Great Lakes History

Outlaws of the Lakes Outlaws of the Lakes Bootlegging and Smuggling From Colonial Times to the Prohibition By Edward Butts Since the earliest colonial times, the Great Lakes and the Upper St. Lawrence River have been a smugglers' highway. They have borne silent witness to trafficking of almost every commodity governments could tax or ban. Some of the smugglers were hailed as heroes by the public, but they also corrupted government officials, terrorized honest citizens and committed acts of ruthless violence. A French bootlegger founded the city of Detroit in the eighteenth century. Two hundred years later, American and Canadian bootleggers supplied booze to the criminal empires of Al Capone, Dion O'Banion and the Purple Gang during the doomed experiment called Prohibition. Some became rich; others died with their boots on. Some were cut down by Coast Guard bullets; more were gunned down by rival bootleggers. All of them were brazen and ingenious (Rocco Perri had a front as a macaroni salesman) and they stopped at nothing. Whether they operated in defiance of unjust laws or out of pure greed, the smugglers and bootleggers of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River carved a legacy of violence and adventure, one that has had a profound impact upon the histories of Canada and the United States. 6" x 9", 272 pages Quantity :  CAD $ 24.95  Click here to ask a question about this item