Rethinking the fur trade : cultures of exchange in an Atlantic world / edited by Susan Sleeper-Smith.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Sleeper-Smith, Susan.

Charles D. Dickey, Jr., Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fur trade--North America--History.

Fur trade.

Economic conditions.

History.

North America--Economic conditions--History--17th century.

North America.

North America--Economic conditions--History--18th century.

Physical Description:

lxii, 638 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2009]

Summary:

Lucrative, far-reaching, and complex, the fur trade bound together Europeans and Native peoples of North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rethinking the Fur Trade offers a nuanced look at the broad range of contracts that characterized the fur trade, a phenomenon that has often been oversimplified and misrepresented. These essays show how the role of Native Americans was far more instrumental in the conduct and outcome of the fur trade than previously suggested.

Rethinking the Fur Trade exposes what has been called the "invisible hand of indigenous commerce," revealing how it changed European interaction with Indians, influenced what was produced to serve the interest of Indian customers, and led to important cultural innovations. The initial essays explain the working mechanisms of the fur trade and explore how and why it evolved in a North Atlantic context. The second section examines indigenous perspectives through primary-source writings from the period and considers newly evolving indigenous perspectives about the fur trade. The final sections analyze the social history of the fur trade, the profound effect of the cloth trade on Indian dress and culture, and the significance of gender, kinship, and community in the workings of economic exchange.

Contents:

Of the mission of Saint Francois Xavier on the "Bay of Stinkards," or rather "Of stinking waters" / Father Allouez

On the hunting of the Gaspesians / Father Chrestien LeClercq

The hunting of moose, of bears, of beavers, of lynxes, and other animals according to their seasons / Father Chrestien LeClercq

Tarrentines and the introduction of European trade goods in the Gulf of Maine / Bruce J. Bourque and Ruth Holmes Whitehead

The Anishinabeg point of view : the history of the Great Lakes Region to 1800 in nineteenth-century Mississauga, Odawa, and Obijwa historiography / D. Peter MacLeod

Fur trade literature from a tribal point of view : a critique / Donald F. Bibeau

Agriculture and the fur trade / D.W. Moodie

"Give us a little milk" : the social and cultural significance of gift giving in the Lake Superior fur trade / Bruce M. White

"Starving" and survival in the SubArtic fur trade : a case for contextual semantics / Mary Black-Rogers

The growth and economic significance of the American fur trade, 1790-1890 / James L. Clayton

"Red" labor : Iroquois participation in the Atlantic Economy / Gail D. MacLeitch

The fur trade and eighteenth-century imperialism / W.J. Eccles

The middle ground / Richard White

Creative misunderstandings and new understandings / Richard White

Indians as consumers in the eighteenth century / Arthur J. Ray

Dressing for success on the Mohawk frontier : Hendrick, William Johnson, and the Indian fashion / Timothy J. Shannon

The flow of European trade goods into the Western Great Lakes region, 1715-1760 / Dean L. Anderson

The matchcoat / Gail DeBuse Potter

Chiefs coats supplied by the American Fur Company / Allen Chronister

The myth of the silk hat and the end of the rendezvous / James A. Hanson

Women, kin, and Catholicism : new perspectives on the fur trade / Susan Sleeper-Smith

"The custom of the country" : an examination of fur trade marriage practices / Sylvia Van Kirk

Woman as centre and symbol in the emergence of Metis communities / Jennifer S.H. Brown

Prelude to Red River : a social portrait of the Great Lakes Métis / Jacqueline Peterson

The Glaize in 1792 : a composite Indian community / Helen Hornbeck Tanner

Festivities, fortitude, and fraternalism : fur trade masculinity and the Beaver Club, 1785-1827 / Carolyn Podruchny.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Charles D. Dickey, Jr., Fund.

ISBN:

9780803243293

0803243294

OCLC:

317925553

Publisher Number:

99937442605