Smuggler Nation:  How Ilicit Trade Made America, by Peter Andreas

There is a pattern that one finds in terms of copyright protection that companies which are copyright-poor tend to support short copyright times so that more information gets into the public record and can then be adapted by others.  On the other hand, once those companies get to be copyright-rich through their adaptations of what is in the public domain, they change course and no longer want anything to be in the public domain but want more or less permanent copyrights for their own intellectual property.  A similar dynamic can be found when it comes to the problems of smuggling, in that piracy and other illicit trade is tolerated or even endorsed by authorities of those areas that struggle when it comes to finding enough trade partners but once they are sufficiently advanced economically they desire to end the smuggling that had helped them to prosper illicitly.  This book certainly shows the somewhat hypocritical nature of American policies towards smuggling that demonstrate the American people have always been unwilling to accept restrictions on what they wanted to consume, be it Caribbean rum, foreign erotica, alcohol during Prohibition, or drugs today.  Whether or not that is a bad thing, it is a consistent pattern in American history.

This book of about 350 pages is divided into five parts and sixteen chapters and it covers a long span of smuggling and piracy within American history.  After a preface and an introduction that defines the United States somewhat unkindly as a nation of smugglers, the author discusses the colonial era (I) of American history in three chapterse that looks at the golden age of illicit trade that took place then (1), the impact of smuggling on ratcheting up hostility between the colonies and Britain (2) and the pivotal role of smuggling to Patriot success in the American Revolution (3).  After that the author discusses smuggling in the early American republic in three chapters (II), examining contraband and embargo busting in New England (4), smuggling and illegal trading with Canada during the War of 1812 (5), and the industrial sabotage that allowed America to pirate British industrial patents (6).  The author then moves on to a discussion of smuggling and other illicit trade in the middle of the 19th century (III) with chapters on bootlegging and fur trading in Indian country (7), illicit slavers and the perpetuation of the slave trade (8), and smuggling and blood cotton and blockade running during the Civil War (9).  The author then continues to show smuggling during the Guilded age that followed the Civil War (IV) with chapters on tariff evaders and enforcers (10), sex crusades and those who opposed morality through smuggling efforts (11), illegal immigration through Canada and Mexico (12), and rumrunners during Prohibition (13).  Finally, the author enters the modern age (V) with a discussion of the long drug war (14), border wars and economic integration (15), and a look at America’s relationship with illicit globalization in the 21st century (16).  After that there is an epilogue, notes, and an index.

The author appears to be making several related points in this book, and the information is compelling even where the book tends not to be all that appealing from a stylistic perspective.  For one, the author notes the long history of smuggling and demonstrates that a substantial portion of the American people has never tolerated restraint on their interests.  Whatever sort of items were banned on “moral” grounds that were wanted by any part of the population tended to create a large black market for smuggling as well as hostility shown to law enforcement figures.  This is not a new phenomenon.  The author also talks about the essential ambivalence of the American political authorities over history that have tended to quietly support or turn a blind eye to those illicit trade activities that led to some sort of profit or benefit while appearing as moralizers when it came to their own pet causes.  And this book also seeks to remind the reader of this book (likely an American) that we need to understand our own history and recognize that our embrace of anti-smuggling and anti-piracy efforts is more a sign of our own wealth and economic power as a nation than it is a reflection of our own behavior in the past.