Papers on the North American Fur Trade

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Papers on the North American Fur Trade

ON NOVEMBER 1^, 1965, the Minnesota Trade" is placed in an introductory position, Historical Society in co-operation with the although his paper was read on the final Hudson's Bay Company, the James Ford day of the conference. The essays that fol­ Bell Foundation, Albrecht Furs, and the St. low deal with the three great fur trading Paul Council of Arts and Sciences sponsored companies of North America, representing an international conference on the North three nations and widely varying techniques American fur trade. Participating in it ivere of operation, as re-examined in the light of scliolars, writers, and authorities on fur trade recent historical research. Next are two history drawn from many parts of the United brief picture essays, both based upon slide States and Carmda. England ivas repre­ talks which traced the surviving physical sented by Professor Kenneth G. Davies of evidences of the fur trade era in Canada the University of Bristol and the Hudson's and the United States. The final group of Bay Record Society. articles presents the viewpoints of allied In all, twenty-eight .speakers addressed disciplines: ethnohistory, archaeology, and the conference; the nine essays presented economic history. Each gave rise to an un­ here have been selected from among their usual amount of discussion and comment papers. The number to he published was among the conference participants. limited only hy the editorial time and the Those papers which because of space and space available, and the choice was hard to time limitations could not he included were: make. A variety of viewpoints was repre­ Victor H. Cahalane, "Wildlife, Ecology, and sented at the conference — tho.se of the li­ the Fur Trade"; Kenneth Dawson, "Archaeo­ brarian, the archivist, the naturalist, the ar­ logical Investigation at the Site of the Long- chaeologist, the econoynist, the ethnologist, lac Trading Post"; John C. Ewers, "Some the historic sites administrator, the geogra­ Problems in the Study of the Indian Side of pher, and others, including, of course, the the Fur Trade"; LeRoy R. Hafen, "The Fur traditional historian. The resulting papers Trade Rendezvous of the Central Rockies"; did not fit a neat pattern; each approached Kenneth E. Kidd, "The Functions of a Fur the fur trade and its history from a somewhat Trade Research Center"; W. Kaye Lamb, different angle. The total picture was some­ "Bibliographical Control of Fur Trade times illuminating, sometimes confusing, and Sources"; John Francis McDermott, "A Pic­ sometimes contradictory, yet now and then torial Archive for the Fur Trade"; Valentine the crosscurrents brought into sharp focus McKay, "Personal Reminiscences of a Fur the existence of unexplored fields. New prob­ Trader"; Eric W. Morse, "Fur Trade Main lems of scope and definition were raised; Line — Lachine to Athabasca"; Doyce B. many fresh lines of research were pointed Nunis, Jr., "The Role of the Fur Trade in out; and untapped sources of knowledge Shaping Anglo-American Affairs, 1783-1784: were suggested. It is hoped that the selec­ Furs, Forts, Indians, and Evacuation," and tion given here will reflect some of this "Needs and Opportunities for Fur Trade Re­ interplay. search"; Grace Lee Nute, "Men of the Fur Dale L. Morgan's discerning survey of Trade"; Walter O'Meara, "The Women of "Some Problems in the History of the Fur the Fur Traders"; John Parker, "The Fur

Winter 1966 149 Trade and the Emerging Geography of with gratifying results. In less than a year, North America, 1600-1800"; Francis Paul two major collections have been micro­ Prucha, "The United States Army and the filmed: One, an extraordinary group of Alex­ Fur Trade"; G. Hubert Smith, "The Build­ ander Mackenzie papers, was located in ings of the Fur Trade"; John E. Sunder, Quebec City. The institution owning the "Problems and Opportunities in Fur Trade papers graciously permitted the society to Research"; Waldemar F. Toensing, "A Li­ purchase a microfilm copy and granted pub­ brarian Looks at Fur Trade Literature"; Ar­ lication rights as well. A second exciting thur Woodward, "Fur Trade Goods"; and acquisition will be announced in the spring Alan R. Woolworth, "Archaeological Exca­ of 1967 through a joint American-Canadian vations at Grand Portage: An Eighteenth release. In each case microfilm copies will Century Fur Trade Metropolis." Unedited he placed in Canadian depositories as well copies of all these essays are available from as in the society's collection. the Minnesota Historical Society for the cost Co-operation between the two countries of duplication. has been increasing steadily in the area of Persons who attended the conference will fur trade history, where they share a com­ recall the postconference discussions on the mon heritage. Undoubtedly the greatest sin­ need for the establishment of a fur trade re­ gle factor contributing to this co-operation search center or clearinghouse for informa­ has been the joint Canadian-American un­ tion. A short time later, officials of the derwater archaeology project, begun by the Hudson's Bay Company indicated an inter­ Minnesota Historical Society in 1961 and ex­ est in contributing to the support of such a panded over the years until it now involves center. Other companies and foundations several provinces as well as the state of will be approached as soon as plans are Minnesota. more clearly drawn. Numerous inquiries have been received In the meantime, the Minnesota Historical about plans for another fur trade conference. Society decided not only to pursue this ob­ Tlie University of Manitoba has expressed jective but to increase its efforts to locate an interest in serving as host to such a gath­ new sources of information. The society is ering. There is a possibility that a second pleased to report that it has employed a field conference can be held in 1970 to coincide representative to search for unknown collec­ with the three-hundredth anniversary of the tions of fur trade materials in Canada — Hudson's Bay Company. Ed.

THE ILLUSTRATIONS on the foUowing pages are from a variety of sources. Those featured in the essays on pages 188-191 and 192-197 were sup­ pfied by the authors, and the accompanying maps were drafted by Mary D. Nagle. The painting on page 159 is by William de la M. Gary and is owned by the American Museum of Natural History, New York; the sketches on page 161 are from the New­ berry Library, Chicago; and the engraving on page 165 is from G. M. Grant, Ocean to Ocean: Sandford Fleming's Expedition through Canada in 1872 (Lon­ don, 1873). A copy of the map reproduced on page 173 was furnished by Mr. Davies. The drawing on page 177 is in Harper's New Monthly Magazine of June, 1879, and the one on page 185 is from Robert M. Ballantyne, Hudson Bay (London and New York, 1876). The painting on page 199 is used by courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution. The pen and ink sketches of animals and the beaver bats on page 187 are by Rhoda R. Gilman. ^X^

150 MINNESOTA History Mr. Morgan, who has written widely about the fur trade, is on the staff of the Bancroft Library in the University of California at Berkeley. This paper was published in the Spring, 1966, issue of the American West and is reprinted with permission as it appeared there.

The FUR TRADE and Its HISTORIANS

DALE L. MORGAN

FEW WOULD EVER have heard of Fred­ enced nearly everything written about the erick Jackson Turner, probably, had he history of the West in the first half of the stayed with his early preoccupation with the nineteenth century — that it has, indeed, fur trade (or "Indian trade") of the Wiscon­ been more largely influential than the only sin area. Turner enunciated in 1893 a hy­ general work Turner himself ever published pothesis about the importance of tbe frontier (his Rise of the New West, 1819-1829, in American history, and his elaboration of which leaned on Chittenden's history and that hypothesis by degrees made him fa­ described it as "excellent"). From the year mous, though the hypothesis has had its ups of its publication, 1902, The American Fur and downs in scholarly opinion. Some years Trade of the Far West has not only been later, a Texan maverick, Walter Prescott referred to constantly by writers of every Webb, was acclaimed a powerful and origi­ description, but has also powerfully shaped nal thinker for outlining a novel way of their ideas. As recently as 1947 Bernard looking at the Great Plains, still later for DeVoto observed that Chittenden's study writing up a vision of American history as a "remains the most valuable single book four-hundred-year boom on which time has about the trade and the only general history run out. Turner's disciples are still trying to of it," though as DeVoto further remarked, nail down his frontier hypothesis witb spe­ "a staggering amount of new material bas cifics; and Webb's more grandiose concep­ come to light and a great deal of scholarly tion, it seems likely, we shall be unable to work has been done." (Since DeVoto made test very effectively until we have waited a this comment, Paul C. Phillips' The Fur few hundred years to gain a useful perspec­ Trade has appeared posthumously. It has a tive. The harder it is to pin something down, wider field of view than Chittenden's and is the more compelling the idea; it would seem more continuously factful, but it is a basi­ that thinking must achieve a certain level of cally less thoughtful work.) The idea may abstraction to command general admiration. affront the professional historians, but it can Very few, I suspect, would place Hiram be seriously maintained that neither Turner Martin Chittenden in the same class with nor Webb has had an impact on the writing Turner and Webb, either as innovator or as of western history comparable to Chitten­ investigator. Yet anyone disposed to inquire den's. into the historiography of the past sixty The American Fur Trade of the Far West years will find that Chittenden's The Ameri­ is not a narrative history but a rather epi­ can Fur Trade of the Far West has influ­ sodic commentary on various aspects of the

