Women In the Fur Trade

Over time, the power that Native women held with in their tribe has unfortunately digressed. During the age of exploration Native women have played key roles in the western fur trade. Native women assisted the fur traders by being liaison between the Europeans and Natives. This role was fundamental in strengthening trade increasing the economic stability of the post. They acted as guides for the European traders who often found themselves in dangerous and unfamiliar territory. Finally, they provided an intimate relationship for the European traders, and played a pragmatic role as a domesticated wife. However in order to fully understand the magnitude of the

According to Peggy Baker, of the Pilgrim Hall Museum, the fur trade between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans began sometime around 1625. The Pilgrims were in enormous debt with investors in Europe and needed money to repay this debt. They knew that one of the best ways to make the money was through fur trade and they knew the best furs to trade were beaver furs. However, the beavers were in Maine with the American Indians. Hence, the Pilgrims began the fur trade with the Native Americans. The Native Americans would hunt the beaver and trade the fur with Europeans for goods such as grain, cooking pots, tools, clothing, and blankets. As the fur trade continued throughout America, the impact on the Native Americans began.

The British were interested in the production and circulation of fur as a commodity in the world market and were in need of labor. The Indians were the only available source of skilled labor, so they became part of the production process.

What roles do Indigenous women play within the family? Do these roles change with further contact with Europeans? What strategies are used by these women to attempt to maintain their independence and power?

The economic and cultural influences of the 19th century Hudson Bay Company had a significant impact on the diet and food practices of the Northern First Nations Peoples, which impact created a dependency on the government. From this dependency Northern Canada emerged as a welfare state. Prior to European contact, the First Nations exercised regular hunting and gathering practices, relying on game animals as a key meat source. These Peoples, such as the Barren Ground caribou hunters and the Ojibwa fishing villagers, were considered affluent as they had stable food resources which supplied a surplus to their needs (Coates 1989). Resource management strategies, such as hunting multiple species, had been established and were practiced by the hunters to avoid food shortages or scarcities (Coates 1989). Most tribes which based their food supply on a primary large animal – such as the barren ground caribou – would also hunt secondary prey sources, like the beaver (Coates 1989). However, modifications were made to these management strategies as the First Nations responded to the demands created by the open market of the 19th century Hudson Bay Company. The Peoples developed as commercial

Families assembled in spring to angle, in early winter to chase, and in the mid year they isolated to develop singular planting fields. Young men were educated in the method for the forested areas, where a man's aptitude at chasing and capacity to get by under all conditions were imperative to his family's prosperity. Ladies were prepared from their most punctual years to work perseveringly in the fields and around the family wetu, a round or oval house that was intended to be effortlessly disassembled and moved in only a couple of hours. They likewise figured out how to accumulate and handle normal foods grown from the ground, other create from the living space, and their harvests. The creation of sustenance among the Wampanoag was like that of numerous Native American social orders. Nourishment propensities were partitioned along gendered lines. Men and ladies had particular undertakings. Local ladies assumed a dynamic part in a hefty portion of the phases of nourishment creation. Since the Wampanoag depended fundamentally on products gathered from this sort of work, ladies had vital socio-political, financial, and profound parts in their groups. Wampanoag men were for the most part in charge of chasing and angling, while ladies dealt with cultivating and the social event of wild organic products, nuts, berries, shellfish, and so on. Ladies were in charge of up to seventy-five percent of all sustenance

The experience of the Firs Nation’s during the fur trade would have been a new and novel situation for all First Nation’s. York and Hudson Bay Company led a competition between anyone living in Canada at the time but it became very competitive for the First Nation tribes. There was increasing fur and goods in 1730, but shortly after there was a sharp decline in goods until 1750 because of the competition was so hard. Indian tribes competed with one another for control of the trading posts. Problem was, there was a distance between the tribes that made trading more difficult, the Mountain Indians travelled 37 days downstream and took months to return. Assiniboine and Cree bands were taking over control of their inland trading of York factory

