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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 Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...
, northern North America, and the South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands. Today the importance of the fur trade has diminished; it is based on pelts produced at fur farms and regulated fur-bearer trapping, but has become controversial.
Animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...
organizations oppose the fur trade, citing that animals are brutally killed and sometimes skinned alive. Fur has been replaced in some clothing by
synthetic Synthetic things are composed of multiple parts, often with the implication that they are artificial. In particular, 'synthetic' may refer to: Science * Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis * Synthetic o ...
imitations, for example, as in ruffs on hoods of
parka A parka or anorak is a type of coat with a hood, often lined with fur or faux fur. This kind of garment is a staple of Inuit clothing, traditionally made from caribou or seal skin, for hunting and kayaking in the frigid Arctic. Some In ...
s.


Continental fur trade


Russian 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 The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the M ...
( 500–1000 AD/CE ), first through exchanges at posts around the Baltic and
Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...
seas. The main trading market destination was the German city of
Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
.
Kievan Rus' Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas of ...
, the first Russian State, was the first supplier of the Russian Fur Trade. Originally, Russia exported raw furs, consisting in most cases of the pelts of martens,
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 a ...
s, wolves,
fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelv ...
es, squirrels and hares. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Russians began to settle in
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...
, a region rich in many mammal fur species, such as Arctic fox, lynx, sable, sea otter and stoat ( ermine). In a search for the prized sea otter pelts, first used in China, and later for the
northern fur seal The northern fur seal (''Callorhinus ursinus'') is an eared seal found along the north Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of Okhotsk. It is the largest member of the fur seal subfamily ( Arctocephalinae) and the only living species in ...
, the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
expanded into North America, notably
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S ...
. From the 17th through the second half of the 19th century, Russia was the world's largest supplier of fur. The fur trade played a vital role in the development of
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...
, the
Russian Far East The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admin ...
and the Russian colonization of the Americas. As recognition of the importance of the trade to the Siberian economy, the sable is a regional symbol of the Ural Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Siberian Novosibirsk,
Tyumen Tyumen ( ; rus, Тюмень, p=tʲʉˈmʲenʲ, a=Ru-Tyumen.ogg) is the administrative center and largest city of Tyumen Oblast, Russia. It is situated just east of the Ural Mountains, along the Tura River. Fueled by the Russian oil and gas i ...
and Irkutsk
Oblast An oblast (; ; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): , Bulgarian: ) is a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the Soviet Union and the Kingdom ...
s of Russia. European contact with North America, with its vast forests and wildlife, particularly the beaver, led to the continent becoming a major supplier in the 17th century of fur pelts for the fur felt hat and fur trimming and garment trades of Europe. Fur was relied on to make warm clothing, a critical consideration prior to the organization of coal distribution for heating. Portugal and Spain played major roles in fur trading after the 15th century with their business in fur hats.


