History of Salt

Salt, also sodium chloride, chemical compound that has the formula NaCl.

Most people probably think of salt as simply that white granular food seasoning found in a salt shaker on virtually every dining table. It is that, surely, but it is far more. It is an essential element in the diet of not only humans but of animals, and even of many plants. It is one of the most effective and most widely used of all food preservatives. Its industrial and other uses are almost without number. In fact, salt is involved in almost all aspects of human activity.
The fact is that throughout history has been such an important element of life that it has been the subject of much folklore. It served as money at various times and places, and it has been the cause of bitter warfare.

Salt was in general use long before history, as we know it, began to be recorded. Important since prehistoric times as a seasoning agent and to preserve foods, salt also was commonly used in the religious rites of the Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christians In the form of salt cakes, it served as money in ancient Ethiopia and Tibet.
Some 2,700 years B.C.-about 4,700 years ago-there was published in China the PENG-TZAO-KAN-MU, probably the earliest known treatise on pharmacology. A major portion of this writing was devoted to a discussion of more than 40 kinds of salt, including descriptions of two methods of extracting salt and putting it in usable form that are amazingly similar to processes used today.

Salt was an important medium of exchange in the commercial ventures across the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Adriatic seas. A far-flung trade in ancient Greece involving exchange of salt for slaves gave rise to the expression, "not worth his salt”. The English term salary, which formerly represented a soldier's money allowance for salt, was derived from “salarium argentum”, the Latin term referring to the salt allotment that was issued to soldiers serving in the Roman army. There are more than 30 references to salt in the Bible.

Salt is intertwined in European history. Likewise, British salt making encompasses much of the history of the United Kingdom. Throughout history the essentiality of salt has subjected it to governmental monopoly and special taxes. Salt taxes long supported British monarchs and thousands of British were imprisoned for smuggling salt. Salt has also been subject to severe taxation in Asian countries from ancient to modern times. French kings developed a salt monopoly by selling exclusive rights to produce it to a favoured few who exploited that right to the point where the scarcity of salt was a major contributing cause of the French Revolution.

Salt has played a prominent role in American history as well. The first patent issued by the British crown to an American settler gave Samuel Winslow of the Massachusetts Bay Colony the exclusive right for ten years to make salt by his particular method. The famed Erie Canal, opened in 1825, was known as "the ditch that salt built" because salt, a bulky product presenting major transportation difficulties, originally was its principal cargo. Syracuse, NY, is to this day proud of its nickname: "Salt City". Salt played an important role on the U.S. frontier. It has been called "Illinois' first industry". In December, 1864, Union forces made a forced march and fought a 36-hour battle to capture Saltville, Virginia, the site of an important salt processing plant thought essential to sustaining the South's beleaguered armies.

Salt also had military significance. For instance, it is recorded that thousands of Napoleon's troops died during his retreat from Moscow because their wounds would not heal as a result of a lack of salt. In 1777, the British Lord Howe was jubilant when he succeeded in capturing General Washington's salt supply.

In short, the innocuous looking, white granular substance we know today as "salt" historically has been so essential to all life as to be of the utmost value. We are fortunate, indeed, that in the Australia it has never been subjected to discriminatory taxes, and that it is plentiful and one of the most easily obtainable and least expensive of our necessities.

The Salt Institute - used with permission 2001.