Where was the first fur trading in North America?
Voyageurs
Europeans mainly traded alongside the coast of North America with Native Americans. The early fur trade with Native Americans, which developed alongside the coasts of North America, was not limited to the beaver. Beavers were not particularly valued and people preferred "fancy fur" or "fur that is used with or on the pelt. The fur trade was viewed as secondary to fishing during this era.
The earliest North American fur trading did not include long distance transportation of the furs after they were obtained by trade with the First Nations; it started with trading near settlements or along the coast or waterways accessible by ship. Soon, coureurs des bois achieved business advantages by travelling deeper into the wilderness and trading there. By 1681, the King of France decided to control the traders by publishing an edict that banned fur and pelt trading in New France.
Maritime fur trade
Another side trade was smuggling along the Pacific coast of the Spanish Empire, where foreign trade was prohibited by Spanish law. This trade peaked in the 1810s, then faded in the 1820s. Traders concentrated on Alta California, which produced a surplus of grain, beef, tallow, and hides, but was chronically short of manufactured goods. American ships brought goods to the missions of Alta California in exchange for grain, beef, and Californian sea otter skins. The grain, beef, and other provisions were taken to Sitka, which was perennially short of foods supplies. After Mexico gained independence in 1821 the American trade with Alta California continued in a slightly modified form. American traders brought mostly clothing, cottons, silks, lace, cutlery, alcohol, and sugar, which were traded for hides and tallow at a profit generally between 200% and 300%. The California Hide Trade became a major industry in its own right. By the 1830s, however, the missions of Alta California had been secularized by Mexican authorities and deserted by Indian labourers. The trade slid into unprofitability. The decline of the American trade with Alta California left just one significant alternative to the ever-dwindling sea otter trade—the provisioning of the settlements of Russian America, which lasted until the Americans abandoned the North West Coast altogether in the early 1840s. From the first decade of the 19th century until 1841 American ships visited Sitka regularly, trading provisions, textiles, and liquor for fur seal skins, timber, and fish. This trade was usually highly profitable for the Americans and the Russian settlements depended on it. Thus when Tsar Nicholas I issued the "ukase" of 1821, banning foreign trade north of the 51st parallel, the Russian colonies in America were forced to ignore the ban and engage in smuggling.
North American fur trade
A group of Métis who identified with the Chippewa moved to the Pembina in 1819 and then to the Red River area in 1820, which was located near St. François Xavier in Manitoba. In this region they would establish several prominent fur trading communities. These communities had ties to one another through the NWC. This relationship dated back to between 1804 and 1821 when Métis men had served as low level voyageurs, guides, interpreters, and contre-maitres, or foremen. It was from these communities that Métis buffalo hunters operating in the robe trade arose.
Grand Portage (community), Minnesota
Beginning in the 17th century, Grand Portage became a major center of the fur trade. See Canadian Canoe Routes (early). It was at the point where a major canoe fur trade route of the voyageurs left the great lakes. It was so named because the route began with a huge 9 mile portage. A portage is a place where the canoes and equipment are carried over land. The French established this trade with the Native Americans until the British took it over in the 18th century after the Seven Years' War. The North West Company established the area as its regional headquarters. Soon Grand Portage became one of Britain's four main fur trading posts, along with Niagara, Detroit, and Michilimackinac. Even after the American Revolutionary War and victory by the rebellious colonists, the British continued to operate in the area. Under the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Britain had to cede former territory to the United States, including this area.
North American beaver
The beaver was trapped out and almost extirpated in North America because its fur and castoreum were highly sought after. The beaver furs were used to make clothing and beaver hats. In the United States, extensive trapping began in the early 17th century, with more than 10,000 beaver per year taken for the fur trade in Connecticut and Massachusetts between 1620 and 1630. From 1630 to 1640, around 80,000 beavers were taken annually from the Hudson River and western New York. From 1670 onwards, the Hudson's Bay Company sent two or three trading ships into the bay every year to take furs to England from Canada. Archaeological and historical evidence suggests that beaver ponds created "moth-hole like" habitats in the deciduous forest that dominated eastern North America. This nonforest habitat attracted both Native American and early colonial hunters to the abundant fish, waterfowl, and large game attracted to the riparian clearings created by these aquatic mammals. The first colonial farmers were also attracted to the fertile, flat bottomlands created by the accumulated silt and organic matter in beaver ponds.
Tanana Athabaskans
Russian fur traders (and promyshlenniki [According to American historian and ethnologist Hubert Howe Bancroft, the Cossacks themselves were a light troop, but they were preceded by a still lighter, a flying advance guard, called the "promyshleniki", a kind of Russian "coureurs des bois".] for North American fur trade and maritime fur trade) of the period of the Russian America (1733–1867) began settling Interior Alaska starting in the 1810s, establishing a trading post at Nulato on the Yukon River (of Koyukon homeland) and one (in the 1819 "Copper Fort") at Taral (Russian Тарал, native Ahtna name "Taghaelden") on the Copper River (of Ahtna homeland). British traders established Fort Yukon (of Gwich'in homeland) in 1847. Trade goods from these posts may have passed to Lower and Upper Tanana Athabaskans through intra-Native trade networks. Direct contact between Tanana Athabaskans and white traders increased after the 1860s. With the U.S. purchase of Alaska in 1867, control of trading stations and the fur trade passed to Americans. Through the 1880s, American traders established several additional posts on the Yukon and Tanana rivers, including locations at Nuklukayet (modern-day Tanana of Koyukon people homeland), Belle Isle (modern-day Eagle of Hän people homeland), and Fort Yukon. The Tanana River area has a documented Euroamerican history of less than 130 years, and like the Tanana Athabaskan history.
North American fur trade
Fur traders found that marrying the daughters of chiefs would ensure the co-operation of an entire community. Marriage alliances were also made between Indian tribes. In September 1679, the French diplomat and soldier Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, called a peace conference at Fond du Lac (modern Duluth, Minnesota) of all the "nations of the north" which was attended by Ojibwa, Dakota, and Assiniboine leaders, where it was agreed that the daughters and sons of the various chiefs would marry each other to promote peace and ensure the flow of French goods into the region.
Northern fur seal
Northern fur seals have been a staple food of native northeast Asian and Alaska Native peoples for thousands of years. The arrival of Europeans to Kamchatka and Alaska in the 17th and 18th centuries, first from Russia and later from North America, was followed by a highly extractive commercial fur trade. The commercial fur trade was accelerated in 1786, when Gavriil Pribylov discovered St. George Island, a key rookery of the seals. An estimated 2.5 million seals were killed from 1786 to 1867. This trade led to a decline in fur seal numbers. Restrictions were first placed on fur seal harvest on the Pribilof Islands by the Russians in 1834. Shortly after the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, the U.S. Treasury was authorized to lease sealing privileges on the Pribilofs, which were granted somewhat liberally to the Alaska Commercial Company. From 1870 to 1909, pelagic sealing proceeded to take a significant toll on the fur seal population, such that the Pribilof population, historically numbering on the order of millions of individuals, reached a low of 216,000 animals in 1912.
Grand Portage, Minnesota
Beginning in the 17th century Grand Portage became a major center of the fur trade. See Canadian Canoe Routes (early). It was at the point where a major canoe fur trade route of the voyageurs left the great lakes. It was so named because the route began with a huge 9 mile portage. A portage is a place where the canoes and equipment are carried over land. The French established this trade with the Native Americans until the British took it over in the 18th century after the Seven Years' War. The North West Company established the area as its regional headquarters. Soon Grand Portage became one of Britain's four main fur trading posts, along with Niagara, Detroit, and Michilimackinac. Even after the American Revolutionary War and victory by the rebellious colonists, the British continued to operate in the area. Under the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Britain had to cede former territory to the United States, including this area.
North American fur trade
Modern fur trapping and trading in North America is part of a wider $15 billion global fur industry where wild animal pelts make up only 15 percent of total fur output.