Siberian fur trade

From as early as the 10th century, merchants and boyars of
Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( rus, links=no, Великий Новгород, t=Great Newtown, p=vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪj ˈnovɡərət), also known as just Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the o ...
had exploited the fur resources "beyond the portage", a watershed at the White Lake that represents the door to the entire northwestern part of Eurasia. They began by establishing
trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically the location of the trading post would allow people from one geographic area to tr ...
s along the Volga and Vychegda river networks and requiring the Komi people to give them furs as
tribute A tribute (; from Latin ''tributum'', "contribution") is wealth, often in kind, that a party gives to another as a sign of submission, allegiance or respect. Various ancient states exacted tribute from the rulers of land which the state conq ...
. Novgorod, the chief fur-trade center prospered as the easternmost trading post of the Hanseatic League. Novgorodians expanded farther east and north, coming into contact with the Pechora people of the Pechora River valley and the Yugra people residing near the Urals. Both of these native tribes offered more resistance than the Komi, killing many Russian tribute-collectors throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries. As
Muscovy Muscovy is an alternative name for the Grand Duchy of Moscow (1263–1547) and the Tsardom of Russia (1547–1721). It may also refer to: *Muscovy Company, an English trading company chartered in 1555 *Muscovy duck (''Cairina moschata'') and Domest ...
gained more power in the 15th century and proceeded in the " gathering of the Russian lands", the Muscovite state began to rival the Novgorodians in the North. During the 15th century Moscow began subjugating many native tribes. One strategy involved exploiting antagonisms between tribes, notably the Komi and Yugra, by recruiting men of one tribe to fight in an army against the other tribe. Campaigns against native tribes in
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...
remained insignificant until they began on a much larger scale in 1483 and 1499. Besides the Novgorodians and the indigenes, Muscovites also had to contend with the various Muslim
Tatar khanates The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary
is an umbrella term for different
to the east of Muscovy. In 1552 Ivan IV, the Tsar of All the Russias, took a significant step towards securing Russian hegemony in Siberia when he sent a large army to attack the Kazan Tartars and ended up obtaining the territory from the Volga to the Ural Mountains. At this point the phrase "ruler of Obdor,
Konda Konda may refer to: *Kondia or Konda, 18th century Mansi principality, Russia *Konda (river) in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Russia * Konda (Vitim), river in Buryatia, Russia * Konda, Indonesia, a town in West Papua * Konda, Angola, municipal ...
, and all Siberian lands" became part of the title of the Tsar in Moscow. Even so, problems ensued after 1558 when Ivan IV sent (ca 1533–1577) to colonize land on the Kama and to subjugate and enserf the Komi living there. The Stroganov family soon came into conflict (1573) with the Khan of Sibir whose land they encroached on. Ivan told the Stroganovs to hire
Cossack The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
mercenaries to protect the new settlement from the Tatars. From ca 1581 the band of Cossacks led by Yermak Timofeyevich fought many battles that eventually culminated in a Tartar victory (1584) and the temporary end to Russian occupation in the area. In 1584 Ivan's son Fyodor sent military governors ( voivodas) and soldiers to reclaim Yermak conquests and officially to annex the land held by the Khanate of Sibir. Similar skirmishes with Tartars took place across Siberia as Russian expansion continued. Russian conquerors treated the natives of Siberia as easily exploited enemies who were inferior to them. As they penetrated deeper into Siberia, traders built outposts or winter lodges called ' where they lived and collected fur tribute from native tribes. By 1620 Russia dominated the land from the Urals eastward to the Yenisey valley and to the Altai Mountains in the south, comprising about 1.25 million square miles of land. Furs would become Russia's largest source of wealth during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Keeping up with the advances