Winter 1966 151 trade and on enterprises, personalities, and Let me cite an example out of my own related historical developments. Although experience. In the course of writing my biog­ he reviewed at considerable length John raphy of Jedediah Smith some years ago, Jacob Astor's ill-starred attempt to establish I arrived at the chapter dealing with the the American fur trade on the Columbia be­ historic rendezvous of 1826, when William tween 1811 and 1814, in the process giving H. Ashley, whose energies had powered the H. H. Bancroft a brisk going-over for out­ advance of the American fur trade from rageous treatment of Washington Irving, the Missouri River to the Rockies during the Chittenden conceived the western fur trade three preceding years, sold out to a newly primarily in terms of an economic activity organized firm, Smith, Jackson & Sublette, based on St. Louis, which became important and went back to the States with an agree­ after the return of Lewis and Clark and fell ment to furnish his successors with goods. I into desuetude when the tide of western knew, as everyone had known since Chitten­ emigration set in after 1840. "The true pe­ den's day, that in 1826 Ashley withdrew riod of the tians-Mississippi fur tiade," Chit­ from the fur trade to devote his time to other tenden argued, not altogether correctly, affairs, and that he never laid eyes on the embraced the thirty-seven years from 1807 Rockies again. Thanks to the Missouri His­ to 1843. torical Society's incomparable fur trade col­ The point I more particularly wish to lections, I had copies of all the surviving make is that Chittenden settled the ideas of documents that bore upon the negotiations two generations of historians who, directly at rendezvous and the subsequent develop­ or indirectly, have had to come to terms ments. I wrote a draft of this particular with the fur trade. His was a liberating influ­ chapter. And when I got through, it was afl ence originally, for he provided a rationale wrong; my text did not say what the docu­ by which a diffuse and refractory history ments imported. I wrote the chapter over, was made intelligible. Over the course of and the second version turned out no better time, however, Chittenden has evolved into than the first. At length it dawned on me something of a tyrannical force, for he is still what the trouble was: I "knew" what had conditioning the thinking of students who happened, and I was writing my text to con­ should be pushing the frontiers of knowl­ form with what I knew — in defiance of the edge a good deal farther out. Pioneering is record at hand. I tossed out everything I never easy, but it is time those interested in thought I knew and wrote a third version. the fur trade should be stepping out on their And since this rested upon the documents own. themselves, which told a plain, entirely logi­ cal story when allowed to do so, that third BEFORE I elaborate some ideas, let me version did the job and was eventually pub­ touch upon certain difficulties, illustrated by lished. My frame of reference had not been Chittenden but not unique to the historian large enough to accommodate the data I of the fur trade. Reading Chittenden is a had brought together, and I was slow to necessary part of any student's apprentice­ adjust. ship, but one who reads him is going to find What makes the incident worth relating himself brainwashed to some extent. An is that I have a great deal of company in author like Chittenden by his very useful­ this mental incapacity. I do not know how ness has a crystallizing influence on one's many times in contemporary historiography thinking, on the actual formulation of con­ I have run across formal conclusions con­ cepts, to the point that one's capability for tradicted straight down the line by the original thinking may be squeezed down "facts" marshaled in their support. Bernard and blunted: it is possible to find oneself DeVoto had the same disrupting experience, walled off from reality. for in The Year of Decision: 1846 he said of

152 MINNESOTA History Justin Smith's The War with Mexico: "The slightly for the syndrome to be rephrased as research behind Professor Smith's book is "publish-anci-perish," the scholar's ritual certainly one of the most exhaustive ever cooking of his own goose. If publication be­ made by an American historian, and if it comes a public expose of incompetence, we came to an issue of fact I should perforce need only establish some proper accounting have to disregard my own findings and system to effect a great improvement, for accept his. But it is frequently — very fre­ example, reducing a professor's salary $1,000 quently— altogether impossible to under­ per year for every piece of balderdash he stand how Smith's conclusions could exist in publishes. When there are real risks to aca­ the presence of facts which he himself pre­ demic publication, we may expect the sents. If there is a more consistently wrong- quality to improve. headed book in our history, or one which so In and out of the academic community, freely cites facts in support of judgments haste in publishing may be dictated by which those facts controvert, I have not en­ financial considerations; it can cost too much countered it." in dollars and cents to acquire the necessary education, an education no one is ever going I SEEM to be arriving at the awkward posi­ to come by simply or easily; and tbe cost is tion of denying the utility of written history, going to keep on rising as more and more asking that the student forget what others material emerges into view. Fur trade his­ tell him, return constantly to the sources, tory has always been extremely complex, and form his own ideas from those and I see no prospect that it will ever be sources. But 1 have already indicated bow otherwise. difficult it is to approach history de novo, Money is a factor, but so is simple human without regard to what has been found out, laziness. Men there are aplenty who parrot or thought, or believed before. The possibil­ information because it is easier than em­ ity of being led down the garden path is one barking upon independent inquiry; these of tbe hazards of getting an education; but if are the men who most appreciate stereotypes nobody pays any attention to what has been and abandon them with anguished outcries. written already, we may be confronted with A characteristic, if not distinguishing, fea­ the spectacle of a hundred different students ture of this class of historians is their unwill­ writing Chittenden all over again rather ingness to stand up and declare themselves than pressing out toward tbe new frontiers before tbe bar of judgment. They will re­ I have envisioned. mark that one authority says this, while The pioneering spirit is, of course, as rare another says that; and for them, there is the in fur trade history as anywhere else, and end of the line: we shall have no digging let us not make the mistake of blaming Chit­ into the basis of this divergence of judgment, tenden for our own lacks. Why this history no assessment of the facts. has not been written on as high a level as Also — let us face it—the fur trade field might be wished is worth meditation. has its full share of characters who not only 'To begin with, many historians are in too are unable to write but who give evidence much of a hurry for a payoff; they will not of being unable even to read. Once upon a take the time to qualify themselves to the time, back in my college days, in a dog-eared point that they know what they are talking unabridged dictionary of uncertain anteced­ about; they do not stop to think. Inside the ents, I stumbled upon a lovely word, "dis- academic community, this scrambling noetic," defined as "incapable of knowing haste (often expressing itself in a mere what one sees." I employed the term to devil piling up of "facts") is known as the "pub- a fellow columnist on the student newspaper, lish-or-perish" syndrome, though critical whose specialty was pontificating on the standards would have to advance only very passing scene. I have not bad occasion to

Winter 1966 153 use the word since, but after thirty years, to illuminate these facts for our understand­ the season has come round: surely some will ing agree with me that the fur trade as a field As an illustration of what is possible, con­ of scholarly inquiry has its quota of "dis- sider a passage in DeVoto's The Course of noetic" practitioners. Empire, a description of the Chippewas at the time the younger Alexander Henry was ACTUALLY, simple incapacity may be trading with them in the Red River country easier to abide than the popularizers who about 1800. These Chippewas, DeVoto tells clutter up the literature. These popularizers, us, "were at their farthest west here, and un­ as often as not, are frustrated novelists. At easy outside the forest, which ended a little worst they are akin to the writers and pro­ farther east. As a result, they were in practi­ ducers of television scripts who are insuffi­ cally continuous terror of the Sioux." So far, ciently gifted to create fictional worlds and the factual observation; the average his­ use reality as a crutch, not scrupling to dis­ torian would now have broken off in the con­ tort reality, with artistic license their justifi­ viction that he had done his job. DeVoto, cation. (The amorality that seizes upon however, went on to elaborate the scene and Wyatt Earp, Billy tbe Kid, Jesse James, the situation, with exquisite attention to de­ Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, or whomever and tail: "Every moment might be a threat of does violence to truth may yet come to be massacre, even a drift of cloud-shadow recognized for what it is.) At best, fur trade across the edge of the plain. Let anyone popularizers may rise to the level of a Stanley come in sight above the horizon or along Vestal, who was willing to work at writing the edge of an oak grove, let a horse stumble but not at research. A scholar acquainted in the brush or leave a hoofprint in the mud with him has recently summed up Vestal, of the riverbank, let a squaw have a painful not unkindly, by saying, "He was convinced dream or a bird dart low over a cook fire — that the day-to-day stuff of which history is it was enough to start the women screaming composed would bore his readers, whereas and digging foxholes and the braves running unique, startling characters and incidents in circles and firing muskets at the sky." In would sell well." Except as entertainments, a very few words DeVoto evoked a place, a and a source of income, the majority of time, and a whole culture. If any of our Vestal's fur trade books should never have scholars have a comparable capability — been written; they added nothing to knowl­ imagination, the power to bring it to bear edge, and by merely existing, by pre­ upon communication, a way with words, empting the field, may have inhibited and mastery of background — let them noi scholars and publishers alike from going hide it away. ahead with books that needed doing. I am complaining about popularizers, not WHATEVER we call him — a synthesist or synthesists. Of the latter we are never going simply a historian working deftly, under- to have enough, and we lost a great one standingly, and imaginatively at his trade — when Bernard DeVoto succumbed to a mas­ there is plenty of scope for a good man sive heart attack in 1957. The mark of the prepared to give himself to the charms of synthesist is that he is indeed interested in fur trade history. How useful, for example, facts, deals honestly and intelligently with would be a history of the Rocky Mountain them, clothes them with excitement, and has trade that would view this segment of a gift for isolating the details that bring his­ the trade in long perspective, as an integral tory to life. We would all be the gainers if part of the whole North American fur pro­ more of our historians, so often preoccupied duction. We have seen much loose writing merely with the grinding out of "facts," about the "incredible richness" of the Rocky could find within themselves the resources Mountain beaver preserves at the time ex-

154 MiNNESOTA History ploitation began. But did the Rocky Moun­ deafened historians to virtually all other tain yield ever really compare with that of voices. A beaver skin taken in by a trader the Canadian fur lands, or even with that was not, as many have supposed, the equiva­ of the Great Lakes region fifty or a hundred lent of so much gold, to be deposited in the years earlier? Maybe the American West U.S. Mint or a mattress in the back room: it was rich only in poor man's terms. It would had to be sold. Dealers in fur could, and be interesting to find out! often did, lose their shirts. It is time all this And how useful would it be to have some was explored with some understanding that sound economic studies of the trade! I can the fur trade did not exist in a world beyond scarcely imagine a more pressing want. time and circumstance. The prices placed James L. Clayton, of the University of Utah, upon goods traded for beaver in the moun­ has lately occupied himself in digging out tains or along the rivers, the size, nature, some of the economic facts of fur trade his­ and justification for markups, even a clear tory and has demonstiated that the fur trade exposition of the type of goods traded, did not lie down and die in 1843 as the Chit­ where bought, on what terms, to whom sold tenden stereotype has led us all to suppose. (Indians or white trappers), their quality, The Rocky Mountain fur trade, as a way of and the use made of them — all these facts life that drew sustenance from the annual would be instructive and need not be rendezvous, had indeed ceased to exist, and boring. Fights with grizzlies, tall tales, well before 1843. But the fur trade itself battles with the whisky jug, high jinks at went on. John Sunder, in his The Fur Trade rendezvous, and other familiar ingredients on the Upper Missouri, 1840-1865, has well of the storyteller's art are not the only recorded how a part of that trade sustained means of enlivening histories of the fur itself into the sixties; the inland (or out- trade. By all means, let us have some well- land) trade, with more emphasis upon the written economic history with its own com­ buffalo robe and less upon the beaver pelt, manding excitement! flourished in its own fashion throughout the The fur trade teems with possibilities for same period. Another change in emphasis investigation. No good history of the trading came with the virtual extermination of the posts up the Missouri River, not even a buffalo by hide hunters who were actively dependable checklist to replace Chitten­ encouraged by the Indian-hating army. The den's shaky essay in that direction, has been robe trade died out, but the fur trade con­ attempted yet; probably 50 per cent of what tinued, doubtless more valuable today than has been published about these forts is flatly ever. wrong, and the errors propagate themselves The economic history on which I lay such with the vigor that weeds alone seem to stress should, of course, be broad enough to possess. A scholar could have himseff a fine embrace the problems of the entrepreneurs time getting at the facts, and a good many and fur merchants achingly neglected while of us would rather have the flowers than historians have preoccupied themselves with the weeds. Individual fur trading concerns the fur trade mainly as a force in geographic in the vast basin of the Missouri similarly exploration. For a long while now our ideas await thorough investigation. It is incredible have been dominated by the viewpoint of that we do not yet have a useful history of the trappers, individual mountain men the company which bore various names at colorful enough to have become the subjects different times but was always dominated by of biographies, one after another. Such men the Chouteaus of St. Louis. Only this pri­ bawled their fury when they felt themselves mary lack makes it surprising that the ground down by the entrepreneurs; their Columbia Fur Company, founded in 1822 voices have mainly been heard in the litera­ and transformed five years later into the ture, and the uproar that is their legacy has American Fur Company's Upper Missouri