Fur farming
The international trade in chinchilla fur goes back to the 16th century and the animal (whose name literally means "Little Chincha") is named after the Chincha people of the Andes, who wore its soft, dense fur. By the end of the 19th century, chinchillas had become quite rare. In 1923, Mathias F. Chapman brought the eleven wild chinchillas he had captured to the U.S. for breeding. Only three of these were female. Empress Chinchilla is the breeders association for the chinchilla farmers, many of whom are based in the United States, including California. Empress Chinchilla runs a certification program for farmers.
North American fur trade
It was a common practice on the part of the Indian women to offer marriage and sometimes just sex in exchange for fur traders not trading with their rivals. Radisson described visiting one Ojibwa village in the spring of 1660 where during the welcoming ceremony: "The women throw themselves backwards on the ground, thinking to give us tokens of friendship and wellcome [welcome]". Radisson was initially confused by this gesture, but as the women started to engage in more overtly sexual behavior, he realized what was being offered. Radisson was informed by the village elders that he could have sex with any unmarried women in the village provided that he did not trade with the Dakota [Sioux], who were the enemies of the Ojibwa at the time.
Oregon Trail
Fur trappers, often working for fur traders, followed nearly all possible streams looking for beaver in the years (1812–40) the fur trade was active. Fur traders included Manuel Lisa, Robert Stuart, William Henry Ashley, Jedediah Smith, William Sublette, Andrew Henry, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Peter Skene Ogden, David Thompson, James Douglas, Donald Mackenzie, Alexander Ross, James Sinclair, and other mountain men. Besides discovering and naming many of the rivers and mountains in the Intermountain West and Pacific Northwest, they often kept diaries of their travels and were available as guides and consultants when the trail started to become open for general travel. The fur trade business wound down to a very low level just as the Oregon trail traffic seriously began around 1840.
Beaver Wars
During the 17th century, the Beaver Wars were battles for economic welfare throughout the St. Lawrence River valley in Canada and the lower Great Lakes region. The wars were between the Iroquois trying to take control of the fur trade from the Hurons, the northern Algonquians, and their French allies. From medieval times, Europeans had obtained furs from Russia and Scandinavia. American pelts began coming on the market during the 16th century—decades before the French, English, and Dutch established permanent settlements and trading posts on the continent—after Basque fishermen chasing cod off Newfoundland's Grand Banks bartered with local Indians for beaver robes to help fend off the numbing Atlantic chill. By virtue of their location, these tribes wielded considerable influence in European-Indian relations from the early seventeenth century onwards.
Fur farming
Historically, the fur trade played an important economic role in the United States. Fur trappers explored and opened up large parts of North America, and the fashion for beaver hats led to intense competition for the raw materials. Starting in the latter half of the 20th century, producers and wearers of fur have been criticized by animal rights activists because of the perceived cruelty they believe is involved in animal trapping and because of the availability of substitutes such as synthetic fibers (made from petroleum oil).
Oregon Trail
Up to 3,000 mountain men were trappers and explorers, employed by various British and United States fur companies or working as free trappers, who roamed the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 to the early 1840s. They usually traveled in small groups for mutual support and protection. Trapping took place in the fall when the fur became prime. Mountain men primarily trapped beaver and sold the skins. A good beaver skin could bring up to $4 at a time when a man's wage was often $1 per day. Some were more interested in exploring the West. In 1825, the first significant American Rendezvous occurred on the Henry's Fork of the Green River. The trading supplies were brought in by a large party using pack trains originating on the Missouri River. These pack trains were then used to haul out the fur bales. They normally used the north side of the Platte River—the same route used 20 years later by the Mormon Trail. For the next 15 years the American rendezvous was an annual event moving to different locations, usually somewhere on the Green River in the future state of Wyoming. Each rendezvous, occurring during the slack summer period, allowed the fur traders to trade for and collect the furs from the trappers and their Indian allies without having the expense of building or maintaining a fort or wintering over in the cold Rockies. In only a few weeks at a rendezvous a year's worth of trading and celebrating would take place as the traders took their furs and remaining supplies back east for the winter and the trappers faced another fall and winter with new supplies. Trapper Jim Beckwourth described the scene as one of "Mirth, songs, dancing, shouting, trading, running, jumping, singing, racing, target-shooting, yarns, frolic, with all sorts of extravagances that white men or Indians could invent." In 1830, William Sublette brought the first wagons carrying his trading goods up the Platte, North Platte, and Sweetwater rivers before crossing over South Pass to a fur trade rendezvous on the Green River near the future town of Big Piney, Wyoming. He had a crew that dug out the gullies and river crossings and cleared the brush where needed. This established that the eastern part of most of the Oregon Trail was passable by wagons. In the late 1830s the HBC instituted a policy intended to destroy or weaken the American fur trade companies. The HBC's annual collection and re-supply Snake River Expedition was transformed to a trading enterprise. Beginning in 1834, it visited the American Rendezvous to undersell the American traders—losing money but undercutting the American fur traders. By 1840 the fashion in Europe and Britain shifted away from the formerly very popular beaver felt hats and prices for furs rapidly declined and the trapping almost ceased.
North American fur trade
The Revolutionary War disrupted the deerskin trade, as the import of British manufactured goods with cut off. The deerskin trade had already begun to decline due to over-hunting of deer. The lack of trade caused the Native Americans to run out of items, such as guns, on which they depended. Some Indians, such as the Creeks, tried to reestablish trade with the Spanish in Florida, where some loyalists were hiding as well.
Maritime history of the United States (1776–99)
Boston navigators sail to the Pacific Northwest and open the U.S. maritime fur trade.
History of North America
The first French settlements were Port Royal (1604) and Quebec City (1608) in what is now Nova Scotia and Quebec. The Fur Trade soon became the primary business on the continent and as a result transformed the indigenous North American ways of life.
Astoria, Oregon
The Pacific Fur Company, a subsidiary of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company, was created to begin fur trading in the Oregon Country. During the War of 1812, in 1813, the company's officers sold its assets to their Canadian rivals, the North West Company. The fur trade would remain under British control until U.S. pioneers following the Oregon Trail began filtering into the town in the mid-1840s. The Treaty of 1818 established joint U.S. – British occupancy of the Oregon Country.
In 1846, the Oregon Treaty divided the mainland at the 49th parallel north, and the southern portion of Vancouver Island south of this line was awarded to the British.
History of South Dakota
In 1817, an American fur trading post was set up at present-day Fort Pierre, beginning continuous American settlement of the area. During the 1830s, fur trading was the dominant economic activity for the few white people who lived in the area. More than one hundred fur-trading posts were in present-day South Dakota in the first half of the 19th century, and Fort Pierre was the center of activity [Citation needed]. General William Henry Ashley, Andrew Henry, and Jedediah Smith of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and Manuel Lisa and Joshua Pilcher of the St. Louis Fur Company, trapped in that region. Pierre Chouteau, Jr. brought the steamship "Yellowstone" to Fort Tecumseh on the Missouri River in 1831. In 1832 the fort was replaced by Fort Pierre Chouteau, Jr.: today's town of Fort Pierre. Pierre bought the Western Department of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company and renamed it Pratte, Chouteau and Company, and then Pierre Chouteau and Company. It operated in present-day South Dakota from 1834-1858. Most trappers and traders left the area after European demand for furs dwindled around 1840.
United States
In 1774, the Spanish Navy ship "Santiago", under Juan Pérez, entered and anchored in an inlet of Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, in present-day British Columbia. Although the Spanish did not land, natives paddled to the ship to trade furs for abalone shells from California. At the time, the Spanish were able to monopolize the trade between Asia and North America, granting limited licenses to the Portuguese. When the Russians began establishing a growing fur trading system in Alaska, the Spanish began to challenge the Russians, with Pérez's voyage being the first of many to the Pacific Northwest.
