Salt History

Salt (sodium chloride) — the mineral essential to human life (the body cannot produce it, and sodium is required for nerve function, muscle contraction, and fluid balance) — has been the most economically and politically significant substance in human history for thousands of years. Before refrigeration, it was the primary food preservative (salt cod, salt pork, salt beef fed armies and sailors; salt-cured meats and fish enabled long ocean voyages and the colonization of the Americas). Salt taxes funded empires: the Roman salarium (salt ration or salt money given to soldiers) gives us the word 'salary'; the British Raj's salt tax on Indians was the direct cause of Gandhi's Salt March (1930, 240 miles to the sea to make salt illegally). Salt's history: ancient Egyptians used salt for mummification and traded it with sub-Saharan Africa; Rome's Via Salaria (Salt Road) was built to transport salt from coastal salt pans to Rome; Venice's wealth was partly built on the salt trade; the Gabelle (French salt tax, 1286-1790) was one of the causes of the French Revolution (poor people could not afford salt for food preservation); and the British salt monopoly in India was so resented that it became the symbol Gandhi chose for civil disobedience. Salt is now the cheapest mineral commodity in the world — but its history as a scarce, valuable substance shaped civilization.