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Indians 101: Cultural changes brought about by the early fur trade [1]

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Date: 2022-12-01

We should acknowledge that there is no such thing as a single, unified American Indian culture just as there is no single, unified European culture. There were more than 500 distinct American Indian cultures during the first centuries of the European invasion of North America and the impact of the fur and hide trade was not uniform on these cultures. There are, however, some very broad, general patterns of culture change which can be seen in the American Indian cultures which were involved with this trade.

The most evident changes in American Indian cultures are seen in material culture: the Europeans traded metal goods (see Indians 101: The effect of metal goods in the early fur trade), cloth items (see Indians 101: Blankets and cloth in the early fur trade), and alcohol (see Indians 101: Alcohol in the early fur trade) for furs and hides.

Trade with the Europeans began to change Native American material culture. This included an increasing dependence on trade to obtain metal for arrow heads which replaced stone; cloth for decoration and clothing; metal pots and pans; firearms; glass beads. Indian people quickly found that metal axes, hatchets, fishhooks, and knives were superior to those made of stone. In addition to new items of material culture, the European traders brought new methods of trading, most notably the idea of fixed prices: the bars—called “points”—on the Hudson Bay Company blankets are one example of fixed pricing. In his book The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities, Colin Calloway writes:

“The fur and deerskin trades not only introduced new commodities to Indian Americans; they also introduced alien systems of value and meaning. New economic incentives undermined old spiritual relationships between hunters and their prey.”

Another important change brought about by the European traders was the concept of credit. The European traders advanced goods to Native people based on skins and furs which they were to deliver at the end of the season. In his book Lumbee Indian Histories: Race, Ethnicity, and Indian Identity in the Southern United States, anthropologist Gerald Sider writes:

“Credit relations massively intensified the penetration of European domination within native societies, and also massively intensified the contradictions in the native peoples’ situation.”

Credit placed pressure on the Indian hunters to obtain skins and furs. Credit was often advanced not to the individuals, but to the native leaders. These leaders, in turn, would distribute the goods in such a way as to commit their people to produce the required skins or furs. Gerald Sider goes on to report:

“The credit system, not based on one-time transactions but on continuing, and usually deepening, relationships, gave new kinds of native leaders, new kinds of power and forced them to use it.”

The fur trade changed the economies of many Indian nations. In the southeast, for example, Indians had traditionally hunted only to supplement their agricultural efforts. Hunting became a vital element of Indian lives and the means by which they could obtain European goods. Items such as guns, housewares (iron pots, brass and tin kettles, pans, canisters), tools, blankets, textiles, and rum were soon considered necessities rather than luxuries. At the French trading posts of Detroit and Green Bay, cloth, blankets, gunpowder, and shirts were the dominant trade goods. These items were obtained by trading furs and skins. In her book Deerskins and Duffels: Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-Americans, 1685-1815, Kathryn Braund writes:

“The exchange of native produce for European manufactures was the fulcrum on which Indian relations turned.”

While the fur trade brought Indians and Europeans into closer contact and into business relationships, it also carried with it the seeds for the destruction of the traditional Indian economies and the spiritual relationship between Indians, the land, and the animals. The fur trade undercut the traditional native economies and made them more and more reliant upon European goods. At the same time, the new economy meant that Indian hunters must now harvest a surplus of deer and other animals to have hides for trade. This began to upset the ecology by overhunting. It also violated a spiritual relationship between the people and the animals who had spiritually given themselves to the people since the before there was time.

Prior to the European invasion, Indians had viewed themselves and the animal people as equals. With the hunting for the fur trade, a new world view began to emerge: Indian men began to see the world in a hierarchical fashion in which they had dominion over the animals. In addition, this hierarchical view placed men at the top of the human hierarchy and upset the traditional balance between men and women.

Regarding the Seneca and the fur trade, archaeologist Arthur Caswell Parker, in his book Red Jacket: Seneca Chief, writes:

“Under pressure for large quantities of pelts, they spent most of their time hunting instead of tilling their great cornfields.”

Arthur Caswell Parker, himself a Seneca, feels that this change contributed to the downfall of the Seneca and to the weakening of the Iroquois.

The fur trade also began to change Indian society in another way. According to Canadian historian Sylvia Van Kirk, in her book Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870:

“Fundamental to the growth of a fur-trade society was widespread intermarriage between the traders and Indian women.”

She goes on to say:

“The important economic role of the Indian wife reflected the extent to which the traders adopted a native way of life. Nevertheless, fur-trade society was not Indian; rather it combined both European and Indian elements to produce a distinctive, self-perpetuating society.”

The fur and hide trade also skewed the European view of Indian cultures. Since the European traders were primarily interested in furs and hides, they tended to ignore the existence of Indian agriculture. From the European viewpoint, Indians were primarily hunters, even though the Europeans often obtained agricultural products from the Indians.

While the fur and hide trade helped perpetuate the stereotype of Indians as hunters, there were other factors that contributed to the invisibility of Indian agriculture. In their book The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears, Theda Perdue and Michael Green write:

“The role of women as farmers contributed to the perception that farming played a secondary role in the Cherokee economy: If it had been truly important, Englishmen reasoned, the Indians surely would not have put women in charge.”

The European traders were generally motivated by greed and often suspended the laws of physical science. In some cases, one and a half English pounds made up one Indian pound. In addition to false measures, the traders also used inferior goods to increase their profit margins. On the other hand, it was not uncommon for Indians displeased with their trade to force traders into more favorable terms by show of force.

The fur and hide trade had a ripple effect through Indian country. Even tribes which did not have direct access to European traders obtained European goods by trading with other tribes. The European manufactured goods brought in by the fur trade were often exchanged through a tribal economic network. Thus, many Indians obtained European goods without ever having any contact with the Europeans themselves. In his chapter on the Fort Peck Sioux prior to 1800 in The History of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Montana, 1800-2000, Dennis Smith writes:

“For most northern plains tribes, European trade goods came indirectly, from trade with other tribes.”

Regarding the Cree trading European goods to the Blackfoot in the 1700s, Jack Nisbet, in his book Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson Across Western North America. writes:

“The Crees charged the Blackfeet fifty beaver or wolf pelts for one musket; back on Hudson Bay the going rate was fourteen pelts per gun.”

Another aspect of trade, particularly in the Southeast, involved slaves. While slavery was not unknown to American Indians, it was not an important economic activity. For the early Europeans, however, obtaining Indian slaves to sell to other Europeans was an important economic activity. The southeastern Indian nations became active participants in the European slave trade, often financing their wars against each other through the sale of captives. Anthropologist Gerald Sider reports:

“Indian people were not extensively used as slaves in the mainland colonies but were ‘transported’ to the West Indies.”

The Europeans often encouraged wars between Indian nations so that they could obtain more slaves for export.

More Indians 101

Indians 101: The eighteenth-century fur and hide trade

Indians 101: The fur trade in Washington

Indians 101: The Fur Trade in Northwestern Montana, 1807-1835

Indians 101: Nor'westers and Indians in the Columbia Plateau

Indians 101: Cultures in Contact on the Northern Plains

Indians 101: The Astorians and the Indians

Indians 101: The Fur Trade in 1816

Indians 101: The fur trade in 1822

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