Indian commerce with early English colonists and the early United States
The earliest trade relations with incoming European trades consisted of the trade of furs and agricultural goods in return for metals and cloth goods focused in the North Eastern Woodlands and Great Lakes area. The development led to the increased specialization of each tribe as the trade in furs for goods became increasingly beneficial for tribes. Consequences of the fur trade led to the depletion of beavers and exploitation of resources in the area. The exploration of Native American fur and labor from European trading companies began extensively in the time period between 1600s-1700s. (pg 25)
Ewing Young
The Spanish and later Mexicans had not focused on trapping fur-bearing animals of the Southwest as demand was small within the Spanish trading system. Expeditions of the Hudson's Bay Company, the American Fur Company and others established the North American fur trade (mainly beaver) in response to demand for furs in American and European markets, and the new trail opened up fresh hunting grounds. For the next nine years Young pioneered trapping in the region, dividing his time between Santa Fe and Missouri. He led many of the first American expeditions into the mountains and watercourses of the present-day states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona.
Harold Innis and the fur trade
Innis begins by chronicling the first contacts between European fishing fleets and eastern native tribes in the early 16th century. After the founding of the French settlement at Quebec in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain, the colony known as New France depended on furs for its economic survival. Champlain joined forces with the Huron Confederacy and its tribal allies against the Iroquois Confederacy in the long struggle to control the fur trade.
Midwestern United States
The fur trade was an integral part of early European and Indian relations. It was the foundation upon which their interactions were built and was a system that would evolve over time.
Tsilhqot'in
The Tsilhqot’in first encountered European trading goods in the 1780s and 1790s when British and American ships arrived along the northwest coast seeking sea otter pelts. By 1808, a fur-trading company out of Montreal called the North West Company had established posts in the Carrier (Dene) territory just north of the Tsilhqot’in. They began trading directly and through Carrier intermediaries.
Maritime fur trade
By the time of Catherine's "ukase" of 1788, just as other nations were entering the maritime fur trade, the Russians had spent over 40 years establishing and expanding their maritime operations in North America. A number of colonies were being established over a large region stretching from the Aleutian Islands to Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound. Many ships sailed from Kamchatka to Alaska each year. The Russians not only had an early start, but they also controlled the habitats of the most valuable sea otters. The Kurilian, Kamchatkan, and Aleutian sea otters' fur was thicker, glossier, and blacker than those on the Northwest Coast and California. The four grades of fur were based on color, texture, and thickness. The most prized furs were those of Kurilian and Kamchatkan sea otters, Aleutian furs were second grade, those of the Northwest Coast third, and the poorest grade was those of Californian sea otters. Russia also controlled the sources of sable furs, the most valuable fur-bearing land mammal.
Maritime fur trade
The maritime fur trade was, for the United States, a branch of the "East India" (Asian) trade based in Salem, Boston, Providence, New York City (Fanning & Coles), Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The trade focused on Asian ports such as Canton, Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai (Madras), Manila, Jakarta (Batavia), and the islands of Mauritius and Sumatra. Goods exported included furs, rum, ammunition, ginseng, lumber, ice, salt, Spanish silver dollars, iron, tobacco, opium, and tar. Goods brought back from Asia included muslins, silks, nankeens, spices, cassia, chinaware (porcelain), tea, sugar, and drugs. The maritime fur trade was just one part of the overall system. As a whole the Asian trade had a significant effect on the early United States, especially New England. The accumulation of large amounts of capital in short time contributed to American industrial and manufacturing development, which was compounded by rapid population growth and technological advancements. In New England the textile industry rose to dominance in early to middle 19th century. In light of the decline of the fur trade and a post-Napoleonic depression in commerce, capital shifted "from wharf to waterfall", that is, from shipping ventures to textile mills (which were originally located where water power was available). The textile industry in turn had large effect on slavery in the United States, increasing the demand for cotton and helping make possible the rapid expansion of the cotton plantation system across the Deep South.
Fur trade in Montana
The fur trade in Montana was a major period in the area's economic history from about 1800 to the 1850s. It also represents the initial meeting of cultures between indigenous peoples and those of European ancestry. British and Canadian traders approached the area from the north and northeast focusing on trading with the indigenous people, who often did the trapping of beavers and other animals themselves. American traders moved gradually up the Missouri River seeking to beat British and Canadian traders to the profitable Upper Missouri River region.
North American fur trade
The fishermen traded metal items for beaver robes made of sewn-together, native-tanned, beaver pelts. They used the robes to keep warm on the long, cold return voyages across the Atlantic. These "castor gras" in French became prized by European hat makers in the second half of the 16th century, as they converted the pelts to fur felt. The discovery of the superior felting qualities of beaver fur, along with the rapidly increasing popularity of beaver felt hats in fashion, transformed the incidental trading of fishermen in the sixteenth century into a growing trade in the French and later English territories in the next century.
Fur trade
Colonial trading posts in the southern colonies also introduced many types of alcohol (especially brandy and rum) for trade. European traders flocked to the North American continent and made huge profits from the exchange. A metal axe head, for example, was exchanged for one beaver pelt (also called a 'beaver blanket'). The same pelt could fetch enough to buy dozens of axe heads in England, making the fur trade extremely profitable for the Europeans. The Natives used the iron axe heads to replace stone axe heads which they had made by hand in a labor-intensive process, so they derived substantial benefits from the trade as well. The British began to see the ill effects of alcohol on Natives, and the chiefs objected to its sale and trade. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 prohibited sale by European settlers of alcohol to the Indians in Canada, following the British takeover of the territory after it defeated France in the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in North America).
Canada under British rule
For centuries one of the most important economic ventures in North America was the fur trade. This trade, which had been pioneered by the French, came to be dominated by the British as they gained increasing territory on the continent. The main British fur trading posts were located inside of what became the United States (the British were forced to relocate northward as borders were established with the new nation). First Nations were central to the trade as they were the primary fur trappers. The role gave the peoples of many of the First Nations a political voice as, though they were viewed as an underclass, they were too important to simply be ignored. The American Revolution led to intense competition between the British and the U.S. By the 1830s changing fashions in Europe had begun a steep decline in fur prices and an overall collapse in the market. Apart from the economic losses to "whites" involved in the fur trade, many of the First Nations were devastated, both in terms of economic loss and in terms of loss of influence in local politics.
History of North Omaha, Nebraska
The first settlements in North Omaha were the 1812 Fort Lisa located near Hummel Park and the 1823 Cabanné's Trading Post along the Missouri River. Fort Lisa was built by famed fur trapper Manuel Lisa, a founder of the St. Louis, Missouri Fur Company (later known as the Missouri Fur Company). It was an important fur trading post for securing initial American investment in the Louisiana Territory. Cabanné's Trading Post belonged to John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company, which competed with many traders for the patronage of local Native American tribes. The American Fur Company later bought out Fontenelle's Post, founded by the Missouri Fur Company. Fontenelle's Post became the start of Bellevue, the first town in Nebraska.
Fur trade in Montana
At the start of the 19th century, the North American fur trade was expanding toward present-day Montana from two directions. Representatives of British and Canadian fur trade companies, primarily the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, pushed west and south from their stronghold on the Saskatchewan River, while American trappers and traders followed the trail of the Lewis and Clark Expedition up the Missouri River from their base in St. Louis.
William Alexander Aitken
William Alexander Aitken, also known as William Alexander Aitkin (–1851), was a fur trader with the Ojibwe in the Upper Mississippi region. He was at first affiliated with the American Fur Company, founded by John Jacob Astor, but after 1838 he set up as an independent trader, based in St. Louis, Missouri.
Indian commerce with early English colonists and the early United States
The years following the formation of the United States, the US government began to regulate the trade industry with the Indian Intercourse Act, which was passed on July 22, 1790. For the first time, The United States regulated trade with the Native Americans. The government established an agency called The Bureau of Indian Affairs which was responsible for issuing licences to trade in the Indian Territory. Because of the increasing movement west in the United States, more and more Native Americans were being pushed off of their native lands and deeper into the Western United States. Wars continued to break out such as Tecumseh's War that was a conflict between the United States Army and a Native American confederacy and that ultimately developed into the War of 1812. These wars with the native population damaged relations between the Indians and the United States. During this time period large and small fur companies began to spring up across America. The American Fur Company, which was established in 1808, was one of the largest trading companies in the United States. As the 1800s continued on fur became less popular as the fashion trends began to shift. The Native American economy relied heavily on goods received from the fur trade and when it slowed they had to turn to other sources to continue receiving goods that they needed. The Native Americans began to sell off their land to settlers in oftentimes forced situations. These tense deals lead to future armed conflicts.