Winter 1966 155 Outfit, has been subjected to no critical widen; the more I find out, the more I need study, the accepted beliefs about this con­ to know; and peripheral interests have a way cern being fable to the extent of perhaps 40 of becoming central. In a sense it is a com­ per cent. fort to be involved with such a large area of Clearly, the Indian tribes need to be re- knowledge, one which with due regard for studied in relation to the fur trade. Some human mortality has no limits, never an end interesting ideas have been advanced lately to the possibilities for learning something about noneconomic motivations of Indians new. There are discomforts, too. It is easiest in their relation to traders, for example, the to write authoritatively on a subject when status that was so highly prized by the "car­ you do not know too much about it. The rier tribes" who transported furs from the more you learn, the more you are tied down south of Canada to Hudson Bay, willing to by facts, and the more difficult you find it to starve and die for the ill-paid privilege. It express a complex of fact with any degree would be fascinating to see such ideas pur­ of grace. But this essentially is a literary sued further. And I, for one, would be problem and though it does away with pleased to see serious studies undertaken of "authority" forever, I think we need to take the relationships between particular traders a fresh look at practically everything. and particular tribes — who the men were, We have gone a circuitous course to arrive how they established themselves among the back at the Messrs. Turner, Webb, and Chit­ tribes, the effect they bad upon subsequent tenden. I ventured the opinion at the outset tribal history — the whole works. For that that Chittenden may have made a funda­ matter, we have scarcely a single history of mentally more useful contribution to west­ a western Indian tribe that makes adequate ern history than either Turner or Webb. use of fur trade sources. The ethnologists Chittenden has been useful to this degree have tended to pursue their own mystique, because his hypotheses proceeded out of a and their inclination has been all against body of data subject to being checked. We reliance upon documentation preserved in have reached a point where we ought to a different culture. This avoidance of the strike out beyond Chittenden, doing so, appearance of evil would be ludicrous, ex­ however, by a series of controlled hypothe­ cept that historians formally concerned with ses, constantly subject to the discipline of the fur trade have been just as inept. I factual correction. If chroniclers of fur tiade should like to say, however, that Alvin M. history are equal to this challenge, Chitten­ Josephy's lately published The Nez Perce den is going to be one of the casualties; from Indians and the Opening of the Northwest, a work with a historical rather than an here on, bis reputation can only decline. ethnological bias, shows brilliantly what can He would not have been dissatisfied by be done, both with Indians and with fur that, 1 think. As a military man, Chittenden trade sources. Josephy having established a understood something about the bubble precedent, maybe we will see studies of reputation pursued in the cannon's mouth. other tribes reflecting a comparable mastery He did not set out to be one of the im­ of fur trade documentation. mortals, to feel himself brushed by angels' wings. He did a work for his day, a work no one had had the wit or the will to do before WHAT I HAVE SAID here is dominated to him; and because he did well what he set a considerable extent by my own specializa­ out to do, within the limitations of what it tion in the history of the trans-Mississippi was then possible to do, Chittenden will West. I am not really competent to discuss have his own imperishable place in the his­ the state of the art elsewhere, the Minnesota toriography of America and its West. Any region, for example, or much of Canada. My who follow him may rest content if their life personal horizons, nevertheless, continue to work is assessed as comparably valuable.

156 MINNESOTA History Mr. Morton is professor of history at Champlain College in Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario. He is the author of numerous articles and books in the field of Canadian history, including The Canadian Identity (1961), and The Critical Years: The Union of British North America, 1857-1873 (1964).

The NORTH WEST COMPANY PEDLARS EXTRAORDINARY

W. L. MORTON

THAT THE North American fur trade was Unlike the Eskimo and the European, he essentially a commercial marriage of primi­ neither lived by nor used the sea. Trade be­ tive ways and needs to the more advanced tween him and the transoceanic European, techniques and demands of European and accordingly, turned upon either tbe Indian Chinese markets is one of those truths so going to the shore or the European going evident and general that they could scarcely inland. be proved if there were need. Similarly, tbe The earliest barter was of course entirely North West Company before 1821 was an coastal, even when separated from fishing extraordinarily successful union of the prim­ voyages and pursued as a distinct under­ itive culture of the forest Indian tribes taking. The scattered references we possess with the sophisticated civilization of West­ to the fur trade of the sixteenth century all ern Europe. This paper tries to point the way allude to trade on the coast, whether casual toward a study of the company's effective or at a seaside rendezvous. The first histori­ merger of commerce and culture; it attempts cally known rendezvous was Tadoussac on to be a critical essay rather than a piece of the Gulf of St. Lawrence; Quebec, Trois research.1 Rivieres, and Montreal were each in turn Let us begin by noting that tbe North meant to be the same, but tbe trade was American Indian with whom the fur trade carried steadily inland by the happy acci­ was conducted was an inland forest dweller. dent of the great sea entry of the St. Law­ rence River. A similar entry was Hudson ^ The history of the North West Company has Bay, and a far more successful example of now been reconstructed with sufficient complete­ the coastal trade was that pursued by the ness both to establish the character of the company Hudson's Bay Company from 1669 to 1774, as a business organization and to explain its role in the North American fur trade. This has been done until the competition of the trade from despite the lack of documentary evidence for most Canada forced the English company also to of its business affairs. The historical task has been begin trading inland. carried so far chiefly by two recent and massive works: Paul Ghrisler Phillips, The Fur Trade (Nor­ The obvious commercial advantage to man, Oklahoma, 1961); and E. E. Rich, The History Europeans of the coastal trade was that it of the Hudson's Bay Company 1670-1870 (London, 1958, 1959). placed on the Indians the cost of trans-

Winter 1966 157 porting furs to the seaside and goods inland. summer.^ On the hunt the Indian relied al­ More significant to the theme of this paper most wholly on deer hide and beaver robes is that for the Europeans it avoided the for his clothing. Thus his culture possessed necessity of mastering the techniques and two necessities of the fur trade: the means manners of Indian travel and life. Coastal to live on the country as it was, and furs trade provided a meeting place for commer­ themselves. cial barter with a minimum of cultural ex­ Commerce with the whites might improve change, whereas the inland trade could be the means of hunting and of fishing. Such carried on only by Indian means. The items as the gun, the iron hatchet, and the Europeans had to become "Indianized," and steel trap increased the Indian's efficiency, cultural exchange was greatly increased. but his own culture had long provided the The French traders led in this process, and essential tools, such as the bow and arrow, the North West Company, as the heir of the the stone ax, and the deadfall — plus a forest Frenchmen, became the principal repre­ craft not easily learned, let alone improved sentative of European commerce and cul­ upon. To live in the forest it was imperative ture in the inland fur trade. to be able to move, both as a lone hunter and in bands. This the Indian could do with BEFORE the rise and character of the com­ a skill which the European was to surpass pany are discussed, it is necessary to exam­ only by the aid of the mechanical inventions ine the part played by one of the two of the nineteenth century. The Indian pos­ partners in the fur trade — the primitive or sessed the canoe in its most exquisite form — Indian. The Indians of the northern forest the birchbark. This product of the northern zone were a seminomadic people who lived forest and the remarkable craft of canoe by food gathering: hunting, fishing, and building was in fact to be the prime mover picking fruits in season. Tribes like the of the Canadian fur trade. It was used from Montagnais and the Cree, who depended the first by the Indian to bring furs to the purely on hunting and fishing, were more coastal rendezvous, and by the European to stiictly speaking nomadic. Many tribes, penetrate inland. Fragile it was, but it pos­ however — notably the Iroquoian — had ac­ sessed the inestimable advantage that it quired tbe culture of Indian corn; some were could be repaired on the spot, given a readily harvesters of wild rice; and some tapped the available supply of birch bark, spruce root, hard maple for sugar.^ The need to return to and spruce gum. or remain by the cornfields, tbe rice lakes, The canoe gave to the Indian a summer and the sugar bushes explains why they are range of hundreds — even thousands — of termed seminomadic, and even this is per­ miles. No such travel was possible in winter, haps not to be applied to tribes like the but the Indian culture did provide means Hurons or the Onondaga, whose lands were rich in corn. But these people had a "shift­ '^ Maple sugar is rarely taken into account by fur ing" agriculture, and almost no Indian tribe trade historians; yet note the frequent references in was fully and finally committed to one spot Elliott Coues, ed., New Light on the Early History —^ "settled" in the European sense of the of the Greater Northwest: The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and of David Thompson, word. 1799-1814, 1:4, 25, 30, 101, 112, 122, 130, 162, 170, 192, 196, 211, 244, 259, 275, 281; 2:492, 629, Even with supplements like corn, wild 681 (New York, 1897); and in Charles M. Gates, rice, and maple sugar, most Indians relied in ed.. Five Fur Traders of the Northwest, 32, 37, 44, the main on hunting and fishing for theff 165, 234, 236, 270, 273 (St. Paul, 1965). food. Both meant considerable movement, ^ The necessity for this movement is brought out with painful clarity in Edwin James, ed., A Narra­ dispersal in the winter to the hunting tive of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner grounds, and congregation at the fishing (Minneapolis, 1956). On the importance of fruit, see, for example, Henry, in Coues, ed.. New Light runs and the fields and berry patches in on the . . . Greater Northwest, 2:485.

