Fur Trading Exploitation

 

“No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much

less to strangers… Sell a country? Why not sell the air,

the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn’t the Great

Spirit make them all for the use of his children?

-Tecumseh

Shawnee 

Fur trading greatly changed the lives of Native Americans by converting them from hunters and gatherers for their tribal communities to a dependence on fur trading commerce. The main goal of early tribal communities, before the onslaught of European interlopers, was survival often in environments which consisted of harsh climate during the winter months in Canada and northern North America. Before the extensive European invasion, the Indian people only hunted and gathered what they needed to support their communal village and did not over extend their hunting and gathering efforts. Legends foretell how the Indian people and animals had a cohesive relationship based on mutual respect until the white men descended in droves. Wild game became over hunted which threatened the Native Americans’ survival.

Commercial fur trade began with early contact between indigenous population and the European fishermen. The fishermen netted cod in Newfoundland and Quebec. Native Americans traded mink and other small animal pelts for knives, other iron products and cloth with the fishermen. The trade, haphazard at best, continued until around the middle to late sixteenth century when the wearing of beaver hats became the new fashion trend. The demand for beaver furs led to extensive trapping of the furry animals by Native Americans during the harshness of northern winters when the fur was the thickest. From 1634 to 1850 the Michigan fur trade was a prominent business and control of such trade started when the French and the British decided to take part in this profitable business venture. Many battles were fought over the fur-trading business, especially when the animals sought became vastly depleted in specific locations. At first the Indian people were duped into trading furs for mere trinkets and such. Then the Indian people demanded to trade for items such as guns and unfortunately rum and brandy. Liquor became one of the main trade items. Many of the fur traders were of a rough sort, drank plenty and defied the laws of a civil society. Others delved into the wilderness to barter with the Indian people, adopt their ways and marry Native American women. Many Europeans wanted a piece of the lucrative market while fur trading became the only source of income for the Native Americans.

The fur-trading business ended up being catastrophic for the Indian people. Not only was the beaver population depleted, the population of the native people was decreased considerably by the ravages of traders’ diseases to which they had no immunity. Smallpox was the number one killer, with measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhus, whooping cough, and influenza following suit. The introduction of alcohol as a bargaining tool was devastating to the tribal communities. Also, the fur trade created an upheaval of tribal communities as they fought one another and joined forces with European allies to gain control of land bases and its resources (Johnson, 1971).  

 

The earliest French explorers to work with Native Americans regarding fur trading was Jacques Cartier in the 1530s. He traveled the St. Lawrence River and Gulf of St. Lawrence areas. During the 1580s, French trading companies were set up in the region of what was later referred to as New France. Additional explorers such as Chouart, Nicolet, Groseilliers, Radisson and La Salle opened the way in Canada and Michigan for other explorers and fur trade entrepreneurs. Chouart and Groseilliers spent the winter of 1659-60 at Sault Ste. Marie in the current state of Michigan (Johnston, 1971).

French frontiersmen were referred to as coureurs de bois or forest runners. Another name given to these brave men was voyageurs who happened to be canoeists or travelers. The reduction of the beaver population forced the coureurs de bois to go further into the interior of Canada. These canoeists wore brightly woven sashes, deer-skin leggings, and moccasins. On colder days they wore a capote or blanket coat. They were instantly recognizable and stood apart from other men. Voyageurs and coureurs de bois were short and wiry, on average five-foot-six in height. Despite their smaller stature, they were amazingly strong and had an inexhaustible amount of stamina. Samuel de Champlain relied on these brave men and the Indian men to help him with his business ventures which partially involved fur trading.

            Champlain founded the small village of Quebec with 28 men in 1608. In 1630, 103 colonists resided in this community and by 1640 the population had grown to 355.  Champlain was known as the “Father of New France” (Nies, 1996).

            A charter, granted by the British Crown, formed the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1670. The company operated from posts along the coast of Hudson Bay in Canada for approximately 100 years. The negotiation of the Jay’s Treaty in 1794, which defined the northern border, led to the establishment of the American Fur Company owned by John Jacob Astor. In 1816 an act of law was passed which granted only U.S. citizens the right to carry on the fur trade in “Indian Country” in the United States (Carlos and Lewis, 2008). During the booming fur trading years, the demand for fur hats increased the pressure for fur traders to up their game.

            “The main cause of the rising beaver pelt prices in England and France was the increasing demand for beaver hats, which included hats made exclusively with beaver wool and referred to as ‘beaver hat,’ and those hats containing a combination of beaver and a lower cost wool, such as rabbit. These were called ‘felt hat.’ Unfortunately, aggregate consumption series for the eighteenth century for Europe are not available. We do, however, have Gregory King’s contemporary work for England which provides a good starting point… King calculated that consumption of all types of hats was 3.3 million, or nearly one hat per person. King also included a second category, caps of all sorts, for which he estimated consumption at 1.6 million” (Harte, 1991, pg. 293). The potential market as early as 1700 for England alone was nearly 5 million per year dependent on population growth (Carlos and Lewis, 2008).

            Another involved party with the fur trade were the Jesuits, also referred to as the black robe priests. They did not endorse the use of alcohol as a trade item. Intoxicated Indians were unlikely candidates to be converted to Christianity. The Jesuits lobbied in Europe against the use of brandy and rum as trade commodities. Their lobbying efforts were generally unsuccessful. If French alcohol was prohibited, it would be substituted with alcoholic beverages supplied by British colonies.