Fur trade in Montana
John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company (AFC) set up operations in St. Louis in 1822. By 1828 they arrived in the upper Missouri River region. Scotsman Kenneth McKenzie, intent on breaking into the Upper Missouri—the elusive prize of the Western fur trade—established what became Fort Union near the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. The Piegan were surprisingly ready to trade with the AFC. In 1830 McKenzie negotiated an agreement with a Piegan band, and sent James Kipp to the mouth of the Marias River in 1831 to organize a trading post on Piegan lands.
Fort Kiowa
Later in the same year, John Jacob Astor purchased Fort Kiowa from Pratte for his rapidly expanding American Fur Company. Astor, who was the first multi-millionaire in America, bought Fort Kiowa to establish his presence in the upper Missouri and to further his monopoly on the American fur trade. Astor found the upper Missouri river area to be extremely prosperous. However, in the late 1830s, Astor’s American Fur Company was forced to abandon Fort Kiowa as the once lucrative fur trading business was no longer profitable due to several factors. First, there was a scarcity of beaver caused by rapid overhunting by intruding trappers. Second, there was a lack of public demand in America and Europe for pelts, as a new style, silk hats, was gaining prominence. Lastly, the intrusion of American trappers on what natives perceived as their land angered native tribes who began to revolt against the trappers. As supply and demand both declined, fur trading in America faced extinction.
North American fur trade
The vast wealth in the fur trade created enforcement problems for the monopoly. Unlicensed independent traders, known as "coureurs des bois" (or "runners of the woods"), began to do business in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Over time, many Métis were drawn to the independent trade; they were the descendants of French trappers and native women. The increasing use of currency, as well as the importance of personal contacts and experience in the fur trade, gave an edge to independent traders over the more bureaucratic monopolies. The newly established English colonies to the south quickly joined the lucrative trade, raiding the St. Lawrence River valley and capturing and controlling Quebec from 1629 to 1632.
Indian Trade
Fur trading was one of the main economic activities in Northern America from the late 16th century to the mid-19th century. At the time, demand for fur was surging in Europe as it was used to make cloth and fancy hats. Data collected from England in the 18th century highlights that the years from 1746 to 1763 saw an increase of 12 shillings per pelt. It has been calculated that over 20 million beaver hats were exported from England alone from 1700 to 1770. Both trading partners, Native Americans and Europeans, provided the other a comparative advantage in the fur trade industry. The opportunity cost of hunting beavers in Europe was extremely high: by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Eurasian beaver was near extinction in England and France. On the other hand, traders and trappers thought the wildlife in the New World was essentially limitless. Native Americans made use of the trade goods received, particularly knives, axes, and guns. The fur trade provided a stable source of income for many Native Americans until the mid-19th century, when changing fashion trends in Europe and a decline in the beaver population in North America brought about a collapse in demand for fur.
American Fur Company
Prior to John Jacob Astor creating his enterprise in the Oregon Country, European descendants throughout previous decades had suggested creating trade stations along the Pacific Coast. Peter Pond, an active American fur trader, offered maps of his explorations in modern Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories to both the United States Congress and to Henry Hamilton, Lieutenant Governor of Quebec in 1785. While it has been conjectured that Pond wanted funding from the Americans to explore the Pacific Coast for the Northwest Passage, there is no documentation of this and it is more likely that he had sent a copy of the map to Congress due to personal pride. Pond later became a founding member of the North West Company (NWC) and continued to trade in modern Alberta.
North American fur trade
Métis were among the first groups of fur traders who came from the Northeast. These men were mostly of a mixed race identity, largely Iroquois, as well as other tribes from the Ohio country. Rather than one tribal identity, many of these Métis had multiple Indian heritages. Lewis and Clark, who opened up the market on the fur trade in the Upper Missouri, brought with them many Métis to serve as engagés. These same Métis would become involved in the early western fur trade. Many of them settled on the Missouri River and married into the tribes there before setting up their trade networks. The first generation of Métis born in the West grew up out of the old fur trade and provided a bridge to the new western empire. These Métis possessed both native and European skills, spoke multiple languages, and had the important kinship networks required for trade. In addition, many spoke the Michif Métis dialect. In an effort to distinguish themselves from natives, many Métis strongly associated with Roman Catholic beliefs and avoided participating in native ceremonies.
Fur trade
In 1613 Dallas Carite and Adriaen Block headed expeditions to establish fur trade relationships with the Mohawk and Mohican. By 1614 the Dutch were sending vessels to secure large economic returns from fur trading. The fur trade of New Netherland, through the port of New Amsterdam, depended largely on the trading depot at Fort Orange (now Albany) on the upper Hudson River. Much of the fur is believed to have originated in Canada, smuggled south by entrepreneurs who wished to avoid the colony's government-imposed monopoly there.
North American fur trade
By the end of the 18th century the four major British fur trading outposts were Fort Niagara in modern New York, Fort Detroit and Fort Michilimackinac in modern Michigan, and Grand Portage in modern Minnesota, all located in the Great Lakes region. The American Revolution and the resulting resolution of national borders forced the British to re-locate their trading centers northward. The newly formed United States began its own attempts to capitalize on the fur trade, initially with some success. By the 1830s the fur trade had begun a steep decline, and fur was never again the lucrative enterprise it had once been.
North American fur trade
At the beginning of the 18th century, more organized violence than in previous decades occurred between the Native Americans involved in the deerskin trade and white settlers, most famously the Yamasee War. This uprising of Indians against fur traders almost wiped out the European colonists in the southeast. The British promoted competition between tribes, and sold guns to both Creeks and Cherokees. This competition sprang out of the slave demand in the southeast – tribes would raid each other and sell prisoners into the slave trade of the colonizers.
Oregon pioneer history
The next player in the fur trade was American Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth who had made a fortune in the ice business in New England. In 1832 he led a new expedition to establish a fur trading empire through his new Pacific Trading Company. After returning from Oregon Country, Wyeth set out again in 1834 to set up the trading posts. His expedition established Fort Hall (on the Snake River) and Fort William (on Wapatoo Island), but the venture was a failure due to the dominance of the HBC in the region and the American Fur Company's control of the trade in the Rocky Mountains. In 1836 Wyeth sold his two posts to the HBC.
Fur brigade
These canoe routes became part of a complex transportation system during the North American fur trade. 
Supplies, trading goods and furs were carried between the various forts and posts along the fur trade routes and the furs would be shipped every year to the world markets.
Rendezvous (fur trade)
In North American history, a rendezvous was a larger meeting held typically once per year in the wilderness. All types included a major transfer of furs and goods to be traded for furs. Variations included a mix of other types of trading, business transactions, business meetings and revelry.
North American fur trade
At York Factory in the 18th century, the factors reported that flotillas of up to 200 canoes would arrive at a time bearing Indian men coming to barter their fur for HBC's goods. Normally, the trip to York Factory was made by the Cree and Ojibwa men while their womenfolk stayed behind in their villages. Until 1774, the Hudson's Bay Company was content to operate its posts on the shores of Hudson's Bay, and only competition from the rival North West Company based in Montreal forced the Hudson's Bay Company to assert its claim to Rupert's Land.
Maritime fur trade
The maritime fur trade was dominated by American traders from the 1790s to the 1820s. Between 1788 and 1826, American merchant ships made at least 127 voyages between the United States and China, via the Northwest Coast. The returns were lucrative. During the late 1810s, the return on investment ranged from about 300% to 500%. Even higher profits were common in the first decade of the 19th century. Returns of 2,200% or higher were common, although when taking into account the cost of buying and outfitting vessels, the 2,200% return would be closer to 525%.