158 MINNESOTA History for the movement of nien and goods neces­ Indian culture supplied to the trade. Most sary to hunting and following trap lines. important of all was manpower.* The ab­ Snowshoes and moccasins made walking original Indian was the first hunter and possible over the deep, soft snow of the trapper, the first canoeman and snowshoer, northern woods, and the toboggan enabled and the white trapper and voyageur were the hunter to transport his game and furs his pupils. In the lands that became the These two means of movement were as in­ United States the latter largely supplanted dispensable to the fur trapping of the him as trappers and boatmen, but in the winter as the canoe was to the fur trade of Canadian forests the local Indian has re­ the summer. mained tbe principal fur-taker down to the present. The fur trader relied not only on THUS there were in the primitive economy local hunters; he sometimes persuaded all but two of tbe elements needed to sus­ whole bands to move with him or used tain the fur trade. These two — market Indians like tbe eastern Iroquois, who found demand and capital to finance a year's oper­ regular employment in following the trade.^ ation of fur collection, transport, and sale The work of the Indian hunter and trap­ — Europeans were to supply, along with per was augmented by that of the Indian the management that was to bring all to­ woman, preparer of food, carrier of bur­ gether in a functioning system. But it was dens, curer of furs, and sewer of shirts, leg­ not only tools and techniques that the gings, and moccasins. These tasks, of course, were exclusively the squaw's work, such •"This is one of those self-evident facts which, if being the rigid division of labor between the not made explicit, is sometimes seriously neglected. The importance of Indian manpower was drawn to sexes in the Indian culture. It was therefore my attention by Mr. Jan Kupp and will be devel­ practically impossible to live off the country oped by him in his doctoral dissertation for the and carry on the fur trade without the as­ department of history. University of Manitoba. ^ See Henry, in Coues, ed., 'New Light on the sistance of Indian women. It is not necessary . . . Greater Northivest, 1:44-77; 2:452; Richard to mention their additional role as mothers Glover, ed., David Thompson's Narrative, 1784— of new manpower, but it is perhaps fitting to 1812, 229 (Toronto, 1962). "En Route to the Trading Post"

Winter 1966 159 recall the remarkable economy with which of which it could live'by bunting, aided with they performed all these necessary func­ such other food as could be grown or tions. As the Chipewyan chief, Matonabbee, gathered. Hunting grounds were vague pointed out in man-to-man fashion to areas, changed by war or epidemic disease, Samuel Hearne, "Women were made for or by deliberate migration, such as that of labour; one of them can carry, or haul, as the Chippewa from north of Lake Huron much as two men can do. . . . the very lick­ westward to the Lake of the Woods and the ing of their fingers in scarce times, is suffi­ Red River country. In exploring for new fur cient for their subsistence. . . . [and they] country it was therefore necessary to know keep us warm at night." ^ not only the wildlife, food resources, and Even this does not quite exhaust the serv­ waterways; equally important were the ices of the Indian woman to the fur trade. number, disposition, and needs of the As in all commerce, there was a considerable people. It was never enough that there element of diplomacy, which was necessary should be beavers and martens; there must to soothe tribal rivalries and prevent tribal also be Indians from whom to buy food and wars, and as in all diplomacy, women had a purchase furs. part to play. From the day of Pocahontas on, there are indications that women sometimes SOLEMNLY TO discuss the historic Indian eased diplomatic relations between Indian in the language of a modern labor gazette and European. Certainly, as astute traders is, of course, rather quaint. The Indian was noted from time to time, marriage to a chief's a happily primitive person. He had not been daughter might well be good for business, made a laborer, a hand, or a businessman of and the kinship marriage conferred greatly punctual habits and tense drive by centuries eased the difficulty of persuading Indians to of disciplined civilization. He suffered many remain loyal to those who financed their miseries, but unemployment and gastric hunt. ulcers were not among them. He did only Children born of such unions came to be what was necessary to keep himself alive. a significant and useful group in the fur It was exceedingly difficult to add to his trade. Not European, not Indian, although wants, except by replacing a known article closer as children of the wilderness to tbe by a superior one of a like kind: a bow by a Indian way of life, the metis, or mixed- gun, a birch-bark vessel by a brass one, or a bloods, came to make up a large part of tbe moose hide by a woolen blanket. Only liquor work force and were a striking example of — and for the Plains Indian, the horse — the Indianization of the European in tbe fur created a want hitherto unknown and a trade. They were in their own persons — not means of inducing him to trap beyond the always happily — the very realization of that need to obtain the essentials of his simple union of the primitive and the sophisticated life. Liquor, however, could not be used that was the fur trade as practiced by the merely as a commodity, because drunken North West Company. Indians were likely to become murderous In the Canadian fur trade, therefore, the and reduce their scant numbers at an alarm­ only good Indian was not a dead one; he ing rate. Accordingly, the skilled trader used was, on the contrary, a live one who would it as a treat, a loss leader, an inducement follow his trap line. From this need for the given freely to win the Indian to work. Indian as a fur-gatherer arose the traders' To what degree the Indian ever under- interest in Indian population and the at­ tempts to estimate it, as in the census of the ° Quoted in J. B. Tyrrefl, ed., Hearne: A Journey Northwest recorded by Alexander Henry from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the the Younger.'' The Indian band had its own Northern Ocean, 102 (Toronto, 1911). hunting grounds, a territory on the wildlife ' See Henry, in Coues, ed.. New Light on the . . . Greater Northwest, 1:282; 2:516, 522, 530.

160 MINNESOTA History stood or adopted European commercial and that should have gone to settle the accounts economic concepts of exchange is open to of his competitor. question. He was of course quite as intelli­ Similarly, the Indian quite lacked any gent a being as the European trader and had sense of the need to work for the morrow or a very keen sense of how the primary pro­ to grow in riches. He met each day's needs if ducer benefited from the rivahy of com­ he could; if not, he starved, enduring priva­ peting buyers and of how he suffered from tion with singular equanimity. Except for monopoly. But this arose from practical some individuals, he was as unsatisfactory a observation, not from economic reasoning. workman as he was a producer. How unsat­ His culture gave exchange another meaning isfactory he could be to a well-brought-up than the commercial one. His nomad's sense young Scot or Yankee can be seen on page of hospitality to the stranger, his tribal after page in the journals of the younger sense of obligation to kindred, led him to Alexander Henry or of Daniel Harmon.^ In give freely what others needed and to expect this the Indian was the product of his total to receive freely in return. To him trade was environment. His being so only increases reciprocity in giving, not mutual benefit in the significance of the skills, endurance, and exchange.* courage of the fur trader who had to be The Indian and even the metis lacked the everything from doctor to policeman, while commercial sense. He did not precisely filling his canoes as well. The greatest ac­ understand credit or price changes, and he complishment of such men was the North felt little obligation to pay debts. He did, West Company, a mighty business organiza­ however, acknowledge the obligation to tion that existed by the capacity of its win­ give to those who had given to him, a sense tering partners to induce the Indian to trap that had to be kept alive by constant care regularly. lest the image of the trader who had given It was this ability of the North West Com­ credit should fade in the presence of a rival pany to use the manpower and the skills of who would offer new presents for the furs

"For a discussion of these attitudes, see E. E. Rich, "Trade Habits and Economic Motivation Among the Indians of North America," in Canadian Jourrud of Economic and Political Science, 26:35-53 (February, 1960). Mr. Rich emphasizes the Indian's lack of a "sense of property" rather than a lack of a commercial sense. "See W. Kaye Lamb, ed.. Sixteen Years in the Indian Country: The Journal of Daniel Williams Harmon, 1800-1852, kxxv (Toronto, 1957). 4i

Metis (below j and voyageur, as sketched hy Frank B. Mayer in 1851

f primitive culture that made it at its height tom of provisioning the brigades with dried the greatest of all Canadian — perhaps of corn and grease to Grand Portage. Also all — fur trading companies. Its ultimate taken over was the use of the fur post in all failure was as a business concern, not as a its variations from a log shack for a winter's fur-gathering organization. Probably the occupation to the stockaded fort with its most significant commentary on its efficiency component dwelling houses, stores, and is the fact that between 1774 and the union shops. (The Hudson's Bay Company used of 1821 the Hudson's Bay Company adopted forts also, but those on the shores of the bay all of its field techniques except the use of were English structures built by naval car­ the canoe. penters, not wilderness stockades.) Incor­ porated, too, as the name indicates, was the THE SUCCESS of the North West Company regale or treat-—liquor given the Indian stemmed in large part from adopting and in the spirit of nomadic good fellowship to developing the modes and personnel of the establish cordial relations and encourage the French fur trade as it existed before and hunter to trap for his friends. in the years just after 1760. Personifying The regale was only a symbol of the French skill in the trade were the voyageurs, French genius for accepting the Indian with or canoemen. Under the system of "engage­ all his casualness, his moodiness, his sensi­ ment" young men from the Quebec parishes tivity, his insistence that the door always (usually bound for three-year terms) were be open to him, his expectation that ff in employed and tiained as voyageurs, then need he would be given what he requffed. returned to the land and later re-engaged, In these respects the Nor'Westers, especially or left as "freemen" in the Northwest. Some the Scots, were apt pupils of the French, and of the latter were employed at the wilder­ often succeeded where the Englishmen and ness posts in such capacities as smiths, car­ the Orkney men in the service of the Hud­ penters, canoe builders, or ax men. Others son's Bay Company failed, through private were used as traders en derouine — that reserve or restraints imposed by the organi­ is, were sent to drum up business with the zation. (It is of course to be noted also that Indians and to collect debts in the form of the detachment of the Bay men usually pre­ furs. Still others, if literate, might rise from served them from involvement in the pas­ clerks to be "bourgeois." The bourgeois was sions, feuds, and trickery of Indian hfe and the trader who had invested his skill, his often was rewarded in the long run by a courage, and (if he had any) his money. He reputation for honesty and fair dealing.) was responsible for the returns from the dis­ Another North West inheritance from the trict to which he had been assigned.^" French were the metis, with all that theff The voyageurs remained both the symbol existence implied. The rough judgment that and mainstay of the Canadian fur trade, but on balance the metis added to the strength as tiaders the French generally proved too and success of the North West Company is individualistic, too much devoted to small probably defensible. They were an impor- and limited enterprises, and too poor at busi­ ness to compete with their Yankee or Scot­ ^° How much of this was actually French practice, tish rivals.ii It may well have been this, and how much developed from French practice it rather than lack of access to capital, which is difficult to state in our want of detailed knowl­ edge of the organization of the French fur trade. explains the gradual replacement of the There is a revealing though brief description of the French-Canadian bourgeois by Scottish, resumption of activity by French traders after 1760 in a forthcoming volume by Hilda Neatby of the English, and American traders after 1760. University of Saskatchewan, to be published under The Nor'Westers also adopted the canoe, the title "Quebec: The Revolutionary Age," as one as developed by the French in the canot de of the Canadian Centenary Series. " See David Thompson's comments on this point maitre and the canot du nord, and the cus­ in Glover, ed., Thompson's Narrative, 41.