            The Jesuits, followed the fur traders wherever they went. Both groups were interested in working with the Indian people. The Jesuits wanted to save the Indian people by converting them to Christianity and the fur traders wanted to obtain furs from them at the smallest cost possible. The fur traders were considered a bad influence on the naive tribal people. Many Indian people fell to the abyss of alcohol consumption which damaged their relationships and their health during the early fur trading era supported by uncaring fur traders who wanted to obtain furs as cheap as possible without concern about the damaging effects of alcohol. The influence of alcohol has served as a detriment for Native Americans throughout history to current times and served as a way of deadening the pain of losing their culture, their land and their tribal communities (Conlan,1994).

 

            Fur traders did not have it much better. The daily life of a fur trader was somewhat monotonous and often filled with hardships. Their food and dress, recreation, methods of trade, character, and relationships with the Indian people has served as a continuing point of interest. They had to be of a rugged sort, people who could withstand the elements of harsh weather, and life-threatening obstacles such as hostile Indians, competing fur-traders, starvation and wild animals. Sometimes they had to portage their canoes, supplies, and packs of fur. They were expected to carry a pack of furs that weighed up to 90 pounds sometimes for great distances.

            Their food, which was not of variety, consisted of pemmican, pea soup, wild rice and lyed-corn. To prepare the corn, the corn was boiled in strong lye, then the husk was removed, and the corn was washed and dried. It became soft and could be fried like rice. Pemmican was a dried meat, usually from deer, elk or bison. Later on, beef was used to make pemmican, also. Their daily routines consisted of paddling, hauling, and portaging for approximately 16 hours and then they would collapse from exhaustion. At night they slept by some small or large body of water with a gun by their side. Their coverings would be a blanket and perhaps some brush to add cushion to the hard surface of the ground (Johnston, 1971).

            What enticed these foreboding individuals into these dangerous hunting exploits? Was it the money, was it their relationship with the Indian people, or was it the sheer danger of it all? Men who could paddle, hunt, trap, and speak parts of the Indian tongue proved to be the heartiest of fur traders. These men were a combination of being somewhat civilized and part savage with the latter being the most prominent. 

             

The stories of many Native American people, who turned their lives over to enterprises such as the American Fur Company, were filled with financial loss and other hardships. Indian people were coerced into accumulating debt during President Jefferson’s time in office. Jefferson believed the country was run by the white people and during that time period the general population strived to rid the country of the “Indian problem.”

            To appease the Americans, Jefferson decided to set up the Indian people to turn over their land holdings by using a market economy. More and more white settlers were moving to this country and using more of the land’s rich resources. Trading posts were put up in various locations to entice the Indian people to get their needs met and at the same time accumulate debt of which they had no means of paying back. They ended up giving up large portions of the land they lived on. The Native Americans faced the likelihood of starving if they did not depend on the trading posts for food because they were either depressed, saddled with alcoholism and the wild game they relied on for food was over hunted by the white settlers. They were in a dire situation due to the onslaught of white settlers (Ambrose, 1996). 

 

            To get an idea of how much beaver pelts were worth at the trading posts, in 1784 the Hudson Bay Company prepared a “Table of Equivalents” which listed the number of beavers required to trade for various items. Throughout history prices have gone up, not down, for items purchased in stores. It would be safe to note that it would have taken many more beavers to get the same wares during the early 1800s. In 1784, the following table was used to place a value on specific items, a concept that was foreign to the Indian people.

 

·         1 Beaver = 9 Arrow Heads

·         1 Beaver = 1 yard of cloth

·         4 Beavers = 1 gallon of brandy

·         11 Beavers = 1 gun

·         1 Beaver = ¾ pounds of beads

(Brazer, 1993)

 

            Moving from a bartering system to a market economy was difficult for the Native American people. Many were confused about this concept. Bartering is a form of transaction in which goods or services were exchanged for other goods or services without mediums of exchange such as money. This form of exchange was practiced by the Native Americans and they believed in the concept of reciprocity. Trade was carried out in a respectful and fair manner.          The beaver they hunted and trapped for the Europeans provided sustenance for the people of their village. In the past they used all parts of the animals they hunted. For example, the animal intestines referred to as sinew served as the thread to sew hides together. Before the fur-trading days the Indian people would exchange furs for things such as cooking utensils, pots, pans, guns and alcoholic beverages. Brandy and rum were often the trade items of choice for the British and French. They would trade vast amounts of alcohol because it was regarded as a cheap commodity in exchange for furs.           

When the settlers wanted to take over the Native American homelands, Indian people did not know how to place a value on it. They did not know what a stream or a tract of forest was worth in terms of gunpowder, iron pots or cloth. They went along with the government treaty negotiators who wrote on paper what specific land holdings were valued. They did not understand how that could be determined, considering the change of seasons and the yield of the hunt. The traders often short changed the unsuspecting Indian people and to back up their claims they would show them a statement of accounts. These statements resembled a foreign language to them.

The Indian people felt confused, hungry and cold, and they were losing their homelands. Eventually, they realized they lost by playing by a corrupt set of rules. By the time they realized they were being cheated, it was too late. The beaver population was depleted by the white settlers as well as other wild game such as deer. To make matters even more confusing, mostly French fur traders, married Indian women which created a large number of “mixed-bloods” or “half-breeds.” Many of these individuals maintained their associations with the fur trade and tribal communities. The fur trading exploits led to many difficult problems from alcoholism to a loss of their cultural identity and home lands. They became dependent on fur trading to support their communities. Fur trading greatly altered the lives of the Native Americans as a result of the onslaught of many Europeans invading their land to satisfy the whims of the Europeans.