Fur Trade

Examples of Fur Trade in the following topics:

• New France and the Native Americans

  • The French colonists were able to stay in North America and establish their way of life and profit from the fur trade because the Native people allowed and welcomed them to do so.
  • The French were interested in exploiting the land through the fur trade as well as the timber trade later on.
  • In his first term, Frontenac supported the expansion of the fur trade, establishing Fort Frontenac (in what is now Kingston, Ontario) and came into conflict with members of the Sovereign Council over its expansion and over the labor required to build the new forts.
  • The fur trade allowed Native Americans access to metal tools that would make their lives easier.
  • There were both positive and negative aspects of the fur trade for the Native people.

• The French Empire

  • The search for a Northwest Passage to Asia and the burgeoning fur trade in Europe, drove the French to explore and settle North America.
  • During the 16th century, the taming of the Siberian wilderness by the Russians had brought about a thriving fur trade, which created a great demand for fur throughout Europe.
  • France was quick to realize that North America held great potential as a provider of fur.
  • Samuel de Champlain began the first permanent settlement of New France and Quebec City in present-day Canada and created a prosperous trade with the Native Americans for beaver pelts and other animal hides.
  • In 1599, a sixteen-person trading post was established in Tadoussac (in present-day Quebec), of which only five men survived the first winter.

• New France and Louisiana

  • Lawrence region was full of valuable fur-bearing animals, especially the beaver, which were becoming rare in Europe.
  • Here, French economic interests would shift and concentrate on the development of the fur trade.
  • Although the fur trade was lucrative, many French saw Canada as an inhospitable frozen wasteland, and by 1640, fewer than 400 settlers had made their home there.
  • French fishermen, explorers, and fur traders made extensive contacts with the Algonquian.
  • These 17th-century conflicts centered on the lucrative trade in beaver pelts, earning them the name of the Beaver Wars.

• French Colonialization

  • The French colonial interest in the Americas was chiefly economic, and relied on expansive but sparsely populated trading routes.
  • Several years later, in 1608, Samuel De Champlain founded Quebec, which was to become the capital of the enormous, but sparsely settled, fur-trading colony of New France.
  • Because the French settlers lacked the appetite for land that characterized English settlement, and because they relied exclusively on Native peoples to supply them with fur at trading posts, the French built a complex series of military, commercial, and diplomatic connections.
  • They now possessed a trading network that stretched across the region, extending from Canada through the Great Lakes and down to the Gulf of Mexico.

• The Lewis and Clark Expedition

  • Their mission, in addition to surveying and recording the geography and observing the native peoples of the region, was to find a passage to the Pacific Ocean in order to facilitate trade with Asia.
  • Louis to the Pacific Ocean was crucial to capturing a portion of the fur trade that had proven so profitable to Great Britain.
  • The corps wintered among the Mandan Indians at the falls of the Missouri, in what is today North Dakota, where they met a French fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau.
  • The men traveled across the North American continent and established relationships with many American Indian tribes, paving the way for fur traders and the establishment of trading posts, which later solidified U.S. claims to Oregon.

• Exploration and Conquest of the New World

  • The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions.
  • French fur traders and missionaries, however, ranged far into the interior of North America, exploring the Great Lakes region and the Mississippi River.
  • New France and New Netherland remained small commercial operations focused on the fur trade and did not attract an influx of migrants.
  • Dutch trade goods circulated widely among the native peoples in these areas and also traveled well into the interior of the continent along pre-existing native trade routes.
  • In the north, the Hudson Bay Company actively traded for fur with the indigenous peoples, bringing them into competition with French, Aboriginal, and Metis fur traders.

• The Western Lands

  • Although French fur traders ranged widely through the Great Lakes region, they seldom settled down and instead maintained a nomadic lifestyle.
  • The Dutch set up fur trading posts in the Hudson River valley, followed by large grants of land to rich landowning patroons who brought in tenant farmers to create compact, permanent villages.
  • The first priority of British trade officials was to populate the recently secured areas of Canada and Florida, where colonists could reasonably be expected to trade with the mother country; settlers living west of the Appalachians would be highly self-sufficient and have little opportunity to trade with English merchants.

• Early New England Society

  • In contrast to the southern colonies which could produce tobacco, rice, and indigo in exchange for imports, New England's colonies initially could not offer much to England beyond fish, furs, and lumber.
  • The hunting of wildlife provided furs for trading and food for the colonists' tables.
  • These local goods were shipped to towns and cities all along the Atlantic Coast, and enterprising men set up stables and taverns along wagon roads to service these trade routes.
  • This system of exchange became known as the "Triangular Trade."
  • The coastal ports began to specialize in fishing, international trade, and shipbuilding and, after 1780, whaling.

• Colonization

  • What early colonial prosperity there was resulted from trapping and trading in furs.
  • Colonists established shipyards to build fishing fleets and, in time, trading vessels.
  • By the 18th century, regional patterns of development had become clear: the New England colonies relied on ship-building and sailing to generate wealth; plantations (many using slave labor) in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas grew tobacco, rice, and indigo; and the middle colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware shipped general crops and furs.

• Commerce in the New England Colonies

  • Within a century, New England colonies had become a key part of an Atlantic trade network.
  • In contrast to the Southern Colonies, which could produce tobacco, rice, and indigo in exchange for imports, New England's colonies initially could not offer much to England beyond fish, furs, and lumber.
  • The hunting of wildlife provided furs to be traded and food for the colonists' tables.
  • Enterprising men set up stables and taverns along wagon roads to service these trade routes.
  • This system of exchange was known as the Triangular Trade .