of Western Europe required significant capital and Russia did not have sources of gold and silver, but it did have furs, which became known as "soft gold" and provided Russia with hard currency. The Russian government received income from the fur trade through two taxes, the '' yasak'' (or iasak) tax on natives and the 10% "Sovereign Tithing Tax" imposed on both the catch and sale of fur pelts. Fur was in great demand in Western Europe, especially sable and marten, since European forest resources had been over-hunted and furs had become extremely scarce. Fur trading allowed Russia to purchase from Europe goods that it lacked, like lead, tin, precious metals, textiles, firearms, and sulphur. Russia also traded furs with
Ottoman Turkey The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
and other countries in the Middle East in exchange for silk, textiles, spices, and dried fruit. The high prices that sable, black fox, and marten furs could generate in international markets spurred a "fur fever" in which many Russians moved to Siberia as independent trappers. From 1585 to 1680, tens of thousands of sable and other valuable pelts were obtained in Siberia each year. The primary way for the Muscovite state to obtain furs was by exacting a fur tribute from the Siberian natives, called a ''yasak''. ''Yasak'' was usually a fixed number of sable pelts which every male tribe member who was at least fifteen years old had to supply to Russian officials. Officials enforced ''yasak'' through coercion and by taking hostages, usually the tribe chiefs or members of the chief's family. At first, Russians were content to trade with the natives, exchanging goods like pots, axes, and beads for the prized sables that the natives did not value, but greater demand for furs led to violence and force becoming the primary means of obtaining the furs. The largest problem with the ''yasak'' system was that Russian governors were prone to corruption because they received no salary. They resorted to illegal means of getting furs for themselves, including bribing customs officials to allow them to personally collect ''yasak'', extorting natives by exacting ''yasak'' multiple times over, or requiring tribute from independent trappers. Russian fur trappers, called '' promyshlenniki'', hunted in one of two types of bands of 10–15 men, called . The first was an independent band of blood relatives or unrelated people who contributed an equal share of the hunting-expedition expenses; the second was a band of hired hunters who participated in expeditions fully funded by the trading companies which employed them. Members of an independent ''vataga'' cooperated and shared all necessary work associated with fur trapping, including making and setting traps, building forts and camps, stockpiling firewood and grain, and fishing. All fur pelts went into a common pool that the band divided equally among themselves after Russian officials exacted the tithing tax. On the other hand, a trading company provided hired fur-trappers with the money needed for transportation, food, and supplies, and once the hunt was finished, the employer received two-thirds of the pelts and the remaining ones were sold and the proceeds divided evenly among the hired laborers. During the summer, ''promyshlenniki'' would set up a summer camp to stockpile grain and fish, and many engaged in agricultural work for extra money. During late summer or early fall the ''vatagi'' left their hunting grounds, surveyed the area, and set up a winter camp. Each member of the group set at least 10 traps and the ''vatagi'' divided into smaller groups of 2 to 3 men who cooperated to maintain certain traps. ''Promyshlenniki'' checked traps daily, resetting them or replacing bait whenever necessary. The ''promyshlenniki'' employed both passive and active hunting-strategies. The passive approach involved setting traps, while the active approach involved the use of hunting-dogs and of bows-and-arrows. Occasionally, hunters also followed sable tracks to their burrows, around which they placed nets, and waited for the sable to emerge. The hunting season began around the time of the first snow in October or November and continued until early spring. Hunting expeditions lasted two to three years on average but occasionally longer. Because of the long hunting season and the fact that passage back to Russia was difficult and costly, beginning around the 1650s–1660s many ''promyshlenniki'' chose to stay and settle in Siberia. From 1620 to 1680 a total of 15,983 trappers operated in Siberia.


