Grand Portage As a Trading Post: Patterns of Trade at "The Great Carrying Place"
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Grand Portage as a Trading Post: Patterns of Trade at “the Great Carrying Place” By Bruce M. White Turnstone Historical Research St. Paul, Minnesota Grand Portage National Monument National Park Service Grand Marais, Minnesota September 2005 On the cover: a page from an agreement signed between the North West Company and the Grand Portage area Ojibwe band leaders in 1798. This agreement is the first known documentary source in which multiple Grand Portage band leaders are identified. It is the earliest known documentation that they agreed to anything with a non-Native entity. Contents List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... ii List of Illustrations ............................................................................................................. ii Preface ............................................................................................................................... iii Introduction .........................................................................................................................1 Trade Patterns .....................................................................................................................5 The Invention of the Great Lakes Fur Trade ....................................................................13 Ceremonies of Trade, Trade of Ceremonies .....................................................................19 The Wintering Trade .........................................................................................................27 French Trade on Lake Superior in the 18th Century ........................................................37 Clearing the Road: The Beginning of British Trade to Grand Portage ............................45 Keeping the Passage Open ................................................................................................59 Grand Portage in the 1770s and 1780s .............................................................................69 Grand Portage in the 1790s ...............................................................................................77 The Heyday of Grand Portage, 1790-99 ...........................................................................85 1800 ...................................................................................................................................99 1801-05 ...........................................................................................................................109 The Trade at Grand Portage After 1805 .........................................................................117 Reconstructing the Grand Portage Fur Trade .................................................................143 Conclusions and Suggestions for Further Research ........................................................169 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................171 Appendix 1: Versions of Roderick McKenzie’s Reminiscence ....................................187 Appendix 2: Letter from Grand Portage by a North West Company Partner ................193 i Tables 1. Possible Distribution of Goods at Chequamegon, 1727-28 ........................................40 2. Ojibwe Signers of the 1798 Agreement ......................................................................89 3. XY Company Inventories ...........................................................................................96 4. Credit Granted to 13 Grand Portage Ojibwe by Bela Chapman in 1824 ..................159 5. Annuity Goods Given to Ojibwe Indians by the U. S. Government .........................161 6. Possible Merchandise Used by One Average Grande Portage Family, 1799 ...........162 7. Rates of Exchange for Furs, Supplies, and Merchandise (in Plus or Skins) in the Fond du Lac District and Nearby Areas .........................................................163 8. Average Value of Furs in Packs ................................................................................165 Illustrations A page from an agreement between the North West Company and the Grand Portage area Ojibwe band leaders signed in 1798 .....................................Cover Lake Superior and the border lakes region ....................................................................... iv Attikonse, or Little Caribou, a Grand Portage area Ojibwe chief .....................................12 Wigemar Wasung, portrait by Eastman Johnson, 1857 ..................................................121 Untitled portrait by Eastman Johnson, 1857 ...................................................................136 Kay be sen day way We Win, portrait by Eastman Johnson, 1857 ................................142 ii Preface This study began as an attempt to say something new about Grand Portage, a place studied by many scholars over the years. The purpose was to show a different and little known aspect of a famous place. It was a daunting task to write about a place and a history already described by Solon J. Buck, Grace Lee Nute, Alan Woolworth, Erwin Thompson, Douglas Birk, and Carolyn Gilman, not to mention the very able management and staff of Grand Portage National Monument, and many others. During the course of the research and writing, a process that seemed to be never-ending, I despaired at times about whether it was even possible to give a description of what the trade was like at Grand Portage. But through this all, Timothy Cochrane and David Cooper of Grand Portage National Monument have been consistently encouraging, enormously patient, and always willing to share their own extensive knowledge of Grand Portage. I owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. I also owe a debt to Thomas Thiessen and Jeffrey Richner of the National Park Service for their extremely close reading of the manuscript and aid in publishing it. I also thank Theresa Schenck for sharing valuable information and ideas. For many years Curtis L. Roy has been a valuable “friend of Grand Portage” and he encouraged me a great deal in writing this report. Finally, I would like to acknowledge that this work was inspired in part by my time as a student of the late Louise Dechêne of McGill University, a great historian of Montreal and the fur trade, whose detailed and friendly criticism continues to be missed. iii Lake Superior and the border lakes area. iv Introduction Introduction Although known primarily in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as “the great carrying place,” a transshipment point where the company headquarters and warehouses of the North West and XY Companies were located, Grand Portage was also a trading post. It was located in the midst of a Native community, where company employees wintered, trading with surrounding Ojibwe, also known as the Anishinaabe. The role of Grand Portage as a trading post was acknowledged indirectly around 1800 when North West Company partner Roderick McKenzie stated: “Chipeways about the Grand Portage are few in number—accustomed to opposition in trade they are extremely difficult to deal with.” The implication of this statement is that the Grand Portage Ojibwe caused special difficulties for traders. Because of trade competition they had become experienced negotiators, skillful in getting what they wanted from the trade. It could also be that their mere presence next to such an important company depot provided them with opportunities unavailable to Native people elsewhere. The statement points to the dynamics of Grand Portage, to a special characteristic of the people, the place, and the situation. Competition was one factor which shaped the trade at Grand Portage. But geography, cultural factors, and the roles of individual Indian people and traders all came together to produce a unique set of trade patterns, ones that will be explored in detail in this report. The purpose of this report is to describe the fur trade that took place at Grand Portage between Europeans and Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries. During this period Grand Portage was important for many reasons. A strategic geographical point in the trade route between the Great Lakes and the Canadian Northwest, it was best known as a trade depot and company headquarters in the period between 1765 and 1804. Grand Portage had its largest population and range of activities in the summer, when thousands of company employees passed through on their way east or west. During the fall, winter, and spring, however, when the crowds of clerks and engagés were at distant trading posts throughout the upper country, trade occupied the time of as many as several dozen company employees at the portage and in the region surrounding it. Little has been written to describe this trade in detail. There is a major difficulty with doing so. For most of the period during which Grand Portage was used by a variety of trading companies, evidence about the actual trade process is limited and scattered. No diaries were kept to describe the detailed activities of company people at Grand Portage during the winter. What evidence exists is largely from the point of view of a few company officials who, often, did not themselves participate directly in trade. Little of it describes Native points of view about trade. Reconstructing the trade at Grand Portage means sifting through all available sources to find the slightest references to trade there. This evidence can be used, in conjunction with