American Fur Company
Demand for furs in Europe began to decline during the early 19th century, leading to the stagnation of the fur trade by the mid-19th century. Astor left his company in 1830, the company declared bankruptcy in 1842, and the American Fur Company ultimately ceased trading in 1847.
French people in Nebraska
In 1820 the U.S. Army established Fort Atkinson near the present-day town of Fort Calhoun in order to protect the area's burgeoning fur trade industry. In 1822 the Missouri Fur Company built a headquarters and trading post about nine miles north of the mouth of the Platte River on the site of Fontenelle's Post. Calling it Bellevue, these French-Americans established the first town in Nebraska. In 1824 Jean-Pierre Cabanné established Cabanne's Trading Post for John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company near Fort Lisa, at the confluence of Ponca Creek and the Missouri River. It became a well-known post in the region.
Technological and industrial history of Canada
It is ironic that a phenomenon as fickle as fashion would be responsible for the economic development and exploration of half a continent, but such was the case with the fur trade in North America between 1650 and 1850. The subject of bitter rivalry between the British and French Empires and inter-corporate rivalry among a number of business organizations, notably the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, the technology of the trade was the picture of simplicity. Traders, be they French or British, would set out in birch bark canoes loaded with trade goods (knives, axe heads, cloth blankets, alcohol, firearms and other items) and travel west along Canada's numerous rivers, streams and lakes in search of Indians and exchange these items for beaver skins. The skins came from animals trapped by the native peoples and worn as clothing during the long cold Canadian winter. The skins were worn with the fur side next to the skin, and by the spring the long hairs would be worn away, leaving the short hairs which were used to make felt. The skins were then carried by the traders in their canoes back to trading posts in Montreal or on Hudson Bay and transported by sailing ship to England or France. There they were processed by a technique involving mercury, and the felt that resulted from the treatment was used to make beaver hats. This coincidentally gave rise to the associated phenomenon of the mad hatter. A combination of diminishing beaver stocks and a change in fashion that saw a decline in the popularity of the beaver hat put an end to the trade.
Fur trade
The maritime fur trade was a ship-based fur trade system that focused on acquiring furs of sea otters and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and natives of Alaska. The furs were mostly traded in China for tea, silks, porcelain, and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States. The maritime fur trade was pioneered by the Russians, working east from Kamchatka along the Aleutian Islands to the southern coast of Alaska. British and Americans entered during the 1780s, focusing on what is now the coast of British Columbia. The trade boomed around the turn of the 19th century. A long period of decline began in the 1810s. As the sea otter population was depleted, the maritime fur trade diversified and was transformed, tapping new markets and commodities while continuing to focus on the Northwest Coast and China. It lasted until the middle to late 19th century. Russians controlled most of the coast of what is now Alaska during the entire era. The coast south of Alaska saw fierce competition between, and among, British and American trading vessels. The British were the first to operate in the southern sector, but were unable to compete against the Americans who dominated from the 1790s to the 1830s. The British Hudson's Bay Company entered the coast trade in the 1820s with the intention of driving the Americans away. This was accomplished by about 1840. In its late period the maritime fur trade was largely conducted by the British Hudson's Bay Company and the Russian-American Company.
The term "maritime fur trade" was coined by historians to distinguish the coastal, ship-based fur trade from the continental, land-based fur trade of, for example, the North West Company and the American Fur Company. Historically, the maritime fur trade was not known by that name, rather it was usually called the "North West Coast trade" or "North West Trade". The term "North West" was rarely spelled as the single word "Northwest", as is common today.
Fort Vancouver
With high demand from Europe for fur based textiles in the early 19th Century, the Hudson's Bay Company was forced to expand its fur trade operations across North America to the Pacific Northwest. Prior to the establishment of Fort Vancouver, the Hudson's Bay Company's largest westward fort was Fort William in present-day Ontario, which the company gained through its merger with the North West Company. From its establishment, Fort Vancouver was the regional headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's fur trade operations in the Columbia District. The territory it oversaw stretched from the Rocky Mountains in the East to the Pacific Ocean in the West, and from Sitka, Alaska in the North to San Francisco in the South. Fur trappers would bring pelts collected during the winter to the fort to be traded in exchange for company credit. The credit, issued by the company clerks, could be used to purchase goods in the fort's trade shops. Furs from throughout the Columbia District were brought to Fort Vancouver from smaller Hudson's Bay Company outposts either overland, or by water via the Columbia River. Once they were sorted and inventoried by the Company's clerks, the furs were hung out to dry in the fur storehouse, a large two story post on sill type building located within the walls of the fort. After the furs had been processed, they were mixed, weighed into bundles, and packed with tobacco leaves as an insecticide. The bundle of furs would be placed in a large press and wrapped in elk or bear hide to create overseas fur bales. The large bales were then placed on boats on the Columbia River for shipment to London via the Hudson's Bay Company trade routes. The furs would then be auctioned off to textile manufacturers in London. A large demand came from hatters who produced popular beaver felted hats.
Fur trade
Early exploration parties were often fur-trading expeditions, many of which marked the first recorded instances of Europeans' reaching particular regions of North America. For example, Abraham Wood sent fur-trading parties on exploring expeditions into the southern Appalachian Mountains, discovering the New River in the process. Simon Fraser was a fur trader who explored much of the Fraser River in British Columbia.
History of St. Louis
More goods became available in St. Louis during the economic recovery, largely as a result of the new steamboat power. Wholesalers, new banks, and other retail stores opened starting in the late 1820s and early 1830s. The fur trade continued as a major industry into the 1830s. In 1822, Jedediah Smith joined William H. Ashley's St. Louis fur trading company. Smith would later be known for his explorations of the West and for being the first American to travel overland to California. New fur trade companies such as the Rocky Mountain Fur Company pioneered trails west. Although beaver fur lost its popularity in the 1840s, St. Louis continued as a hub of buffalo hide and other furs.
Chadron, Nebraska
Every July, Chadron hosts an annual community celebration called "Fur Trade Days," in honor of its origins as a fur and hide trading post for French and other settlers in the Great Plains during the 19th century. Chadron's Museum of the Fur Trade is the largest of its kind in the United States and attracts thousands of visitors every year.
Maritime fur trade
As the North West trade developed it became riskier to depend solely upon acquiring sea otter furs through trade with the indigenous people of the coast. Diversification began in the first decade of the 19th century if not earlier, and increased over time. Maritime fur trading voyages were no longer solely about taking sea otter furs from the North West Coast to Canton. Other commodities and markets throughout the Pacific were added to the system. Sandalwood, mainly from Hawaii, became an important item of the China trade. Just as the sea otter trade was waning the sandalwood trade boomed, peaking in 1821, then declined. Hawaiian sandalwood was depleted by 1830. Fiji and the Marquesas Islands were the other principal sources of sandalwood. Most had been cut by 1820. Fiji was also a source of bêche-de-mer, a gourmet delicacy in China. American traders began acquiring Fijian bêche-de-mer in 1804 and trepanging boomed there. Bêche-de-mer became Fiji's leading export by 1830. Depletion led to a decline and the end of the trade by 1850. Trepanging was also done from 1812 in Hawaii and from 1814 in the Marquesas. Other side trades included Chilean copper from Valparaíso, scrimshaw (whale teeth), tortoise shells and meat from the Galápagos Islands, sugar from Manila, and, from Java, areca nuts (so-called betel nuts) and coffee beans. Sealing boomed in the Juan Fernández Islands and the Juan Fernández fur seal was rapidly exploited to near-extinction. The northern fur seal rookeries were controlled by Russia, so Americans acquired northern fur seal skins through trade rather than sealing.