North American fur trade

The North American fur trade began as early as the 1500s between Europeans and First Nations (see: Early French Fur Trading) and was a central part of the early history of contact between Europeans and the native peoples of what is now the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
and
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
. 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. Fur robes were blankets of sewn-together, native-tanned, beaver pelts. The pelts were called ''castor gras'' in French and "coat beaver" in English, and were soon recognized by the newly developed felt-hat making industry as particularly useful for felting. Some historians, seeking to explain the term ''castor gras'', have assumed that coat beaver was rich in human oils from having been worn so long (much of the top-hair was worn away through usage, exposing the valuable under-wool), and that this is what made it attractive to the hatters. This seems unlikely, since grease interferes with the felting of wool, rather than enhancing it. By the 1580s, beaver "wool" was the major starting material of the French felt-hatters. Hat makers began to use it in England soon after, particularly after
Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...
refugees brought their skills and tastes with them from France.


Early organization

Captain Chauvin made the first organized attempt to control the fur trade in New France. In 1599 he acquired a
monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
from Henry IV and tried to establish a colony near the mouth of the Saguenay River at Tadoussac. French explorers, like Samuel de Champlain, voyageurs, and Coureur des bois, such as Étienne Brûlé, Radisson, La Salle, and Le Sueur, while seeking routes through the continent, established relationships with Amerindians and continued to expand the trade of fur pelts for items considered 'common' by the Europeans. Mammal winter pelts were prized for warmth, particularly animal pelts for beaver wool felt hats, which were an expensive status symbol in Europe. The demand for beaver wool felt hats was such that the beaver in Europe and European Russia had largely disappeared through exploitation. 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 The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...
. 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. 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 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. Much of the fur trade in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries was dominated by the Canadian fur shipping network that developed in New France under the fur monopoly held first by the Company of One Hundred Associates, then followed in 1664 by the French West India Company, steadily expanding fur trapping and shipping across a network of frontier forts further west that eventually went all the way to modern day Winnipeg in Western Canada by the mid 1700s, coming into direct contact and opposition with the English fur trappers stationed out of York Factory at Hudson Bay. Meanwhile, the
New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian province ...
fur trade expanded as well, not only inland, but northward along the coast into the
Bay of Fundy The Bay of Fundy (french: Baie de Fundy) is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine. It is an arm of the Gulf of Maine. Its extremely high tidal range is th ...
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. In 1668 the English fur trade entered a new phase. Two French citizens, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers, had traded with great success west of Lake Superior in 1659–60, but upon their return to Canada, most of their furs were seized by the authorities. Their trading voyage had convinced them that the best fur country was far to the north and west, and could best be reached by ships sailing into Hudson Bay. Their treatment in Canada suggested that they would not find support from France for their scheme. The pair went to New England, where they found local financial support for at least two attempts to reach Hudson Bay, both unsuccessful. Their ideas had reached the ears of English authorities, however, and in 1665 Radisson and Groseilliers were persuaded to go to London. After some setbacks, a number of English investors were found to back another attempt for Hudson Bay. Two ships were sent out in 1668. One, with Radisson aboard, had to turn back, but the other, the '' Nonsuch,'' with Groseilliers, did penetrate the bay. There she was able to trade with the indigenes, collecting a fine cargo of beaver skins before the expedition returned to London in October 1669. The delighted investors sought a royal charter, which they obtained the next year. This charter established the Hudson's Bay Company and granted it a monopoly to trade into all the rivers that emptied into Hudson Bay. From 1670 onwards, the Hudson's Bay Company sent two or three trading ships into the bay every year. They brought back furs (mainly beaver) and sold them, sometimes by private treaty but usually by public auction. The beaver was bought mainly for the English hat-making trade, while the fine furs went to the Netherlands and Germany. Meanwhile, in the Southern colonies, a deerskin trade was established around 1670, based at the export hub of Charleston, South Carolina. Word spread among Native hunters that the Europeans would exchange pelts for the European-manufactured goods that were highly desired in native communities. Carolinan traders stocked axe heads, knives, awls, fish hooks, cloth of various type and color, woolen blankets, linen shirts, kettles, jewelry, glass beads,
musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket graduall ...
s, ammunition and powder to exchange on a 'per pelt' basis. 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 colonists 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 The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754– ...
(known as the
French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the st ...
in North America). Following the British take over of Canada from France, the control of the fur trade in North America became consolidated under the British government for a time, until the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
was created and became a major source for furs being shipped to Europe as well in the Nineteenth Century, along with the largely unsettled territory of Russian America, which became a significant source of furs also during that period. The fur trade began to significantly decline starting in the 1830s, following changing attitudes and fashions in Europe and America which no longer centered around certain articles of clothing as much such as beaver skin hats, which had fueled the growing demand for furs, driving the creation and expansion of the fur trade in the 17th and 18th centuries, although new trends as well as occasional revivals of prior fashions would cause the fur trade to ebb and flow right up to the present.