162 MINNESOTA History tant part of the labor force of the Canadian whole explanation of what occurred. There fur trade, particularly in their role as buffalo was in the very nature of tbe fur trade hunters during the company's last years. By an inherent need of monopoly because 1816, the year of the affair at Seven Oaks, of its seasonal character, its dependence on they probably held the fate of the Northwest the seeming whims of a primitive and un­ in their hands. One of the first needs of the commercial people, the easy depletion of united company was to conciliate them and the numbers of fur-bearing animals by hunt­ to employ them as dependents of the fur ing or disease, and the difficulty of carrying trade and as defenders against the Sioux.^^ the loss of a year's outfit. There were prob­ ably also reasons of management in the ALL THESE inherited and borrowed tech­ field, involving the control and distribution niques for dealing with tbe wilderness were of goods, the giving of credit, and the col­ combined by the shrewd Nor'Westers with lection of furs.^* Competition was not the a superior business organization. Connec­ life of the fur trade, but its death. tions with English business houses gave the However that may be, the very name Canadians access to higher quality trade North West Company points to the subse­ goods and better credit than their French quent political division of the fur country counterparts had secured. When the entre­ of central North America after the Treaty of pot for much of the American fur trade, Versailles in 1783. More and more there was formerly centered at Albany and New York, a southwest and a northwest fur trade from was shifted to Montreal, the size and vigor Montreal. After the final implementation of of the business was increased proportion­ Jay's Treaty in 1795 the southwest trade was ately. The result was a great strengthening increasingly surrendered to Americans. The of the trade in capital and managerial ability North West Company grew in importance and also an extraordinary concentration of to the fur trade of Montreal, and the Cana­ resources. Thus for nearly three decades the dian trade was pressed back upon the North American fur trade, both that of the uninhabitable and permanently primitive southwest (the American Northwest) and wilderness of the Canadian Shield and the that of the Canadian Northwest, was cen­ northern forest. tered in Montreal. The gradual forcing of the Canadian fur The growth of the company from partner­ trade toward the northwest intensified the ship to partnership has been explained in need for large-scale organization. Supply terms of the need to combine and to marshal bases were necessary, and with the begin­ the resources and bear the costs of deeper ning of the new century the posts on the penetration into the Northwest. ^^ This was Red River, the Assiniboine, and the Sas­ indeed an important reason for "pooling" katchewan, along the line where the north­ resources. It seems not, however, to be the ern forest and the plains merged in the long grass and the park belt country, became more and more supply centers and less and "^ This aspect of the fur trade is discussed in Mar­ garet Macleod and W. L. Morton, Cuthhert Grant less fur posts. The buffalo hunt and the of Grantown: Warden of the Plains of Red River metis buffalo hunter began to emerge as an (Toronto, 1963). institution and a type. Their function was to "This thesis has been given its classic statement by Harold A. Innis in The Fur Trade in Canada obtain from the plains the dried meat and (New Haven, Connecticut, 1930). pemmican that would provision the Sas­ '* See Matthew Cooking's comment on the need katchewan and Athabasca brigades in the to prevent "Confusion of Goods" among separate traders in one place, in W. Stewart Wallace, ed.. long reaches from Bas de la Riviere on Lake Documents Relating to the North West Company, Winnipeg to the Methy Portage into the 45 (Toronto, 1934); also Alexander Mackenzie, Athabasca countiy. Voyages from Montreal . . . to the Frozen and Pacific Ocean, 18 (Toronto, 1927). In these developments lay the beginning

Winter 1966 163 of stiain on the loose-jointed organization clash had it not coincided with the War of of the company, particularly in the relations 1812. Nor'Westers had, after all, dealt suc­ between "wintering" and Montieal partners. cessfully with competition before by culti­ In them lay the need to shorten the conti­ vating the loyalty of their Indian and metis nental haul of furs to Montreal, either by hunters with liquor and blandishments, and shifting the entiepot from Montreal to Hud­ by the use of theff bullies {hatailleurs) to son Bay, or by seeking a western outlet on harass competitors. Despite theff suspicion the Pacific. In them also lay an ever increas­ of Selkirk's purposes from the first, the ing dependence on the labor of the Indians Nor'Westers behaved with exemplary pa­ and the metis, a dependence that required tience from 1811 to 1813. But by the spring the carrying of a rapidly growing number of 1814, under the influence of the war of metis families. temper, they had come to think strategically and to act drastically. By the spring of 1815 THE GREATER the strain, the greater was they knew they had lost the territorial gains the need for monopoly and the need at last of the war to the United States in Michigan to take seriously the competition of the much and perhaps in the Columbia Valley. In the smaller and less effective but enduring, winter of 1814-15, because of the action of stable, and slowly learning Hudson's Bay Miles Macdonnell, governor of Assiniboia, Company. The longer the canoe haul and the in first prohibiting and then limiting the ex­ larger the labor force, the greater was the port of pemmican from Red River, they necessity of provisions from Red River. became convinced that Selkirk's colony was The clash between the two remaining fur an immediate and intolerable threat to the organizations of the Northwest would seem supplying of their northwestern posts and to have been inevitable even bad it not brigades. They resolved, therefore, to re­ been precipitated by two external factors, move or destroy the colony. Thus the return namely, the War of 1812 and the Earl of of peace elsewhere saw the beginning of Selkffk's passion for colonization. "war" on the Red River. Both these factors put pressure on the The struggle on the Red River in 1815 and North West Company at tender and vital 1816, and in the law courts of Canada from points: the main supply area at Detroit- 1817 to 1821, reveals little that is new about Michilimackinac, from which came corn for the North West Company. It fought with afl the Montreal canoe brigades; and the Red the resources it could command — commer­ River, from which came pemmican for the cial, primitive, and legal — against a rival canoes bound for the far Northwest. The who used all these in return and added to Astor venture on the Pacific Coast was re­ them a small army of mercenaries hired after garded by Canadians as part of the War of their discharge from service in the late war. 1812, in that it challenged the formation of In every field the company at least held its a western outlet and supply base at the own, and beyond doubt deserved to. It mouth of the Columbia River. could not, however, overcome the inherent Because of early British military successes, weaknesses of its own loose organization, of the alliance with the Indians, and the isola­ dependence on a labor force that was con­ tion of the Astorians, the War of 1812 was stantly growing in size and unruliness, and a means of alleviating the pressures on the of the high costs of its extended tiansporta­ Montreal and Columbia routes. There re­ tion routes. The aroused Hudson's Bay Com­ mained the pemmican base at Red River. pany, still a David to the North West As the Nor'Westers saw it, the character and Company's Goliath, needed only to keep on the seriousness of Selkirk's part in the new fighting to have the giant collapse of his own aggressiveness of the Hudson's Bay Com­ weight. pany might not by themselves have led to a The final union of the rivals was at once

164 MINNESOTA History A fur trade canoe on the Mattawa River, Ontario, pictured by Frances Hopkins

a victory and a defeat for each. The Hud­ The company faced for tbe first time the son's Bay Company was victorious in that fundamental question of how to maintain a its supply route by the bay triumphed over western-oriented society in a severely north­ that by the St. Lawrence as did its charter ern, largely uninhabitable land. For much over the partnership of the North West of Canada can be exploited only by ex­ Company. It was defeated in that it won tremes: by a primitive culture like that of only when it had adopted in large part the the Eskimo, skilled in the special techniques techniques and methods of its rivals inland. of survival and content with merely main­ The North West Company lost its name and taining life for a tiny population; or by a legal entity, but not before it had forced on civilization with a technology so highly de­ its great competitor the mode of operation veloped that it can overcome almost any and the labor force which it had developed obstacle of environment if the necessary ex­ and by which it had flourished. The united penditure is justified on grounds of private company was very much the old North West profit or state policy. Company operating out of Hudson Bay. The effort to deal with this permanent northern frontier makes Canada what it is, THE NORTH WEST COMPANY was the and the influence of the effort can be traced first successful combination of European all through Canadian history and contempo­ capital and business enterprise with Indian rary society, most obviously in the compara­ skills. As such, it holds a special place in the tive lack of both people and wealth in a history of the North American fur trade and country territorially so vast. The successful in the history of Canada. Its distinctive char­ solution reached by the North West Com­ acter arose from the fact that it came to pany would seem to point toward the two grips with the unique conditions prevailing channels through which a sophisticated cul­ in Canada — conditions of climate, distance, ture and economy may exploit the North to and resources, which prevent a large propor­ its own best advantage and with the least tion of the country's area from sustaining detriment to the primitive culture of the a pattern of economic and social life like people dwelling there. These channels are that of Europe or the United States. private monopoly or state development.