American Fur Company
Through the 1830s, competition began to resurface. At the same time, the availability of furs in the Midwest declined. During this period, the Hudson's Bay Company began an effort to destroy the American fur companies from its Columbia District headquarters at Fort Vancouver. By depleting furs in the Snake River country and underselling the American Fur Company at the annual Rocky Mountain Rendezvous, the HBC effectively ruined American fur trading efforts in the Rocky Mountains. By the 1840s, silk was replacing fur for hats as the clothing fashion in Europe. The company was unable to cope with all these factors. Despite efforts to increase profits by diversifying into other industries like lead mining, the American Fur Company folded. The assets of the company were split into several smaller operations, most of which failed by the 1850s. In 1834, John Jacob Astor sold his interest on the river to replace the old fur company. He invested his fortune in real estate on Manhattan Island, New York, and became the wealthiest man in America. After 1840, the business of the American Fur Company declined.
North American fur trade
The transition from a seasonal coastal trade into a permanent interior fur trade was formally marked with the foundation of Quebec on the St. Lawrence River in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain. This settlement marked the beginning of the westward movement of French traders from the first permanent settlement of Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay River on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, up the St. Lawrence River and into the "pays d'en haut" (or "upper country") around the Great Lakes. What followed in the first half of the 17th century were strategic moves by both the French and the indigenous groups to further their own economic and geopolitical ambitions.
Cape Wolstenholme
In 1909, the Hudson's Bay Company established a trading post called Wolstenholme in Erik Cove (), a small bay just east of the cape. Its first factor was Ralph Parsons who was to develop the Arctic fox fur trade by establishing new relationships with the Inuit, who already hunted the fox. No Inuit visited or traded at the post for 2 years but eventually it turned profitable and operated until 1947. Remnants of the post can still be found here.
Siberian fur trade
The Siberian fur trade began in the sixteenth century, peaked in the seventeenth century, and continues to the present day.[2] While sable has always been the most coveted fur from Siberia, the Siberian fur trade has included a large variety of animals pelts used for a variety of products, most frequently clothing. Some of the richest fur regions in Siberia are the Yakutsk, Kamchatka, and Okhotsk Peninsulas.[3]
History of the United States Merchant Marine
Also in 1784, Boston navigators sailed to the Pacific Northwest and opened the U.S. fur trade.
Factory (trading post)
In North America, Europeans began to interact with pre-existing native American trade systems during the 16th century. Colonists created factories, known as trading posts, at which furs could be traded, in Native American territory.
Chouteau
Chouteau was the name of a highly successful, ethnically French fur-trading family based in Saint Louis, Missouri, which they helped to found. Its members established posts in the Midwest and Western United States, particularly along the Missouri River and in the Southwest. Various locations were named after this family.
The family sold the Chouteau posts along the upper Missouri River in 1865 after the American Civil War to Americans James B. Hubbell, Alpheus F. Hawley, James A. Smith, C. Francis Bates. Hubbell, based in Minnesota, already had some licenses from the federal government to trade with Native Americans in the West. He and his colleague Hawley formed a partnership with these men to set up a business. They formed the Northwestern Fur Company and operated it through posts along the upper Missouri River until 1870. They closed the business due to losses of equipment and furs during the Sioux uprising and warfare during the 1860s, which resulted in a volatile environment that made it too difficult to operate.
Columbia Fur Company
Columbia Fur Company was a fur trading and Indian trading business active from 1821 to 1827, in Michigan Territory and in the unorganized territory of the United States. It then became the Upper Missouri Outfit of the American Fur Company.
The company was founded in 1821 when the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company merged, and a large number of fur traders found themselves out of job. The founders, Joseph Renville, Kenneth McKenzie, William Laidlaw and Daniel Lamont where all British subjects, so they arranged for the company's activities to be officially carried out by William P. Tilton & Co., a New York company operating out of Saint Louis.
Fur trade
Economic historians and anthropologists have studied the fur trade's important role in early North American economies, but they have been unable to agree on a theoretical framework to describe native economic patterns.
John C. Phillips and J.W. Smurr tied the fur trade to an imperial struggle for power, positing that the fur trade served both as an incentive for expanding and as a method for maintaining dominance. Dismissing the experience of individuals, the authors searched for connections on a global stage that revealed its "high political and economic importance." E.E. Rich brought the economic purview down a level, focusing on the role of trading companies and their men as the ones who "opened up" much of Canada’s territories, instead of on the role of the nation-state in opening up the continent.
History of the Oregon Trail
Fur trappers, often working for fur traders, followed nearly all possible streams looking for beaver in the years (1812–1840) the fur trade was active. Fur traders included Manuel Lisa, Robert Stuart, William Henry Ashley, Jedediah Smith, William Sublette, Andrew Henry, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Peter Skene Ogden, David Thompson, James Douglas, Donald Mackenzie, Alexander Ross, James Sinclair and other mountain men. Besides discovering and naming many of the rivers and mountains in the Intermountain West and Pacific Northwest they often kept diaries of their travels and were available as guides and consultants when the trail started to become open for general travel. The fur trade business wound down to a very low level just as the Oregon trail traffic seriously began around 1840.
List of fur trading posts in Montana
The North West Company fur trader Francois-Antoine Larocque travelled parts of the eastern present-day Montana in 1805, and the following explorations of the Lewis and Clark Expedition opened the area further for commerce. The first fur trading post built in the future state was Fort Raymond at the confluence of Yellowstone River and Bighorn River, where it carried out trade with the Crow Nation from 1807 to around 1813. Soon after the establishment of Fort Raymond, trail-blazers from the fur companies found way to the heart of the country of every Native Nation in the territory. Decade by decade, at number of smaller and bigger posts established by different trading companies from both Canada and the United States dotted the banks of the major rivers winding their way through the plains and mountain valleys. The biggest forts stayed active year after year, while others lasted a season and were destroyed by wind and weather or burned by Native Americans. Some of the ruins and old places of bargain are now recognized as historic sites by the United States or Montana.
Territorial era of Minnesota
Before 1816 the majority of the fur trading posts in the Minnesota area were owned by the North West Company, but by 1821 the American Fur Company, founded in 1808 by John Jacob Astor in New York, had taken over most of these.
As well as Grand Portage, another significant fur shipping point in Minnesota was Fort Frances in the Rainy Lake region, near modern International Falls in the far north of the state. This location became significant as it was key to multiple waterways for shipping furs to the Atlantic. Both the North West Company and the American Fur Company had posts at this location. Pembina, originally part of the Red River Colony, was a significant trading post for the Hudson's Bay Company, and once it was claimed by the U.S., became for a time key to U.S. interests in the fur trade. By 1830 American Fur dominated the trade within the United States because of the exclusion of British companies by the U.S. government.
North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911
The North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911, formally known as the Convention between the United States and Other Powers Providing for the Preservation and Protection of Fur Seals, was an international treaty signed on July 7, 1911, designed to manage the commercial harvest of fur-bearing mammals (such as Northern fur seals and sea otters) in the Pribilof Islands of the Bering Sea. The treaty, signed by the United States, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Empire of Japan, and the Russian Empire, outlawed open-water seal hunting and acknowledged the United States' jurisdiction in managing the on-shore hunting of seals for commercial purposes. It was the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues.
Fur trade
Before the European colonization of the Americas, Russia was a major supplier of fur pelts to Western Europe and parts of Asia. Its trade developed in the Early Middle Ages ( 500–1000 AD/CE ), first through exchanges at posts around the Baltic and Black seas. The main trading market destination was the German city of Leipzig. Kievan Russia, the first Russian State, was the first supplier of the Russian Fur Trade.
John Finlay (fur trader)
John Finlay (1774 – December 19, 1833) was a fur trader and explorer with the North West Company. He is best remembered for establishing the first fur trading post in what is now British Columbia, Canada and for his exploration of the Finlay River, one of the two major rivers forming the Peace River.
Maritime fur trade
American traders were largely influenced by an unauthorized report published by John Ledyard in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1783. By the 1790s American traders were outcompeting the British and soon came to dominate the maritime fur trade south of Russian America. The opening of the trade came at a good time for New England's merchants. It provided a way to escape the depression that had followed the American Revolutionary War. It presented new trading opportunities that more than made up for the closure of British home and colonial ports to US imports. First Nations along the coast referred to American traders in the Chinook jargon as Boston or Boston-men - after their main port in New England.