=Socioeconomic ties

= Often, the political benefits of the fur trade became more important than the economic aspects. Trade was a way to forge alliances and maintain good relations between different cultures. The fur traders were men with capital and social standing. Often younger men were single when they went to North America to enter the fur trade; they made marriages or cohabited with high-ranking Indian women of similar status in their own cultures. Fur trappers and other workers usually had relationships with lower-ranking women. Many of their mixed-race descendants developed their own culture, now called ''
Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which deri ...
'' in Canada, based then on fur trapping and other activities on the frontier. In some cases both Native American and European-American cultures excluded the mixed-race descendants. If the Native Americans were a tribe with a
patrilineal Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritan ...
kinship In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says th ...
system, they considered children born to a white father to be white, in a type of hypodescent classification, although the Native mother and tribe might care for them. The Europeans tended to classify children of Native women as Native, regardless of the father, similar to the hypodescent of their classification of the children of slaves. The Métis in the Canadian Red River region were so numerous that they developed a
creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. Wh ...
and culture. Since the late 20th century, the Métis have been recognized in Canada as a First Nations ethnic group. The interracial relationships resulted in a two-tier mixed-race class, in which descendants of fur traders and chiefs achieved prominence in some Canadian social, political, and economic circles. Lower-class descendants formed the majority of the separate
Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which deri ...
culture based on hunting, trapping and farming. Because of the wealth at stake, different European-American governments competed with various native societies for control of the fur trade. Native Americans sometimes based decisions of which side to support in times of war in relation to which people had provided them with the best trade goods in an honest manner. Because trade was so politically important, the Europeans tried to regulate it in hopes (often futile) of preventing abuse. Unscrupulous traders sometimes cheated natives by plying them with alcohol during the transaction, which subsequently aroused resentment and often resulted in violence. In 1834 John Jacob Astor, who had created the huge monopoly of the American Fur Company, withdrew from the fur trade. He could see the decline in fur animals and realized the market was changing, as beaver hats went out of style. Expanding European settlement displaced native communities from the best hunting grounds. European demand for furs subsided as fashion trends shifted. The Native Americans' lifestyles were altered by the trade. To continue obtaining European goods on which they had become dependent and to pay off their debts, they often resorted to selling land to the European settlers. Their resentment of the forced sales contributed to future wars. After the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
became independent, it regulated trading with Native Americans by the Indian Intercourse Act, first passed on July 22, 1790. The Bureau of Indian Affairs issued licenses to trade in the Indian Territory. In 1834 this was defined as most of the United States west of the
Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it ...
, where mountain men and traders from
Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...
freely operated. 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.


=Role in economic anthropology

= 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. Rich's other work gets to the heart of the formalist/substantivist debate that dominated the field or, as some came to believe, muddied it. Historians such as Harold Innis had long taken the formalist position, especially in Canadian history, believing that neoclassical economic principles affect non-Western societies just as they do Western ones. Starting in the 1950s, however, substantivists such as Karl Polanyi challenged these ideas, arguing instead that primitive societies could engage in alternatives to traditional Western market trade; namely, gift trade and administered trade. Rich picked up these arguments in an influential article in which he contended that Indians had "a persistent reluctance to accept European notions or the basic values of the European approach" and that "English economic rules did not apply to the Indian trade." Indians were savvy traders, but they had a fundamentally different conception of property, which confounded their European trade partners. Abraham Rotstein subsequently fit these arguments explicitly into Polanyi's theoretical framework, claiming that "administered trade was in operation at the Bay and market trade in London." Arthur J. Ray permanently changed the direction of economic studies of the fur trade with two influential works that presented a modified formalist position in between the extremes of Innis and Rotstein. "This trading system," Ray explained, "is impossible to label neatly as ‘gift trade', or ‘administered trade', or ‘market trade', since it embodies elements of all these forms." Indians engaged in trade for a variety of reasons. Reducing them to simple economic or cultural dichotomies, as the formalists and substantivists had done, was a fruitless simplification that obscured more than it revealed. Moreover, Ray used trade accounts and account books in the Hudson's Bay Company's archives for masterful qualitative analyses and pushed the boundaries of the field's methodology. Following Ray's position, Bruce M. White also helped to create a more nuanced picture of the complex ways in which native populations fit new economic relationships into existing cultural patterns. Richard White, while admitting that the formalist/substantivist debate was "old, and now tired," attempted to reinvigorate the substantivist position. Echoing Ray's moderate position that cautioned against easy simplifications, White advanced a simple argument against formalism: "Life was not a business, and such simplifications only distort the past." White argued instead that the fur trade occupied part of a "middle ground" in which Europeans and Indians sought to accommodate their cultural differences. In the case of the fur trade, this meant that the French were forced to learn from the political and cultural meanings with which Indians imbued the fur trade. Cooperation, not domination, prevailed.


=Present

= According to the
Fur Institute of Canada The Fur Institute of Canada (FIC) works to promote the fur trade and to advocate for the fur industry. The organization, has more than 100 members from industry and trade, government, Aboriginal groups and the scientific community. The FIC ma ...
, there are about 60,000 active trappers in
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
(based on trapping licenses), of whom about 25,000 are
indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
s. The fur farming industry is present in many parts of Canada. The largest producer of mink and foxes is
Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native En ...
which in 2012 generated revenues of nearly $150 million and accounted for one quarter of all agricultural production in the Province.