In "Red" Labor: Iroquois Participation in the Atlantic Economy Gail D.MacLeitch explains “Cultural practices centered on gift giving and communal ownership prevented extremes of wealth from developing” (6). However by the seventeenth century, contact with colonists attracted the Iroquois to paid labor. Deciding to become part of the transatlantic fur trade the Iroquois received items such as cloth, guns, house wares, alcohol, and jewelry from the French and British in exchange for the furs of beavers (which were hunted to near extinction.) The goods that were received were then incorporated into the Iroquois way of life, including religious practices. By the eighteenth century Iroquois had ceased to create their own goods and became completely reliant on foreign trade (MacLeitch

Fur Trade in Canada, formed the backbone of the object in the original settlement of that colony. The Fur Trade represented travel, adventure, and employment for hundreds of young men (little book page 10). The First Nations and Europeans recognized one another as supreme nations and created

1790s – The fur trade thrived in the final years of the 1700s. The trade remained dominated by British merchants and traders, but involved many French Canadians, the Métis, and a few Americans. Wisconsin’s Indian Nations remained full participants in the trade but their increasing reliance on trade goods continued to undermine their traditional culture and social structure.

While not taking care of their land the other job the males of the Iroquois had was warfare and even in battle with their enemies having superiors numbers over the Iroquois they were still able to defeat many opponents. The Dutch were given some credit for the Iroquois success when they provide them with weapons, but the Iroquois overall success lay in their ability to maintain unity and a far more superior organization than any of their enemies. While militarily they formed a great force to reckon with, it was their political system that made them even more a force in the early years of colonial history. This system allowed for them to form a unified front against the new European threat that was arriving in their lands. The Fur trade in North America began with the earliest contacts between the Iroquois and Europeans. Within a few years the Iroquois and the Dutch and others were bartering their goods with each other throughout the Mohawk Valley. In Europe there was a market for the furs and endless supply in North America to fulfill this need. In time the Iroquois became so dependent on these traders that they eventually gave up more and more of their own

Women in the fur trade are very important, they made our history. After their husbands went hunting, the women would trade it with someone

Trade between the Aboriginal populations and the Europeans was both beneficial and not. Prior to the fur trade Aboriginals had always hunted and gathered just for what was needed. European trade goods greatly improved the Aboriginal people’s way of life. The fur trade brought metal tools and weapons that took the place of the Aboriginal people’s stone and bone ones. Clay, skin, bark, or wood pots and kettles were replaced by iron cooking pots and copper kettles. Along with these metal goods, guns were introduced, replacing bows and arrows. This made hunting faster and easier. As the fur trade grew, the Aboriginal people’s way of life changed more and more. The Mi’kmaq people, for example, their usual summer food gathering was replaced by hunting

While horses and guns revolutionized warfare, trading for everyday goods greatly improved the life for the Native Americans. These items included new pots, beads, scissors, and hatchets. For example, the introduction of the scissors allowed the women to cut cloth more easily and precisely than before. Overall, everyday activities such as cooking and weaving were made much easier because of trade for European goods. The Native Americans frequently

When the Europeans visitors started coming to North America they hoped to find vast amounts of gold and silver, but they found something else, which proved to be just as valuable as furs. The ecological impact of the fur trade on the Indians of the North America demonstrates that the Indians were not the beneficiaries, but the victims in fur trade with all the other Europeans countries which affected them socially, environmentally and economically. French and the English fisherman in 1500’s were the first to purchase fur from the Indians, in exchange the Indians received European manufactured goods such as knives, guns and steel blades, for example according to the text Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic, Subarctic, and Northwest Coast. Ed said, “That could be fitted to traditional adzes to cut more efficiently than stone or shell blades, yet initially spurned axe and hatchet blades because these required a drastic change in motor habits and coordination patterns. ”1 Many fishermen abandoned fishing and made voyages to North America only to trade fur.