Salt in the Ancient World
As stated before, salt was vital in ancient civilizations. Salt helped the ancient world grow. In fact, in the early Roman Republic, one of the main reason Romans started to build roads in their area was to make transporting salt to the Roman capital easier. Beginning in the late Roman Republic and lasting until the end of the Middle Ages, people traveled on salt roads to the Germanic tribes. Camels would bring the salt from the Sahara four hundred miles to Sahel where the salt was for slaves.
Salt was also crucial to the Chinese. Salt has played an essential role in not only the growth of China but even its economic and political history. When the Chinese government realized all the things that salt could do, they started to create salt policies. This led the residents of China to wonder if the salt should have any part in the government. On top of this, the mineral was also an important part of Chinese culture. In fact, salt is one of the seven necessities of life in China.
The American History of Salt
When the Europeans and the Native Americans first met each other in America, the Europeans learned that the Native Americans would harvest sea salt on St. Maarten. Salt continued to be a part of the American way of life as it began to motivate the pioneers in American history. Because some of the American colonists received their salt from Great Britain, the motherland decided to stop production of salt during the American Revolution. The British felt that if they withheld salt from the colonists, they would not rebel because salt was considered to be incredibly precious to the colonists.
The first patent that the king of Great Britain gave to American colonists had to do with salt. The colonists, Samuel Winslow who was from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, were given the right to make salt with his own method for a decade. When Lewis and Clark traveled through the Louisiana Purchase territory in the early 1800s, they kept salt on their minds. They wanted to know if there would be any salt around the new region for trade and other areas in life.
The 1795 Land Act wanted to prevent monopolies, so it included a provision for salt reservations. However, this was not the only act in history which included salt. Another was a treaty between the state of New York and the Iroquois’ Onondaga tribe. This treaty and act were put in place because the state of New York has always had salt as a considerable part of their history and economy. On top of this, the city of Syracuse, which is located in New York, is known as Salt City.
Then there is the Erie Canal, which has gone down in history as “the ditch that salt built” because, in the 1800s, the canal was mainly used to transport salt. From about the late 1700s until the mid-1800s, salt was produced by many states in the United States of America. These states include Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Louisiana. During the 18th and 19th centuries, most states in the US had salt mining. In fact, many still do salt mining, such as Louisiana, Ohio, New York, and Kansas.