Maritime 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 The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and west ...
along the
Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin, "land of the Aleuts"; possibly from the Chukchi ''aliat'', or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain of 14 main, ...
to the southern coast of Alaska. British and Americans entered during the 1780s, focusing on what is now the
coast of British Columbia , settlement_type = Region of British Columbia , image_skyline = , nickname = "The Coast" , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bri ...
. 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 The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great we ...
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. The maritime fur trade brought the
Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...
coast into a vast, new
international trade International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (see: World economy) In most countries, such trade represents a significan ...
network, centered on the north Pacific Ocean, global in scope, and based on
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
but not, for the most part, on
colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their rel ...
. A triangular trade network emerged linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China, the Hawaiian Islands (only recently discovered by the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
), Europe, and the United States (especially
New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian province ...
). The trade had a major effect on the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest coast, especially the Aleut, Tlingit, Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Chinook peoples. There was a rapid increase of wealth among the Northwest Coast natives, along with increased warfare, potlatching, slaving, depopulation due to
epidemic An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics of infectious d ...
disease, and enhanced importance of totems and traditional nobility crests.For more on the use of crests on the North West Coast, see: The indigenous culture was not however overwhelmed, it rather flourished, while simultaneously undergoing rapid change. The use of Chinook Jargon arose during the maritime fur trading era and remains a distinctive aspect of Pacific Northwest culture. Native Hawaiian society was similarly affected by the sudden influx of Western wealth and technology, as well as epidemic diseases. The trade's effect on China and Europe was minimal. For New England, the maritime fur trade and the significant profits it made helped revitalize the region, contributing to the transformation of New England from an agrarian to an industrial society. The wealth generated by the maritime fur trade was invested in industrial development, especially
textile manufacturing Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful go ...
. The New England textile industry in turn had a large effect on
slavery in the United States The legal institution of human Slavery#Chattel slavery, chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of List of ethnic groups of Africa, Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States, United States of America ...
, increasing the demand for cotton and helping make possible the rapid expansion of the cotton plantation system across the Deep South. The most profitable furs were those of sea otters, especially the northern sea otter, ''Enhydra lutris kenyoni'', which inhabited the coastal waters between the Columbia River to the south and Cook Inlet to the north. The fur of the Californian southern sea otter, ''E. l. nereis'', was less highly prized and thus less profitable. After the northern sea otter was hunted to
local extinction Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...
, maritime fur traders shifted to California until the southern sea otter was likewise nearly extinct.Fur trade
Northwest Power & Conservation Council
The British and American maritime fur traders took their furs to the Chinese port of
Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong ...
(Canton), where they worked within the established Canton System. Furs from Russian America were mostly sold to China via the
Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 millio ...
n trading town of Kyakhta, which had been opened to Russian trade by the 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta.


See also

* Beaver Wars * California Fur Rush *
The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) is an informal international coalition of grassroots groups that campaign against the production and use of animal fur for clothing and other items. It started in the US in the 1990s, when fur farms we ...
* Coureur des bois * Fur brigade * List of fur trading post and forts in North America


Footnotes


Bibliography


General surveys

* Chittenden, Hiram Martin. ''The American Fur Trade of the Far West: A History of the Pioneer Trading Posts and Early Fur Companies of the Missouri Valley and the Rocky Mountains and the Overland Commerce with Santa Fe.'' 2 vols. (1902)
full text online
* * *
Voorhis, Ernest, Historic Forts and Trading Posts of the French Regime and of the English Fur Trading Companies, 1930
(e-book -with maps.)


