boundaries to unite them together in the pursuit of a common

goal, in this case, the proper running of the ship which facilitated the sailor’s payment and

survival. Unlike the Africans and Caribs that have previously been discussed, sailors did give

libations to divine entities such as ancestral spirits or deities. They did however give the older

sailors offerings of alcohol to similarly gain support for their goals through the knowledge the

veteran sailors possessed of the maritime trade.

Conclusion

This paper has demonstrated the importance of alcohol rituals in the 17th and 18th

centuries to Caribs, Sailors, and Africans in West and Central West Africa and the Caribbean. It

has demonstrated how in all of these societies, alcohol rituals were used to commemorate life

47 Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 189.
events, alleviate stress, gain support from either supernatural beings or more experienced

colleagues, and overcome traditional divisions in these groups to unite in pursuit of a common

goal. Along the way, I have shown that the alcohol rituals of these groups changed in response to

conditions and oftentimes this change reflected the agency possessed by the groups to achieve

their ends.
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