Superior, Wisconsin
For more than a century, the Hudson's Bay Company, followed by the North West Company in 1787 and later, John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company, maintained trading posts with the Anishinaabe, exchanging European tools and goods for their furs and processed leathers. Settlements developed around the trading posts. Many fur traders, the capitalized partners, married high-ranking Ojibwa women; both sides considered such marriages part of building alliances between the cultures. Fur trappers, who lived among the Ojibwa for months at a time and ranged throughout their territory, also married Ojibwa women. Their mixed-race children were called Métis by the French Canadians. Many of the men also entered the fur trade, becoming interpreters and guides as well.
Fur trade
England was slower to enter the American fur trade than France and the Dutch Republic, but as soon as English colonies were established, development companies learned that furs provided the best way for the colonists to remit value back to the mother country. Furs were being dispatched from Virginia soon after 1610, and the Plymouth Colony was sending substantial amounts of beaver to its London agents through the 1620s and 1630s. London merchants tried to take over France's fur trade in the St Lawrence River valley. Taking advantage of one of England's brief wars with France, Sir David Kirke captured Quebec in 1629 and brought the year's produce of furs back to London. Other English merchants also traded for furs around the Saint Lawrence River region in the 1630s, but these were officially discouraged. Such efforts ceased as France strengthened its presence in Canada. Meanwhile, the New England fur trade expanded, not only inland, but northward along the coast into the Bay of Fundy region. London's access to high-quality furs was greatly increased with the takeover of New Amsterdam, whereupon the fur trade of that colony (now called New York) fell into English hands with the 1667 Treaty of Breda.
Maritime fur trade
The first trading vessel dispatched solely for the purpose of the fur trade was the British "Sea Otter" commanded by James Hanna in 1785. In his brief visit to the coast, he obtained 560 pelts, which fetched a profit of $20,000 in Canton. The promise of such profits encouraged other traders. George Dixon and Nathaniel Portlock, former members of Cook's crew, became partners in the King George's Sound Company, formed in 1785 for the purpose of developing the maritime fur trade. They sailed from England on the "King George" and "Queen Charlotte" and spent 1786 and 1787 exploring and trading on the North West Coast. They spent the winters in Hawaii, where they were among the first visitors after Cook. Charles William Barkley, another early British trader, sailed the "Imperial Eagle" from England to the North West Coast via Hawaii, 1786–1788. He was accompanied by his wife, Frances Barkley, who became the first European woman to visit the Hawaiian Islands and the first woman to sail around the world without deception. Only two women are known to have sailed around the world before Frances: Jeanne Baré, disguised as a man, and Rose de Freycinet, wife of Louis de Freycinet, as a stowaway. Barkley chose to sail under the flag of Austria to evade paying for EIC and SSC licences. During their stop in Hawaii, the Barkleys hired a native Hawaiian named Winée as a maidservant. Winée was the first native Hawaiian to visit the Pacific Northwest—the first of many Kanakas. Barkley explored the coast south of Nootka Sound, discovering the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the process. He was the first trader to visit Neah Bay, a Makah settlement that later became an important port of call for maritime fur traders.
North American fur trade
The fur trade and its actors has played a certain role in films and popular culture. It was the topic of various books and films, from James Fenimore Cooper via Irving Pichels "Hudson's Bay" of 1941, the popular Canadian musical "My Fur Lady" (music by Galt MacDermot) of 1957, till Nicolas Vaniers documentaries. In contrast to "the huddy buddy narration of Canada as Hudson's country", propagated either in popular culture as well in elitist circles as the Beaver Club, founded 1785 in Montreal the often male-centered scholarly description of the fur business does not fully describe the history. Chantal Nadeau, a communication scientist in Montreal's Concordia University refers to the "country wives" and "country marriages" between Indian women and European trappers and the "Filles du Roy" of the 18th century. Nadeau says that women have been described as a sort of commodity, "skin for skin", and they were essential to the sustainable prolongation of the fur trade.
Maritime fur trade
As marine furs became depleted in the early 19th century, American ship captains began to accept increasing numbers of land furs such as beaver, which were brought from the interior to the coast via indigenous trade networks from New Caledonia—today the Omineca and Nechako districts of the Central Interior of British Columbia. During the 1820s, the British Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), which considered the interior fur trade to be its domain, began to experience significant losses as a result of this diversion of furs to the coast. To protect its interests, the HBC entered the coast trade to drive away the American traders. This goal was achieved during the 1830s. By 1841, the American traders had abandoned the North West Coast. For a time, the North West Coast trade was controlled by the HBC and the RAC. Following the 1846 resolution of the Oregon Territory controversy between the United States and England, and the American purchase of Alaska in 1867, American hunters returned to hunting sea otters in the region, both from land and sea. Hunting throughout the Aleutian and Kuril Islands by American commercial outfits also contributed to the near-extinction of the species by the late 1800s.
North American fur trade
The North American fur trade was the industry and activities related to the acquisition, trade, exchange, and sale of animal furs in North America. Aboriginal peoples in Canada and Native Americans in the United States of different regions traded among themselves in the pre–Columbian Era, but Europeans participated in the trade beginning from the time of their arrival in the New World and extended its reach to Europe. The French started trading in the 16th century, the English established trading posts on Hudson Bay in present-day Canada in the 17th century, and the Dutch had trade by the same time in New Netherland. The 19th-century North American fur trade, when the industry was at its peak of economic importance, involved the development of elaborate trade networks.
John Jacob Astor
The U.S. Embargo Act in 1807, however, disrupted Astor's import/export business because it closed off trade with Canada. With the permission of President Thomas Jefferson, Astor established the American Fur Company on April 6, 1808. He later formed subsidiaries: the Pacific Fur Company, and the Southwest Fur Company (in which Canadians had a part), in order to control fur trading in the Great Lakes areas and Columbia River region. His Columbia River trading post at Fort Astoria (established in April 1811) was the first United States community on the Pacific coast. He financed the overland Astor Expedition in 1810–12 to reach the outpost. Members of the expedition were to discover South Pass, through which hundreds of thousands of settlers on the Oregon, Mormon, and California trails passed through the Rocky Mountains.
Fur trade in Montana
These traders competed not only in trapping fur-bearing animals, particularly the American beaver, but also in arranging trade relations with the many indigenous groups in the region, hoping to corner the market on these rich resources. For their part, the region's indigenous groups – particularly the Piegan (often called "Blackfeet" in the USA), the Crow, and the Salish and Kootenai – struggled to maintain control of their own lands and resources which supported their people and way of life. Each group interacted in the fur trade in different ways and to differing extents, yet all were changed by the important trading relations that developed from about 1805 through the 1860s.
James Hanna (trader)
James Hanna (?-1787) was the first European to sail to the Pacific northwest to trade in furs. This Maritime fur trade was an important factor in the early history of the Pacific Northwest and the westward expansion of the United States and Canada.
Fur trade
The North American fur trade began as early as the 1500s with Europeans and First Nations and was a central part of the early history of contact between Europeans and the native peoples of what is now the United States and Canada. In 1578 there were 350 European fishing vessels at Newfoundland. Sailors began to trade metal implements (particularly knives) for the natives' well-worn pelts. The first pelts in demand were beaver and sea otter, as well as occasionally deer, bear, ermine and skunk.
Duluth, Minnesota
After 1792 and the independence of the United States, the North West Company established several posts on Minnesota rivers and lakes, and in areas to the west and northwest, for trading with the Ojibwe, the Dakota, and other native tribes. The first post was where Superior, Wisconsin, later developed. Known as Fort Saint Louis, the post became the headquarters for North West's new Fond du Lac Department. It had stockaded walls, two houses of 40 feet each, a shed of 60 feet, a large warehouse, and a canoe yard. Over time, Indian peoples and European Americans settled nearby, and a town gradually developed at this point.
