__NOTOC__ The deerskin trade between Colonial America and the Native Americans was one of the most important trading relationships between Europeans and Native Americans, especially in the southeast. It was a form of the

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 mo ...

, but less known, since deer skins were not as valuable as furs from the north (such as

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers are ...

). Colonial deerskin exports were an important source of raw material for the European markets. The Cherokee mainly traded their deer-skins to the English, and the

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentuck ...

traded deer skins to both the French and English colonies prior to 1760. In the early 18th century, after

King William's War King William's War (also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, or the First Intercolonial War in French) was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand Alli ...

, the beaver fur trade declined dramatically while the deerskin trade boomed. This was in part due to a shift in changing fashions in London, where a new kind of hat made from leather was becoming popular. This new hat required deerskin and colonial South Carolina increased the scale of its deerskin exports dramatically. Trade in other kinds of fur fell sharply. The end of a diversified fur trade altered the relationship between European colonists and Native Americans, in many cases caused an increase in tension and conflict. For example, it was an important factor in the events leading up to the

Yamasee War The Yamasee War (also spelled Yamassee or Yemassee) was a conflict fought in South Carolina from 1715 to 1717 between British settlers from the Province of Carolina and the Yamasee and a number of other allied Native American peoples, inclu ...

. By 1750, deer were becoming harder to find in Cherokee territory. So large was the scale of the trade that in time deer became nearly

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

in the southeast. It also radically altered the social make-up of the Cherokee because the men were increasingly absent from towns (for long periods to hunt deer). Concurrently, Cherokee society was undergoing a growing dependence on European trade goods. These events contributed to growing tensions and conflict between the Indian tribes themselves, as well as with the Europeans. Deerskin was used to produce buckskin, as well as a chamois-like leather, used for the making of gloves, bookbinding, and many other things.

Notes

* Drake, Richard B. (2003) ''A History of Appalachia''

University Press of Kentucky The University Press of Kentucky (UPK) is the scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and was organized in 1969 as successor to the University of Kentucky Press. The university had sponsored scholarly publication since 1943. In 194 ...

* Braund, Kathryn E. (1996) ''Deerskins and Duffels: Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685-1815'' University of Nebraska Press

References

External links

English Trade in Deerskins and Indian Slaves
, New Georgia Encyclopedia Fur trade 18th century Cherokee history History of the Thirteen Colonies Pre-statehood history of South Carolina Deer hunting {{US-hist-stub

See also

Notes

References

External links