Winter 1966 165 Mr. Davies, who is professor of history at the University of Bristol, England, has been the editor of the Hudson's Bay Record Society since I960. His publications include Peter Skene Ogden's Snake Countiy Journal, 1826-27 (1961); Northern Quebec and Labrador Journals and Correspondence, 1819-35 (1963); and Letters from Hudson Bay, 1703-40 (1965).

From COMPETITION to UNION

K. G. DAVIES

THE STRUGGLE between the North West contrast of style is not devoid of substance. and Hudson's Bay companies from 1800 to North West panache was real enough, 1821 can be seen as a clash of styles. On one and North West extravagance more than a side were tbe North Westers, the Cavaliers myth. Selkirk, who did as much as anyone to of the fur trade, flamboyant, extravagant, impair it, acknowledged their esprit de preoccupied with the "honor of the con­ corps.^ But tbe "North West spirit" throve on cern," dashing but defeated. On the other success and withered on humiliation. Lady side stood the Pludson's Bay Company, the Selkirk may have put her finger on the Roundheads: sober, persistent, concerned enemy's weak spot when she wrote to her above all with their own rigbtness and win­ husband after tbe capture of Fort Wilham: ning the charge at tbe end of the day. "Everything in your expedition turns out for Any such stark antithesis demands quali­ the best, and last of all tbe great armada, fication. The Roundheads beat the Cavaliers, with all the warrants and constables, part­ not by being right but with better cavalry; ners, clerks, Iroquois and guns and Congreve and as tbe competition for the fur trade rockets, melts away and disappears, and a proceeded to climax, the Hudson's Bay little canoe comes dropping in now and Company threw some of its traditions over­ then, and one after another of the partners board and fought the North Westers with return to Montreal looking very foohsh, their own weapons. From 1814 to 1820, tbe while all tbe world are laughing at them." ^ company recruited men, spent money, and The contrast of style, among other things, is incurred losses with uncharacteristic profu­ between a company which, in Arthur S. sion; it gave Colin Robertson and Governor Morton's words, "went down to defeat, and William Williams elbow room to show the again to defeat," and yet survived; and a North Westers that tbe drawback to North company that cracked under the pressure of West methods was that both sides could use counterattack.^ them; and Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, leading his private army to the capture of ^ Selkirk, Sketch of the British Fur Trade in North Fort William, struck a blow at tbe North America, 16 (London, 1816). - Quoted in John Morgan Gray, Lord Selkirk of West Company more outrageous, more Red River, 193 (London, 1963). "cavalier," than any suffered by his own side. 'Arthur S. Morton, A History of the Canadian West to 1870-71, 613 (London and New York, Nevertheless, blurred as it became, the 1939).

166 MINNESOTA History The stamina of the Hudson's Bay Com­ Canadians,'' and of course most of the rank- pany owed something to the conviction of and-file in tbe North West Company were the men who directed its campaigns that French Canadians or half-breeds. The North they were in the right. This had not always Westers liked to see themselves as successors been so. Before 1810 the governor and the to the coureurs de bois who had challenged committee doubted, questioned, hesitated; the English in earlier times.® Must we, then, after 1810 self-righteous indignation pre­ endorse William McGiUivray's lament upon vailed. Selkirk, friend of William Wilber- the coalition of 1821: "Thus the Fur trade is force, was perhaps more fully convinced of forever lost to Canada!" and the verdict of his own correctness than were his fellow a recent historian that in 1821 "Canada's first shareholders. But no one, reading the cor­ major industry had been stricken desper­ respondence between the Hudson's Bay ately if not mortally"? ^ Company and Earl Bathurst, the colonial There is evidence to uphold this view. In secretary, from 1814 to 1820 can fail to notice 1850, to select a random date long after the the conviction of perfect propriety on the contest was over, ownership of the issued company's side and the resolution to oppose stock of the Hudson's Bay Company was al­ any hint that the troubles in the Indian terri­ most exclusively in the British Isles. Of 232 tories might be the responsibility of both shareholders, only four had Canadian ad­ parties.* dresses.'^ Under the successive deed polls regulating the company's structure, a sub­ HOW FAR does this contrast in styles reflect stantial share of the profits was reserved for a contrast between a Canadian company and commissioned officers in the field, the suc­ a British? It is tempting to see the contest cessors of the wintering partners; but in in these terms, and it is not wholly wrong 1850 a clear majority of those officers were to do so. The North West interest was plainly from the British Isles, not from Canada. Of more "Canadian" (whatever we take that eighteen chief factors, no more than three to mean) than the still merely British Hud­ had been born outside the United King­ son's Bay Company. Hudson's Bay men in dom.^ Rather more of the thirty-four chief the field support this identification by gen­ traders originated in Canada or the United erally referring to the opposition as "The States; still, twice as many were British born.^ In 1850 management remained under *This correspondence is in file A.8/1, Hudson's London's control despite the setting up of Bay Company Archives, at Beaver House, Great local councils in the company's departments, Trinity Lane, London, England. largely because promotion to commissioned ° [Simon McGillivray?], A Narrative of Occur­ rences in the Indian Countries of North America, rank (and therefore to membership of these 10 (London, 1817). councils) was ultimately decided in London. " McGiUivray's comment is in W. Stewart Wal­ lace, ed.. Documents Relating to the North West If the stock of the company that ran the Company, 328 (Toronto, 1934); Marjorie Wilkins fur trade in 1850 was in British hands, if Campbell, The North West Company, 276 (Toron­ the men who commanded in the field were to, 1957). 'File A.42/6, Hudson's Bay Company Archives, British born, if the last word in management lists shareholders who received the dividend of lay with London, it might seem indeed that 1850. See also A.10/8 and A.40/8. the coalition and the Act of 1821 were a tri­ " P. S. Ogden and J. Rowand, born in Canada; W. Sinclair, born at Hudson Bay. umph for the United Kingdom and a defeat " Chief traders born in the United Kingdom were: for Canada. But to prove this, we need to D. McTavish, E. Hopkins, J. McKenzie, J. Ander­ show that before 1821 tbe North West Com­ son (A), J. Anderson (B), J. Tod, R. Hardisty, W. Nourse, "T. Corcoran, P. McKenzie, W. F. Tolmie, pany was itself a predominantly Canadian R. Finlayson, D. Manson, J. Bell, A. McKinlay, J. institution to which the interests of Canada Kennedy, J. Black, R. Clouston. F. Ermatinger was could have been safely committed in the born in Lisbon, A. C. Pelly in Pernambuco, and A. C. Anderson in India. nineteenth century. This is not so easy.

Winter 1966 167 One of the most important problems, how than the national identity of the companies much of the working capital of the North that successively dominated the fur trade. West Company came from Canada and how Before we conclude that the eclipse of the much from England, cannot for lack of evi­ North West Company in 1821 was an un­ dence be discussed.^" What we do know is mitigated defeat for Canada and that the the origins of the North Westers themselves: opposite result would have been an unmiti­ most, unlike their canoemen, were Scots,^^ gated blessing, even a conference of his­ That they were known collectively as "The torians of the fur trade must face Selkirk's Canadians" of itself is no more significant embarrassing question: "And what is this than the fact that the Hudson's Bay Com­ Fur Trade . . . ? A trade of which the gross pany was known as "The English Company"; returns never exceeded £300,000, and often both are misnomers in organizations that re­ not £200,000. A branch of commerce which cruited so many Scotsmen. Lady Selkirk, gives occasion to the exportation of 40 or though she put it rudely, was right to insist 50,000£ of British manufactures! A trade on "the distinction between the Canadians in which three ships are employed! This is and the Scotch renegades." ^^ Even in Mon­ the mighty object, for which not only the treal, despite the glittering social life of the rights of property are to be invaded, but a Beaver Club, the North West Company was territory of immense extent, possessing the not Canada. Why, otherwise, did the North greatest natural advantages, is to be con­ Westers find it almost as hard to get favor­ demned to perpetual sterility." ^* This is not able verdicts in the Canadian courts as the the whole story; without the fur trade, these Hudson's Bay Company? How, otherwise, sterile territories would have been unknown. could Robertson and Selkirk have recruited But Selkirk deserves credit as well as blame men in Montreal itself to oppose the North for answering his own question twenty or West Company? thirty years too soon. Defeat for Montreal If there were few native Canadians among (and 1821 certainly meant that) was not the wintering partners, what the North West necessarily defeat for Canada. Company undoubtedly did, and what be­ fore 1821 the Hudson's Bay Company did THE CONTRAST of styles can be more con­ not, was to create Canadians. Whereas for fidently discussed when we turn to the forms 150 years Hudson's Bay men, their tour of of organization of the rival companies. The duty over, retired to the British Isles, many North Westers were an unincorporated part­ —-probably most — of the North Westers nership or series of partnerships, the Hud- stayed in tbe country upon retirement. Had the coalition of 1821 dried up this inflow of ""See Harold A. Innis, "The North West Com­ talent, Canada would indeed have been the pany," in Canadian Historical Review, 8:314 loser. But it did not. In this, as in other re­ (December, 1927) for the interest of English firms in the North West Company. Edward Ellice's con­ spects, the Hudson's Bay Company after cem was clearly important but has so far escaped 1821 conformed to North West traditions. definition. Of the chief factors of 1850, at least half, and "• Wallace, ed.. Documents, 35, 425-505. '- Quoted in Gray, Lord Selkirk, 245. probably more, retired to Red River, Van­ " Chief factors and chief traders of 1850, born couver, or other parts of North America; of outside Canada, who retired to Canada were: J. L. the chief traders, very few returned to the Lewes, D. Ross, J. Douglas, J. Ballenden, J. Har­ grave, R. Miles, J. E. Harriott, R. McKenzie, J. British Isles.^^ Work, J. Tod, W. Nourse, T. Corcoran, H. McKen­ The North West Company, then, run by zie, J. Anderson (A), W. H. McNeill, R. Finlayson, J. Black, J. Bell, A. C. Anderson, A. McKinlay, J. Scots, witb powerful agents in London, and Kennedy, R. Clouston; R. Hardisty, J. Swanston, perhaps raising some of its capital in Eng­ and J. Gladman probably retired to Canada; two land, was never a wholly Canadian concern. died while still in service; D. Manson retired to the United States. And there is here an even larger question " Selkirk, Sketch of the British Fur Trade, 122.