Biographies

* Berry, Don. ''A Majority of Scoundrels: An Informal History of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.'' New York: Harper, 1961. * Hafen, LeRoy, ed. ''The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West.'' 10 vols. Glendale, California: A.H. Clark Co., 1965–72. * Lavender, David. ''Bent’s Fort.'' Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1954. * Lavender, David. ''The Fist in the Wilderness.'' Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964. * Oglesby, Richard. ''Manuel Lisa and the Opening of the Missouri Fur Trade.'' Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963. * Utley, Robert. ''A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific.'' New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997.


Economic studies

* Allaire, Bernard. ''Pelleteries, manchons et chapeaux de castor: les fourrures nord-américaines à Paris 1500–1632'', Québec, Éditions du Septentrion, 1999, 295 p. () * * Black, Lydia. ''Russians in Alaska, 1732–1867'' (2004) * Cronon, William. ''Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England.'' New York: Hill and Wang, 1983. * Gibson, James R. ''Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and China Goods: The Maritime Fur Trade of the Northwest Coast, 1785–1841.'' Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992. * Ray, Arthur J. ''The Canadian fur trade in the industrial age'' (1990) * Ray, Arthur J., and Donald B. Freeman. ''"Give Us Good Measure": An Economic Analysis of Relations between the Indians and the Hudson's Bay Company Before 1763.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978. * Rotstein, Abraham. "Karl Polanyi’s Concept of Non-Market Trade." ''The Journal of Economic History'' 30:1 (Mar., 1970): 117–126. * Vinkovetsky, Ilya. ''Russian America: an overseas colony of a continental empire, 1804–1867'' (2011) * White, Richard. ''The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815.'' Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. * White, Richard. ''The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change Among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos.'' Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.


Social histories: Native Americans

* Brown, Jennifer S.H. and Elizabeth Vibert, eds. ''Reading Beyond Words: Contexts for Native History.'' Peterborough, Ontario; Orchard Park, N.Y.: Broadview Press, 1996. * Francis, Daniel and Toby Morantz. ''Partners in Furs: A History of the Fur Trade in Eastern James Bay, 1600–1870.'' Kingston; Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1983. * Holm, Bill and Thomas Vaughan, eds. ''Soft Gold: The Fur Trade & Cultural Exchange on the Northwest Coast of America.'' Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1990. * Krech, Shepard III. ''The Ecological Indian: Myth and History.'' New York; London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999. * Krech, Shepard III, ed. ''Indians, Animals, and the Fur Trade: A Critique of Keepers of the Game.'' Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1981. * Martin, Calvin. ''Keepers of the Game: Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade''. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 1978. * Malloy, Mary. ''Souvenirs of the Fur Trade: Northwest Coast Indian Art and Artifacts Collected by American Mariners, 1788–1844''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press, 2000. * Ray, Arthur J. ''Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Trappers, Hunters, and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay, 1660–1870.'' Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press, 1974. * Vibert, Elizabeth. ''Trader’s Tales: Narratives of Cultural Encounters in the Columbia Plateau, 1807–1846''. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.


Social histories: women, Métis, voyageurs

* Brown, Jennifer S.H. ''Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country.'' Vancouver; London: University of British Columbia Press, 1980. * Brown, Jennifer S.H. and Jacqueline Peterson, eds. ''The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Métis in North America.'' Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1985. * Giraud, Marcel. ''The Métis in the Canadian West.'' Translated by George Woodcock. Edmonton, Canada: University of Alberta Press, 1986. *Gitlin, Jay. ''The Bourgeois Frontier: French Towns, French Traders & American Expansion'', Yale University Press, 2010 * Nicks, John. "Orkneymen in the HBC, 1780–1821." In ''Old Trails and New Directions: Papers of the Third North American Fur Trade Conference''. Edited by Carol M. Judd and Arthur J. Ray, 102–26. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980. * Podruchny, Carolyn. ''Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade.'' Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. * Podruchny, Carolyn. "Werewolves and Windigos: Narratives of Cannibal Monsters in French-Canadian Voyageur Oral Tradition." ''Ethnohistory'' 51:4 (2004): 677–700. * Sleeper-Smith, Susan. ''Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes.'' Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001. * Van Kirk, Sylvia. ''Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670–1870.'' Winnipeg: Watson & Dwywer, 1999.


