Fur trade
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The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of
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 organizations oppose the fur trade, citing that animals are brutally killed and sometimes skinned alive.[1] Fur has been replaced in some clothing by synthetic imitations, for example, as in ruffs on hoods of parkas.
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 (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.[2] Kievan Rus' was the first supplier of the Russian fur trade.[3]
Originally, Russia exported raw furs, consisting in most cases of the pelts of
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.[5]
Siberian fur trade
From as early as the 10th century, merchants and boyars of the city-state of
As the
Besides the Novgorodians and the indigenes, the Muscovites also had to contend with the various Muslim
Russian conquerors treated the natives of Siberia as easily exploited subjects who were inferior to them. As they penetrated deeper into Siberia, traders built outposts or winter lodges called
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.[12] 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 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.[13]
The primary way for the Russian 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.[14]
Russian fur trappers, called promyshlenniki, hunted in one of two types of bands of 10–15 men, called vatagi . 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 two to three 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.[15]
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.[16] From 1620 to 1680, a total of 15,983 trappers operated in Siberia.[17]
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 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.[18]
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.
Early organization
Captain Chauvin made the first organized attempt to control the fur trade in
In 1613 Dallas Carite and
England was slower to enter the American fur trade than France and the
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,[20] 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,[21] coming into direct contact and opposition with the English fur trappers stationed out of York Factory at Hudson Bay. Meanwhile, the New England fur trade expanded as well, 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.
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, muskets, 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.[22] 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 (known as the French and Indian War 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
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 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
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
After the
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,
Role in economic anthropology
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."[26] 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.[27]
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.[28] 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."[29] 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."[30]
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."[31] 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.[32]
Richard White, while admitting that the formalist/substantivist debate was "old, and now tired," attempted to reinvigorate the substantivist position.[33] 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."[34] 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
In 2000 there were 351 Mink farms in the U.S.[38] As of 2015 there were 176,573 trappers in the U.S. with most being in the midwest.[39] California was the first (and only) state to ban trapping for commercial and recreation purposes in 2015.[40]
The North American Fur Auction (NAFA) occurs four times a year and attracts buyers from around the world.[41]
According to the Northeast Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, at present approximately 270,000 families in the United States and Canada derive some of their income from fur trapping.
Maritime fur trade
The maritime fur trade was a ship-based fur trade system that focused on acquiring furs of
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.[42]
The maritime fur trade brought the
The most profitable furs were those of
See also
- Beaver Wars
- California Fur Rush
- The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade
- Coureur des bois
- Fur brigade
- List of fur trading post and forts in North America
Footnotes
- PETA.
- ^ Fisher 1943, p. 197.
- ^ Fisher 1943, p. 1.
- ^ Janet Martin, Treasure of the Land of Darkness: The Fur Trade and Its Significance for Medieval Russia (2004) p. 204
- ^ Fisher 1943, p. 17.
- ^ Forsyth 1994, p. 2–3.
- ISBN 978-0-85728-752-6.
- ^ Forsyth 1994, p. 28.
- ^ Forsyth 1994, p. 10.
- ^ Forsyth 1994, p. 29-33.
- ^ Forsyth 1994, p. 38.
- ^ Bychkov & Jacobs 1994, p. 73.
- ^ Forsyth 1994, p. 38-40.
- ^ Forsyth 1994, p. 41-42.
- ^ Bychkov & Jacobs 1994, p. 75-80.
- ^ Bychkov & Jacobs 1994, p. 80-81.
- ^ Bychkov & Jacobs 1994, p. 74.
- ^ Dolin 2010, p. 16.
- ^ Dolin 2010, p. 46.
- ^ Dolin 2010, p. 105.
- ^ Wallace, Stewart W. (1948). The Encyclopedia of Canada. Vol. 2. Toronto: University Associates of Canada. p. 366.
- ^ "Introduction of alcohol through the fur trade". University of Montana. Archived from the original on 2009-02-26. Retrieved 2019-07-22.