In 1808, the American Fur Company was organized by German-born John Jacob Astor. The company began trading at the Head of the Lakes in 1809. In 1817, it erected a new headquarters at present-day Fond du Lac on the Saint Louis River. There, portages connected Lake Superior with Lake Vermillion to the north, and with the Mississippi River to the south. After creating a powerful monopoly, Astor got out of the business about 1830, as the trade was declining. But active trade was carried on until the failure of the fur trade in the 1840s. European fashions had changed and many American areas were getting over-trapped, with game declining.
California Fur Rush
Just three years after Juan de Ayala sailed the first ship to pass through the Golden Gate in 1775, North America's Pacific Coast fur trade began, but not by the Spanish who had sailed the California coast since João Rodrigues Cabrilho's voyage in 1542 and Sebastián Vizcaíno's mapping of coastal California in 1602. It began in 1778 with Captain James Cook's third voyage, when otter skins were obtained at Nootka Sound on the Northwest Coast and, although Cook was killed in Hawaii on the way to China, his men were shocked at the high prices paid by the Chinese. A profit of 1,800% was made. In 1783, when John Ledyard reported in Connecticut that enormous profits could be made selling otter skins to China, New England began sending American ships to hunt sea otter, and later, beaver, on the Pacific coast as early as 1787. That the California fur trade had begun by 1785, just ten years after Ayala discovered San Francisco Bay, is evidenced by the Spanish issuance of regulations to govern the collection of otter skins in California. The west coast fur trade enabled New England merchants to recover from the economic collapse which followed the American Revolutionary War, and was exacerbated by closure of British home and colonial ports to American trade.
Coureur des bois
A coureur des bois () or coureur de bois (; "runner of the woods"; plural: coureurs de bois) was an independent entrepreneurial French-Canadian trader who traveled in New France and the interior of North America. They ventured into unsettled areas (the woods) usually to trade with First Nations peoples: exchanging various European items for furs. Along the way they learned the trades and practices of the Native people. These expeditions were part of the beginning of the fur trade in the North American interior. Initially they traded for beaver coats but, as the market grew, "coureurs de bois" were trapping and trading prime beavers whose skins were to be felted in Europe.
Fur trade in Montana
American fur traders quickly moved up the Missouri River following the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark's exploration. The first American fur post established in the region now known as Montana was completed in November 1807, and located at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Big Horn rivers by Manuel Lisa and his party of traders. Lisa called it Fort Remon for his son, but it was variously known as Lisa's Fort, or Fort Manuel.
Maritime fur trade
As traders sailed farther east, the voyages became longer and more expensivea Smaller enterprises were merged into larger ones. During the 1780s, Grigory Shelikhov began to stand out as one of the most important traders through the Shelikhov-Golikov Company. In 1784, Shelikhov founded the first permanent Russian settlement in North America, at Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island. Shelikhov envisioned a continual extension of the Russian maritime fur trade, with trading posts being set up farther and farther along the coast all the way to California. He sought exclusive control of the trade, and in 1788 Empress Catherine II decided to grant his company a monopoly only over the area it already occupied. Other traders were free to compete elsewhere. Catherine's decision was issued as the imperial "ukase" (proclamation) of 28 September 1788.
Indian commerce with early English colonists and the early United States
In 1828 Fort Union, located in Upper Missouri was the chief establishment for most fur companies, lone traders like, Wyeth, Bonneville, Pilcher, Fontenelle made it competitive for established fur companies. In 1834 Fur trade was at its height, with half dozen organized companies in the United States competing with the American fur company which during this time had monopolize the fur trade industry in the United States by 1830. Fur companies competing with the American fur company were forced or found it useful to their advantage to utilize the wandering habits of the Indians, having only general rendezvous, most hunters were sent out in different directions. Not having storehouses, hunters would bury their furs until the annual caravan sent out to St. Louis.
Woodland Cree
The Woodland Cree were one of the first Aboriginal nations west of Hudson Bay to trade with European fur traders, as early as the 17th century. They became very closely associated with the fur trade and adapted their clothing and many aspects of their lifestyle and culture to European ways. Considered excellent hunters and trappers, they provided meat and pemmican to the fur trade posts and furs, either directly, or indirectly from trade with other tribes. Marriages or alliances between Cree women and fur traders became an essential link in fur trade negotiations. Because families were on the move most of the time, women in childbirth often had their babies on the trail.
Economy of Chicago
The American Fur Company, established in 1808 by John Jacob Astor to compete with the powerful Canadian North West and Hudson Bay companies, practically took control of the fur trade in the United States following the War of 1812. It quickly became known for its ruthless practice of buying out or destroying the competition, as most private traders in Chicago soon found out. It appointed John Kinzie and Antoine Deschamps as its first agents in northern Illinois, and they reported to the company's headquarters on Mackinac Island. Their field of operations covered northeastern Illinois and the Illinois River. In 1819, Charles H. Beaubien was brought in to assist Kinzie and eventually became head of the outfit. Gurdon S. Hubbard replaced Deschamps in 1823 but soon went on his own by purchasing all interests of the company in Illinois.
North American fur trade
While bringing wealth to a few select French traders and the French regime, the fur trade also brought profound changes to the indigenous groups living along the St. Lawrence. European wares, such as iron axe heads, brass kettles, cloth, and firearms were bought with beaver pelts and other furs. The widespread practice of trading furs for rum and whiskey led to problems associated with inebriation and alcohol abuse. The subsequent destruction of beaver populations along the St. Lawrence heightened the fierce competition between the Iroquois and Huron for access to the rich fur-bearing lands of the Canadian Shield.
French colonization of the Americas
The French interest in Canada focused first on fishing off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. However, at the beginning of the 17th century, France was more interested in fur from North America. The fur trading post of Tadoussac was founded in 1600. Four years later, Champlain made his first trip to Canada in a trade mission for fur. Although he had no formal mandate on this trip, he sketched a map of the St. Lawrence River and in writing, on his return to France, a report entitled "Savages" (relation of his stay in a tribe of Montagnais near Tadoussac).
Indian commerce with early English colonists and the early United States
From the outset of the sixteenth century, Native American societies are characterized as hunter-gatherer societies and horticulturalist societies. This era is classified as the Pre-Columbian Era. The specialization of each tribe was dependent upon the geographic factors of their territory. (E.g. North eastern tribes such as the Iroquois engaged in seasonal migration to hunt for moose and shellfish,) Previous to any European contact, many tribes focused their economies on the exploitation of furs. The first trade between finished European goods for Indian furs began in 1641 with French Jesuit priests in Great Lake region. This initial contact lead to the development of the fur trade, specifically beaver pelts, which paved the way for French and later English colonization.
North American fur trade
Champlain reformed the business of the trade, creating the first informal trust in 1613 in response to increasing losses due to competition. The trust was later formalized with a royal charter, leading to a series of trade monopolies during the term of New France. The most notable monopoly was the Company of One Hundred Associates, with occasional concessions, such as to "habitants" in the 1640s and 1650s, permitting them limited trading. While the monopolies dominated the trade, their charters also required payment of annual returns to the national government, military expenditures, and expectations that they would encourage settlement for the sparsely populated New France.
Fur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued. Historically the trade stimulated the exploration and colonization of Siberia, northern North America, and the South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands.
Ecological imperialism
The fur trade also upset the ecological balance of North America. "Restraint wasn't a hallmark of the fur trade. In 1822, in the north western regions of the country alone, the Hudson's Bay Company stockpiled 1500 fox skins, a paltry number compared with the 106,000 beaver skins, but too many none the less. The fur traders had miscalculated. As predators, they had failed to adapt to their prey, and their prey, in turn, retaliated with denial. Of course, the red fox didn't render himself extinct. His numbers merely shrank.".
Monjo Company
The Monjo Company was a New York City-based fur trading business that obtained furs in the Canadian arctic, Alaska, and the Northwest United States, and sold them wholesale in New York during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was among the eleven largest fur importers in New York.