168 MINNESOTA History son's Bay Company a conventional joint imitated. Hudson's Bay shareholders, as in­ stock enterprise of a kind evolved in England vestors in a joint stock, enjoyed (or thought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. they enjoyed) limited liability. Tbe point Each form had special advantages. Tbe has been made that the men who directed North West machine at its best was wonder­ the campaign from 1810 onwards were not fully fitted to the fur trade. There was, above wholly dependent on the fur trade for a all, a close relationship between policy deci­ living; they could plan for and survive years sions and executive action, which the Hud­ of loss without hazarding more than a part son's Bay Company could not match. The of their private fortunes.^® It is true that the annual meetings of tbe partners and agents North Westers, with a greater personal in­ at Fort William could produce a single plan volvement, learned and practiced an ur­ for the whole region based on recent first­ gency in theff transactions not always hand intelligence, whereas the decisions apparent in the affairs of the Hudson's Bay taken at Fenchurch Street were those of Company, but this stimulus became less men who had never seen a portage and decisive as the conflict developed. The need whose information was often out-of-date. of Selkirk and his friends to be proved right The presence in the field of the North West was in the end as powerful as the economic wintering partners gave their concern such incentive. flexibility that the general plan could be As a long-lived joint-stock company, run responsibly modified to meet contingencies, by respectable members of tbe London while the Hudson's Bay men were inclined financial community, with perpetual succes­ to work to rule. And, finally, the partnerships sion and the right to sue and be sued cor- and the hopes of partnership afforded an in­ porately, the Hudson's Bay Company must centive to endurance and enterprise not to have commanded better credit than the be expected from salaried employees. North Westers, little as we know of the lat­ As the contest developed, the two styles ter's intimate financial history. Of many of organization became less unlike. From factors that settled the outcome of the strug­ 1806 the Hudson's Bay Company was experi­ gle, not the least was the ability of the menting with incentive schemes, so prepar­ Hudson's Bay Company to increase its over­ ing the way for the deed poll of 1821. It also draft at the Bank of England from £23,500 recruited men like Robertson and Williams, in 1814 to £75,000 in 1820 and to run up its disposed to act first and explain afterwards. unpaid bills from less than £5,000 to more The North Westers' advantage in manage­ than £30,000.i« It is unlikely that tbe North ment was reduced. As the London and trans- Westers could match these reserves of credit. Atlantic sides of Hudson's Bay Company But it was a close-run thing. As late as business moved into closer harmony after January 11, 1821, John Halkett (a member 1810, so the two corresponding components of the Hudson's Bay Company's committee of the North West Company — agents and and a brother-in-law of Selkirk) wrote "I winterers — moved further apart until the doubt tbe scoundrels are too strong and rich final, fatal split of 1820. for us." ^^ It does not do to over-rationalize But while the Hudson's Bay Company a struggle in which personalities like Ed­ could copy North West methods, its own or­ ward Ellice, Simon McGillivray, and Selkirk ganizational advantage was not so easily took leading parts. That the Hudson's Bay Company was going to fight was clear from "= Morton, The Canadian West to 1870-71, 613. 1810. But it is still astonishing that a firm that "E. E. Rich, The History of the Hudson's Bay handled, at the end of the eighteenth cen­ Company 1670-1870, 2:394 (London, 1959). "Quoted in E. E. Rich, ed., Colin Robertson's tury, only two fourteenths of the fur trade as Correspondence Book, 1817-22, cv (London, against the North West Company's eleven 1939). fourteenths could hold on and win."^* For "Rich, Hudson's Bay Company, 2:186. Winter 1966 169 1821 brought victory to the Hudson's Bay employees of one company would be taken Company. The North Westers made good over by the other, by which neither side was terms for themselves; at the time of the coali­ to receive the other's deserters, and by which tion, it was even claimed that they had won. the partners of both were bound individu­ But they had not. The year 1821 did not ally as well as collectively to observe the destioy the North West interest overnight agreement. A little later, on January 28, for the aiTangements then made left the 1811, a tieaty was made between the Mon­ North Westers with an identity. But 1821 treal Michilimackinac Company and the created the conditions in which that identity American Fur Company for a coalition in was almost certain to be submerged, and which each preserved its identity, buying after 1824, with the ending of the Montreal goods in England or the United States and agency, the failure of the McGillivrays, and continuing to sell its own furs.^" The crux of the retirement of former North West part­ the agreement was that profits of fur sales ners, the old interest withered. were to be equally divided between the two companies. COMPETITION can stimulate enterprise Either form of compromise could have and thus be constructive, or it can be waste­ been adapted to end the rivahy of the Hud­ ful. The rivalry of 1810-21 was, on the whole, son's Bay and North West companies. Both more wasteful than constructive. Who bene­ were mooted. Why were they not accepted? fited? Both sides lost money and lives. The argument for some kind of understand­ Establishments were swollen beyond com­ ing goes back to the eighteenth century. As mercial needs. The Indians, who might be serious politics, it may be taken to begin in expected to have gained, were debauched the mind and book of Sir Alexander Macken­ by liquor and tyrannized. Nor was there zie.^^ What was first discussed, and then much progress in exploration and discovery negotiated, was a modus Vivendi in which of new fur-bearing regions. The competition the Hudson's Bay Company would sur­ of the late eighteenth century had led to render its exclusive use of the bay route and great things; so did the race for the Colum­ thus enable others to exploit more easily the bia River between the North Westers and fur-bearing regions of Athabasca and the the Americans. But the last rounds of the Columbia River. competition that ended in 1821 seem to Mackenzie's book was published in 1801, have checked exploration rather than stimu­ at the height of the competition between the lated it. No one on either side achieved as North West and XY companies. Clearly, much as Peter Skene Ogden in tbe calmer whichever of these rivals could first reach years of the 1820s. agreement with the Hudson's Bay Company Why then did competition continue? Why would have a big advantage. It was, accord­ was there no compromise settlement? From ingly, in 1803-04 that the first of three sets 1803 onwards there had been discussions of negotiations was begun. Edward Elhce and negotiations between the rivals in the then made on behalf of XY an offer to buy fur trade. None came to anything. Yet tbe fur the Hudson's Bay Company outidght for tiade was no stianger to compromise. Exam­ £103,000 in Exchequer bills.^s On his own ples of both territorial partition and profit- evidence, the bid failed for technical rea- sharing agreements can be found in the early nineteenth century. Thus on Decem­ " Wallace, ed.. Documents, 224. ber 31, 1806, the agents of the North West ™ Wallace, ed.. Documents, 239. Company signed a treaty with the agents of ^Alexander Mackenzie, Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Laurence through the Continent of the Michilimackinac Company "to form a North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, line of boundary between them as correct as 407-^12 (London, 1801). may be." ^^ Articles were adopted by which ^ Report from Select Committee on the Hudson's Bay Company, 344 (1857).

170 MINNESOTA History sons, part of Hudson's Bay stock being in pique," and asked for acquiescence. As in­ the hands of persons (minors or deceased) ducement, and ex gratia, they offered to who were incapable of conveying an effec­ withdraw from Moose River and East Main, tive title to a purchaser without application to give up Charlton Island, and to renounce to the court of chancery. This may have been communication with Hudson Bay except by SO; but for a company which apart from its the Winnipeg-York route. On this track, they forts, goods, furs, and ships had £40,000 in­ would only indicate, not guarantee, absten­ vested in gilt-edged securities, the offer was tion from trade. As a basis for agreement, not attractive. the offer seems derisory, but the North West­ Meanwhile the North West Company was ers claimed that their concessions would be after the same prize, using a mixture of of great benefit to the Hudson's Bay Com­ force and argument. In 1803 a North West pany, and when the committee demurred ship sailed into Hudson Bay and a settlement assured them blandly that their lack of was made on Charlton Island. From this appreciation proceeded from "want of local position of strength, direct negotiations with information." the Hudson's Bay Company were opened Discussion focused on what rent the with a letter from Duncan McGillivray, North West Company would pay for a piece dated August 13, 1804.-' Before answering, of land at York on which to build the pro­ the Hudson's Bay Company spent several posed transit post. This had to be referred months in obtaining counsel's opinion on its back to Canada, and on July 6 the North charter, and only then decided that it had no West partners authorized an offer of £2,000 choice but to negotiate. The alternative — a year. Their last word reached the Hudson's to compete with men "who respect neither Bay Company in a letter of November 27, justice nor equity but commit open acts of 1805 — withdrawal from the bay area and violence" — would cost too much. Perhaps payment of the rent for seven years.^* the company missed a chance by this delay: The governor and committee do not ap­ in the summer of 1804 both North West and pear to have opposed in principle the con­ XY wanted an alliance. As McGillivray and cession of the bay route. Their doubts (from Thomas Forsyth put it, "at that period, each which proceeded the rupture) were whether company wished to obtain a facility from the the North Westers could be trusted and H. B. Co. to be used to the prejudice of whether the agreement would hold in the the other." By the end of the year, however, event of third-party competition: "If they the union of North West and XY "bad to­ [a third party] set a Cockboat afloat in the tally changed the face of things." Bay, they [the North Westers] would claim an exemption from the annual payment." ON JANUARY 30, 1805, McGfllivray and Finally, as the negotiations closed, it came Forsyth attended the Hudson's Bay Com­ out that the North West Company intended pany's committee, and negotiations proper to bring furs out of Hudson Bay for ship­ began; they lasted until May, were inter­ ment to markets other than Great Britain. rupted, resumed in November, and finally The Hudson's Bay Company, by its charter, were broken off in February, 1806. The thought itself obliged to ship only to the North Westers started by flatly declaring an United Kingdom and was not ready to grant intention to use the bay route "to effect a a facility it did not itself enjoy. communication from York Factory to Wini- In these exchanges, the comparative strength of the two sides emerges not only ^^ Files A.1/219 and 220, Hudson's Bay Company from the proposals but from the language Archives, include the papers in this negotiation. All used — the North Westers cocky, the Hud­ quotations in this and the foUowing five paragraphs son's Bay Company protesting. The commit­ are from them. '^^ WaUace, ed.. Documents, 203. tee wrote that they expected better terms.

