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The Fur Trade Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project Intercultural and Anthropological Studies 2012 The Fur Trade Rachel B. Juen [email protected] Michael S. Nassaney Western Michigan University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/fortstjoseph Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons WMU ScholarWorks Citation Juen, Rachel B. and Nassaney, Michael S., "The Fur Trade" (2012). Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. 2. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/fortstjoseph/2 This Booklet is brought to you for free and open access by the Intercultural and Anthropological Studies at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact wmu- [email protected]. The 1 Fur Trade Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project Booklet Series, No. 2 Western Michigan University Rachel B. Juen and Michael S. Nassaney 2 Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project In 1998 Western Michigan University archaeologists were invited to Niles, Michigan to help locate the site of Fort St. Joseph, a seventeenth and eighteenth- century mission, garrison, and trading post complex established by the French along the St. Joseph River. With the help of documentary sources and the local community, a survey team dug shovel test pits and located material evidence of activities associated with the fort, including gunints, imported ceramics, glass beads, hand-wrought nails, and iron knife blades stamped with the names of French cutlers. Subsequent work identied trash deposits, replaces, and building ruins, indicating that much of the fort remains undisturbed. Aer more than a century in search of the site, Fort St. Joseph had been found! e site has become the focus of a community-based research project aimed at examining colonialism and the fur trade in southwest Michigan. An interdisciplinary team of historians, archaeologists, geographers, and geophysicists, in partnership with the City of Niles and community groups like Support the Fort, Inc., are investigating the site to examine colonialism along the frontier of New France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. is is the second issue in the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project Booklet Series, intended to summarize our ndings and explore topics that appeal to a wider audience in an eort to understand Fort St. Joseph in the larger historical and cultural context of early North America. Its focus is on telling the story of the fur trade and its role in the relationships among the French and Native peoples. Fig. 1 Field school students discuss excavations at Fort St. Joseph. Contents 3 New France and the Fur Trade ................................ 4 The Place of Fort St. Joseph North American Rivalries ........................................6 More than Profits at Stake French, British, Russian, and American Fur Trades How the Fur Trade Worked ...................................10 Government Regulation From Montreal to the West: The Flow of Trade Trade Routes and Transportation .........................12 Getting There Birchbark Canoes A Two Way Trade: The Movement of Goods and Furs .............................................16 People of the Trade in New France .......................18 Native Hunters and Hide Preparers Montreal Merchants, the Military, and the Church Voyageurs and Coureurs de Bois Fur Trade Society ..................................................22 Interdependence and Mutual Influences Métis and Country Wives Native Peoples and the Fur Trade .........................24 Shifting Political Alliances and Power Religion and Worldview Cultural Change and Continuity Trade Goods and the Material Culture of the Fur Trade ...................................26 Cloth and Clothing Firearms Metal Goods Alcohol Animal Exploitation ..............................................32 Subsistence Environmental Effects Conclusion ............................................................35 Aftermath Legacies of the Fur Trade Fur Trade Timeline ................................................35 is project is funded by the Michigan References Cited ...................................................36 Humanities Council, an aliate of the Acknowledgements ..............................................37 National Endowment for the Humanities. Image Credits .......................................................38 Any views, ndings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this project Department of Anthropology do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5306 ©2012 4 New France and the Fur Trade e French encountered many dierent Native peoples and a landscape rich in fur-bearing animals in their explorations of North America beginning in the sixteenth century. e rst French settlements were shing villages in coastal areas, but soon fur became a central part of New France’s economy as the French entered into a Native trade network which had operated in North America long before the arrival of Europeans. e core of French settlement grew along the banks of the St. Lawrence River, concentrated in the towns of Montreal and uebec. Further west, New France encompassed the Great Lakes region (known as the pays d’en haut or “upper country”) and the area of the Mississippi River Valley stretching down to the Gulf Coast and Louisiana. In an eort to secure the interior, establish Native alliances, Fig. 2 Carte de la Nouvelle France by Nicolas de Fer (circa 1719) showing French claims in pink and yellow. and thwart British and Iroquois eorts to expand west of the Appalachians, the French established a network of trading attempt to solidify French relations with the local Miami posts, forts, and missions in the North American interior. Indians and other Native groups to the west and north of ese “islands” of French settlement in Native-controlled the area. Frontenac hoped that the post, garrisoned by the lands became the principal places of Native and European French, would stimulate the fur trade in the region, and also interaction and exchange in the fur trade. check the expansion and power of the Five Nations Iroquois Confederacy and their British allies. e fort soon supported Some of the most important posts in the western Great Lakes a commandant, 8 to 10 soldiers, a priest, an interpreter, a region included Fort Michilimackinac, Fort Pontchartrain at blacksmith, and about 15 fur traders, many of whom were Detroit, and Fort St. Joseph. married to Native women who occupied the post and e Place of Fort St. Joseph were fully integrated into the Initially established in 1691 on the St. Joseph River, near a life of the community. strategic portage that linked the river and the Great Lakes basin to the Mississippi drainage, Fort St. Joseph became the Fort St. Joseph was a keystone of French control of the southern Lake Michigan vital link in the colony’s region. For nearly a century, Fort St. Joseph served as a hub communications network, of commercial, military, and religious activity for local Native and played a major American populations and European colonial powers in role in the exchange of southwest Michigan. manufactured commodities for furs obtained by the is mission-garrison-trading post complex, which the French Natives. By the mid- named “St. Joseph” in honor of the patron saint of New eighteenth century, it France, included a palisade, a commandant’s house, and a ranked fourth among all of few other structures when it was rst constructed. Governor New France’s posts in terms General Frontenac of New France established the post in an of volume of furs traded. 5 Fig. 6 Beaver was not the only fur-bearing animal that was Fig. 3 Beaver felt hat. exploited in the fur trade. Beaver and Other Furs of the Trade Broad-brimmed beaver felt hats became fashionable in Europe in the sixteenth century, and marked people’s social status. Beaver had become extinct in western Europe due to overhunting, and European hat makers had to rely on Russian and Scandinavian beaver fur until North American furs eventually became available. Hatters wanted beaver fur as a mate- rial for felt making because the tiny barbs on the soft underfur ensured that it would remain matted when felted; thus beaver hats held their shape better and wore longer than hats Fig. 4 American beaver. made of other materials. Beaver pelts were the mainstay of the fur trade in much of North America, but other peltries were also deemed desirable for various purposes. These included the furs of muskrat, mink, marten, otter, sher, wolverine, raccoon, lynx, bobcat, panther, fox, squirrel, ermine, and bualo, and the hides of deer, moose, elk, and caribou. Bualo “robes” were used to make a variety of goods including blankets, coats, and boots. Sea otter was valued for its very dense and luxurious fur used to trim expensive robes and capes, and to make hats and winter coats. Deer hides were processed into leather for book covers, gloves, and other accessories. Whatever the animal, European traders relied on Native peoples to capture and process them into hides and furs. The exchange of European manufactured and imported goods for Native-produced furs and hides served to cement relationships that were much more than economic in nature. Fig. 5 Artist’s recreation of voyageurs with canoes loaded with trade goods or furs. 6 North American Rivalries e fur
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