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Updated: May 6, 2025
Aunt Josephine has copied me a passage from the writings of William Byrd, Esq., of Westover, Virginia, in which mention is made, not of the family, but of a rum punch which seems to have been concocted first by Admiral Bombo, from a New England brand of rum so very deadly that it was not inaptly styled 'kill-devil' by the early planters of the colony.
And after he had tucked it under my lady's tiny feet as she sat in her pew, he retired to his freezing loft high up among the beams, the "Nigger Pew," where, I am sorry to record, he more than once solaced and warmed himself with a bottle of "kill-devil" which he had smuggled into church, until he fell ignominiously asleep and his drunken snores so disturbed the minister and the congregation, that two tithingmen were forced to climb the ladder-like staircase and pull him down and out of the church and to the neighboring tavern to sleep off the effects of the liquor.
It is certain, at least, we have no right to promulgate our opinions to the prejudice of others. I longed for an opportunity of seeing this kill-devil of a captain well tried as a soldier; for, if he killed people as fast by the sword as he did by the tongue, two companies of such men would clear the universe, asleep or awake.
It was the boy's closing sentence which fixed my attention wholly, took it away from Kill-devil Bombo and my Aunt Carola's commission, for the execution of which I now held the clue, and sent me puzzling for the right interpretation of his words: "I believe that you will help your friend by that advice which startled me last night, but which I now begin to see more in than I did.
John Eliot spelled it "rumb," and Josselyn called it plainly "that cussed liquor, Rhum, rumbullion, or kill-devil." It went by the latter name and rumbooze everywhere, and was soon cheap enough. Increase Mather said, in 1686, "It is an unhappy thing that in later years a Kind of Drink called Rum has been common among us.
In 1719, and fifty years later, New England rum was worth but three shillings a gallon, while West India rum was worth but twopence more. New England distilleries quickly found a more lucrative way of disposing of their "kill-devil" than by selling it at such cheap rates.
These rebels were no saints: their worship was obi-worship; the women had not far outgrown the plantation standard of chastity, and the men drank "kill-devil" like their betters. Stedman was struck with the difference between the meaning of the word "good" in rebellious circles and in reputable.
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