Furs and frontiers in the far north : the contest among native and foreign nations for the Bering Strait fur trade / John R. Bockstoce ; foreword by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bockstoce, John R.

Series:

Lamar series in western history.

Lamar series in Western history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fur trade--Bering Strait Region--History--19th century.

Fur trade.

Merchants--Bering Strait Region--History--19th century.

Merchants.

Eskimos--Hunting--Bering Strait Region--History--19th century.

Eskimos.

Russians--Bering Strait Region--History--19th century.

Russians.

British--Bering Strait Region--History--19th century.

British.

Bering Strait Region--History--19th century.

Bering Strait Region.

Alaska--Commerce--Russia--History--19th century.

Alaska.

Russia--Commerce--Alaska--History--19th century.

Russia.

Great Britain--Commerce--Alaska--History--19th century.

Great Britain.

Alaska--Commerce--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (512 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This comprehensive history of the native and maritime fur trade in Alaska during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is without precedent. The Bering Strait formed the nexus of the circumpolar fur trade in which Russians, British, Americans, and members of fifty native nations competed and cooperated. The desire to dominate the fur trade fed the European expansion into the most remote regions of Asia and America and was an agent of massive change in these regions.Award-winning author John R. Bockstoce fills a major gap in the historiography of the area in covering the scientific, commercial, and foreign-relations implications of the northern fur trade. In addition, the book provides rare insight into the relationship between the Western powers and the Native Americans who provided them with fur, ivory, and whalebone in exchange for manufactured goods, tobacco, tea, alcohol, and hundreds of other things. But this is also the story of the enterprising individuals who energized the Alaskan fur trade and, in doing so, forever altered the region's history.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Foreword

Preface

A Note on Names

Acknowledgments

1. The Opening of the Maritime Fur Trade at Bering Strait

2. Trapping and Hunting for Marketable Furs

3. The Russian Expansion toward Alaska

4. Marketing the Furs

5. The Russians Move North

6. The British Response

7. Mikhailovsky Redoubt

8. The Expeditions to Point Barrow

9. Zagoskin's Expedition to the Yukon

10. The British Expansion Northwestward

11. The Search for Sir John Franklin

12. Trading Activities from 1848 to the Sale of Russian America

13. Chaos and Transformation in the Latter Third of the Nineteenth Century

14. The Last Decades of the Nineteenth Century

15. End of the Century

Appendix: The Introduction of Firearms to the Eskimos of the Bering Strait Region

Chronology

Glossary

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-282-35178-8

9786612351785

0-300-15490-9

OCLC:

646846932