Regional histories

* Allen, John L. "The Invention of the American West." In ''A Continent Comprehended'', edited by John L. Allen. Vol. 3 of ''North American Exploration'', edited by John L. Allen, 132–189. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. * Braund, Kathryn E. Holland. ''Deerskins and Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685–1815''. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. * Faragher, John Mack. "Americans, Mexicans, Métis: A Community Approach to the Comparative Study of North American Frontiers." In ''Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America’s Western Past'', edited by William Cronon, George Miles, and Jay Gitlin, 90–109. New York; London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992. * Gibson, James R. ''Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and China Goods: The Maritime Fur Trade of the Northwest Coast, 1785–1841.'' Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992. * Gibson, Morgan Arrell. ''Yankees in Paradise: The Pacific Basin Frontier.'' Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993. * Keith, Lloyd, and John C. Jackson. ''The Fur Trade Gamble: North West Company on the Pacific Slope, 1800–1820'' (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2016). xiv, 336 pp. * Malloy, Mary. ''"Boston Men" on the Northwest Coast: The American Maritime Fur Trade 1788–1844''. Kingston, Ontario; Fairbanks, Alaska: The Limestone Press, 1998. * Panagopoulos, Janie Lynn. "Traders in Time". River Road Publications, 1993. * Ronda, James P. ''Astoria & Empire.'' Lincoln, Nebraska; London: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. * Weber, David. ''The Taos Trappers: The Fur Trade in the Far Southwest, 1540–1846.'' Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. * * Wishart, David J. ''The Fur Trade of the American West, 1807–1840: A Geographical Synthesis.'' Lincoln, Nebraska; London: University of Nebraska Press, 1979.


Papers of the North American Fur Trade Conferences

The papers from the North American Fur Trade conferences, which are held approximately every five years, not only provide a wealth of articles on disparate aspects of the fur trade, but also can be taken together as a historiographical overview since 1965. They are listed chronologically below. The third conference, held in 1978, is of particular note; the ninth conference, which was held in St. Louis in 2006, has not yet published its papers. * Morgan, Dale Lowell, ed. ''Aspects of the Fur Trade: Selected Papers of the 1965 North American Fur Trade Conference.'' St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1967. * Bolus, Malvina. ''People and Pelts: Selected Papers.'' Winnipeg: Peguis Publishers, 1972. * Judd, Carol M. and Arthur J. Ray, eds. ''Old Trails and New Directions: Papers of the Third North American Fur Trade Conference.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980. * ** * Trigger, Bruce G., Morantz, Toby Elaine, and Louise Dechêne. ''Le Castor Fait Tout: Selected Papers of the Fifth North American Fur Trade Conference, 1985.'' Montreal: The Society, 1987. * Brown, Jennifer S. H., Eccles, W. J., and Donald P. Heldman. ''The Fur Trade Revisited: Selected Papers of the Sixth North American Fur Trade Conference, Mackinac Island, Michigan, 1991.'' East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1994. * Fiske, Jo-Anne, Sleeper-Smith, Susan, and William Wicken, eds. ''New Faces of the Fur Trade: Selected Papers of the Seventh North American Fur Trade Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1995''. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998. * Johnston, Louise, ed. ''Aboriginal People and the Fur Trade: Proceedings of the 8th North American Fur Trade Conference, Akwesasne''. Cornwall, Ontario: Akwesasne Notes Pub., 2001.


External links


The Canadian Museum of Civilization – Great Fur Trade CanoesH. Bullock-Webster fonds
– An album of color sketches, from the UBC Library Digital Collections, documenting social life and customs in Canadian fur trade posts in the 19th Century


Map of trading posts, forts, trails and Indian tribes

History of the Fur Trade in Russia

History of the Fur Trade in Wisconsin

Museum of the Fur Trade, Chadron, Nebraska USA

The Economic History of the Fur Trade: 1670 to 1870
(EH.Net Encyclopedia of Economic History)


''The Fur Trade Revisited – Manitoba Historical Society''

The Papers of Hector Pitchforth on Fur Trade in the Arctic
at Dartmouth College Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Fur Trade History of the American West Animal welfare
Trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exch ...
Industries (economics)