- ^ Fur Facts & Figures: A Survey of the United States Fur Industry. Volume 41. Washington, DC: United States Business and Defense Services Administration, Department of Commerce. January 1966. p. 1.
- ^ Miller, Gwen A. (2010). Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. p. XII.
- ^ Delhomme, PJ (28 November 2021). "Is Trapping in America on the Brink of Extinction, or at the Beginning of a Comeback?". Outdoor Life. Retrieved 2021-11-29.
- ^ Phillips, Paul Chrisler; Smurr, J.W. (1961). The Fur Trade. Vol. 2. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. p. 20.
- OCLC 237371.
- ISBN 9780802081964.
- JSTOR 138817.
- ^ Abraham Rotstein (March 1970). "Karl Polanyi's Concept of Non-Market Trade". The Journal of Economic History. 30 (1): 123. See also Rotstein (1967). Fur Trade and Empire: An Institutional Analysis (PhD diss.). University of Toronto.
- ^ Arthur J. Ray 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), p. 236.
- ^ White 1984.
- ^ White 1991, p. 94.
- ^ White 1991, p. 95.
- ^ "Canada's Fur Trade: Facts & Figures". Fur Institute of Canada. Archived from the original on 2012-11-03. Retrieved 2019-07-22.
- ISSN 1705-4273. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2013-05-14. Retrieved 2019-07-22.
- ^ Bundale, Brett (16 January 2013). "Fur farms may not all survive new N.S. rules". The Chronicle Herald. Halifax, Nova Scotia. Archived from the original on 2013-01-18. Retrieved 2013-03-12.
- ^ "Mink" (PDF). Cornell University. 19 July 2001. Retrieved 2023-04-07.
- ^ "Trap use report" (PDF). fishwildlife.org. 2015. Retrieved 2023-04-07.
- ^ "California becomes first state to ban fur trapping". Fox News. 6 September 2019.
- ^ "The Fur Trade: The Journey from Trap to Market". 9 February 2016.
- ISBN 0-7748-0613-3.
- ISBN 978-0-435-31015-8.
- ISBN 978-0-345-46783-6.
- ^ Fur trade, Northwest Power & Conservation Council
- ISBN 978-0-295-98249-6.
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
- ISBN 978-0-393-06710-1.
- Fisher, Raymond Henry (1943). The Russian Fur Trade, 1550–1700. University of California Press. p. 275.
- Forsyth, James (8 September 1994). Reviewed work: A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581- 1990., James Forsyth. Vol. 53. Cambridge: S2CID 164630981.
- 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. (ISBN 978-2840501619)
- Bychkov, Oleg V.; Jacobs, Mina A. (1994). "Russian Hunters in Eastern Siberia in the Seventeenth Century: Lifestyle and Economy" (PDF). JSTOR 40316350.
- 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, 102–126. 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.
- White, Richard (27 September 1991). Hoxie, Frederick E.; JSTOR 3630498.
- 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.
- Buckley, Thomas C., ed. (1984). Rendezvous: Selected Papers of the Fourth North American Fur Trade Conference, 1981. St. Paul, Minnesota: North American Fur Trade Conference.
- White, Bruce M. "Give Us a Little Milk: The Social and Cultural Meanings of Gift Giving in the Lake Superior Fur Trade". In Buckley (1984), pp. 185–197.
- 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 Canoes
- H. 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
- A Brief History of the Fur Trade
- Map of trading posts, forts, trails and Indian tribes
- History of the Fur Trade in Russia Archived 2007-12-28 at the Wayback Machine
- History of the Fur Trade in Wisconsin Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
- Museum of the Fur Trade, Chadron, Nebraska USA
- The Economic History of the Fur Trade: 1670 to 1870 (EH.Net Encyclopedia of Economic History)
- Fur trade in the Snake River Valley, Idaho
- The Fur Trade Revisited – Manitoba Historical Society
- The Papers of Hector Pitchforth on Fur Trade in the Arctic at Dartmouth College Library