Note 80 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Of this fact there can be no doubt. Writing on February 27, 1822, to Senator Henry Johnson, chairman of the U. S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Superintendent McKenney said: ".... The Indians, it is admitted, are good judges of the articles in which they deal, and, generally when they are permitted to be sober, they can detect attempts to practise fraud upon them. The traders knowing this (however, few of the Indians are permitted to trade without a previous preparation in the way of liquor,) would not be so apt to demand exorbitant prices.... This may be illustrated by the fact, as reported to this office by Matthew Irwin, that previous to the establishment of the Green Bay factory [agency] as much as one dollar and fifty cents had been demanded by the traders of the Indians, and received, for a brass thimble, and eighteen dollars for one pound of tobacco!"—U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Document No. 60:40.