Winter 1966 171 they "who have hitherto been silent sufferers of their final proposals in November, 1SG5, by the unwarranted treatment of the natives was that "An Amicable arrangement of this with whom the H. B. Company's servants kind will probably serve as an Expedient to trade & also of the Servants in their employ"; prevent the Interference of others." As soon and later they protested that they "seem al­ as it became clear that the Charlton Island most precluded from any alternative in their settlement had failed to coerce the Hudson's decision on the subject in question." Hud­ Bay Company into this amicable arrange­ son's Bay Company morale was low — how ment, the island was abandoned. low is suggested by a memorandum among the records of this transaction: "If the Treaty THE NEXT attempt at compromise took is broken off, the chances may be very great place in 1811, and was conducted in a quite against the H. B. C. getting redress from different spirit. In the intervening years the Government, the spirit of which seems to be Hudson's Bay Company had acted to for Universal Liberty, and should the result strengthen its organization, but as recently be the laying open the Trade of the H. B. C. as 1809 the committee had seriously debated which in the temper of the times and the a plan to withdraw from the fur trade, and it interest the N. W. G. will probably exert to is likely that the new spirit owed less to the promote the ruin of the H. B. C, or probably reforms effected than to changes of per­ endeavour to get themselves incorporated sonnel. Of the nine men who directed the into a body (which idea has certainly gone company's affairs in 1805, only two were left forth) under the specious pretext of pursuing to confront the North Westers in 1811; a National Object in carrying on their Trade whereas of the nine who negotiated in thro the Pacific Ocean, a favourite idea of 1811, seven were still there in 1816 and six Mr McKenzie in his Book dedicated to the in 1820. The general staff that would fight King (and for which he was knighted), future battles was already in charge. Quere, whether under all these risques, it Selkirk's Red River grant was approved may not be better to make an amicable by the shareholders' meeting, or "general Treaty, which probably would operate to the court," on May 30,1811. Four days later, on advantage of the Company in the end of June 3, McTavish, Fraser, and Company the term, and their Competitors be disarmed (Montreal agents), Inglis, Ellice, and Com­ from any further act of Hostility against the pany (London agents), and Sir Alexander Company's charter." ^® Mackenzie jointly presented a plan for par­ This may not have been the view of the tition of the fur country.^® Their objects, whole committee; but even as the expression they said, were to prevent such bloodshed of an individual opinion, there can be few as had occurred at Eagle Lake the previous more pessimistic documents in the com­ year, and to reduce costs. The terms of the pany's archives. It seems probable that if the proposal can best be appreciated from the North Westers had made a better offer, with sketch annexed to the North Westers' letter. security for performance, as they could well The Hudson's Bay Company was to be con­ have afforded to do, the Hudson's Bay Com­ fined to a line near the fiftieth parallel run­ pany would have come to terms. Why, then, ning as far as Lake Winnipeg, then along the given their manifest superiority, did not the east side of the main water route, Bourbon North Westers simply force a passage Lake (now Cedar), Sturgeon Lake (now through the bay? The answer seems to be Namew), English River, and so north to that they needed the Hudson's Bay Com­ pany to close the bay route to third-party '=File A.1/220, fos. 48d-49d, Hudson's Bay Com­ pany Archives. competition. Better to stick to the waterway '" This and the next paragraph are based on mate­ which they knew how to defend than beat a rials in file A.10/1, fos. 95-108d, Hudson's Bay path for others to follow. The stated purpose Company Archives. The map reproduced on page 173 is in fo. 96B.

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"11 S. Mor JS

T/ie partition proposed in 1811 (shown by dotted line), from an original sketch map pre­ served in the archives of the Hudson's Bay Company

Lake Carribeau (now Reindeer). Beyond the scheme, provided Athabasca was reserved waterway, it was to have a tract west and to them. southwest of the Fort Dauphin Department, The Hudson's Bay Company reaction, un­ including the southern branch of the Sas­ like 1804, was prompt and firm. The detailed katchewan River. It was not to go into partition was brusquely rejected. Instead Athabasca or beyond the Rockies. An earlier the company offered to keep out of Atha­ draft of these proposals, dated in Montreal, basca provided the partition was made at November 7, 1810, allotted the Red River the height of land; beyond that line it re­ area to the Hudson's Bay Company, but the served the right to trade where the North map annexed to the letter of June 3, 1811, Westers had not yet established themselves, does not show this.^'' The omission, though that is in the unoccupied lands beyond the unexplained, seems important. The North Rockies. These demands were quite unac­ Westers concluded by claiming that the pro­ ceptable, implying as they did acknowledg­ posed concessions would mean a loss to ment of the company's totem — the charter. them of £15,000 a year in furs, and they Flashes of North West fire followed. The opened the way to any modification of their North Westers replied that "though they would be willing to grant some concessions '"Gordon Charles Davidson, The North West in order to save themselves from the expence Company, 131, 131n. (Berkeley, California, 1918).

Winter 1966 173 of a contest, they are otherwise as little rents, but no furs were to be taken there. solicitous as to the commencement or ter­ If the North West Company wanted transff mination of it." Such language provoked, not rights through Port Nelson to Athabasca, it the injured protests of "silent sufferers," but would have to pay for them. And the agree­ a firm expression of confidence that "the ment was to be for a long period — twenty local advantages possessed by the Hudson's or thirty years. Bay Company, without calculating too high­ Lord Selkirk arrived in Montreal in No­ ly on the measures already or on those about vember, 1815, and tbe expected approach to be resorted to, will independent of any by the North Westers was made almost at Treaty very soon procure a much larger once. Two plans were brought forward.^" share of tbe Fur Trade than the Hudson's The first, for partition, Selkirk described as Bay Company have possessed for some "merely a rechauffee of the propositions of years." The contrast is plain. Had the North 1811." The North Westers suggested approx­ Westers offered in 1805 what they proposed imately the same boundary as had been in 1811, they could have had both partffion proposed in 1811, though the territory north and transit. In the latter year, tbe two com­ of Lake Carribeau was defined as a neutral panies were not yet equipollent in men, in zone witb no settlement, where tbe Indians volume of trade, or in territory traded over; would be free to take their furs to whom they but already the Hudson's Bay Company was liked. The novel feature was that all the de­ behaving as if they were. partments from Lake Winnipeg to the Rockies, Saskatchewan, River la Biche, Fort Dauphin, Swan River, and Red River were THE LAST confrontation before the contest to be traded jointly on tbe footing of an entered its final phase was in December, 1815. It was preceded by tbe threat, though average of past years, with outfits and re­ this time not the actuality, of an invasion of turns divided in that proportion. Hudson Bay.^^ There the resemblance to tbe Selkirk did not think this proposed parti­ happenings of 1803-06 ends. This negotia­ tion worth discussing, whereupon the North tion took place, significantly, in Montreal, Westers brought forward their alternative tbe war being carried to the North West plan for a complete merger to begin with the camp. Of the three attempts at compromise outfit of 1816 and to last seven years. The it was least likely to succeed, for the Hud­ entire trade of the Indian territories was to son's Bay Company deputed — of all people be run as a single concern, tbe Hudson's Bay to represent them in this delicate matter — Company supplying a third and the North Lord Selkffk, who was on his way to the Red Westers two thirds of tbe capital and goods. River Settlement to restore the fortunes of The combined profits were to be shared in his colony, shattered (as he believed) by the same proportion. The vital question, as calculated North West intervention. Selkirk Selkirk immediately saw, was management, received his brief on August 30,1815, before which was to be under the Montreal agents leaving England.^^ Partition was to be at of the North West Company, with a person the height of land: Canada south of the or persons deputed by the agents to superin­ height and Athabasca were to be tbe only tend trade in and out of Hudson Bay. Sel­ concessions. "The great road from Lake kirk's reaction was that in seven years the Superior to the Methy portage," the main route developed by the North Westers and ='File A.10/1, fos. 164-165d, 176, 201, 201d, their predecessors, was thus claimed for the Hudson's Bay Company Archives. Hudson's Bay Company; it was, however, to -""File A.10/1, fos. 311-314d, Hudson's Bay Com­ pany Archives. be made available to tbe opposition. The '"For this negotiation, see file A.10/1, fos. 350- North Westers' own forts on this route 351, 367B, 367C and dorse. Note the misplaced let­ would be leased to them at peppercorn ter on fos. 181-184d which Selkirk wrongly dated January 6, 1815. This should be 1816.

174 MINNESOTA Hlstory opposition would have everything in its been in short supply since the Pemmican hands. War, the start of the "capturing business," Under pressure, the North Westers were and Colin Robertson's invasion of Montreal. ready to concede joint management by the Now, only a decision in the field could pro­ Montreal agents and a chief governor "or vide fresh conditions for a successful negoti­ other respectable and fit character" ap­ ation. As the abortive discussions of 1815 pointed by the Hudson's Bay Company, to came to an end, the North Westers looked reside at Montreal. Selkirk would have none like men who were aware for the first time of this, though he was not, even at this stage, that they could lose. In declining Selkirk's against an accommodation in principle. "If offer to put the charter to arbitration, they it were not for the unavoidable difficulty wrote: "as the Hudson's Bay Company claim about the management," he wrote, "I should exclusive rights, if those were to be Arbi­ think that one third of the profits of the trated upon and decided in their favour, whole Indian trade would be preferable, they would turn the North West Company even to the exclusive possession of our own out of the Trade; whereas on the other hand, Territories." But he thought the Hudson's if a decision should be given against the Bay Company's advantage should be Hudson's Bay Company they would still as greater, and he was worried that a merger British Subjects remain entitled to equal might take away the limited liability of his rights with the other Company." ^^ Selkirk fellow proprietors. was pleased at what he took to be an ad­ His own proposal, based on his brief, was mission of weakness. His own characteristic rejected on the ground that it involved last word was that the negotiation had been "acknowledgement of the validity of the worth while "as it has (I think) put them still charter," and the negotiation closed with more decidedly in the wrong." ^^ expressions of foreboding on both sides. The North Westers concluded that they ONE OTHER PROBLEM remained. The would have the advantage in an open con­ Hudson's Bay Company bad an Achilles test because of the "energy and resource in heel: its stock could be bought and sold, and self-defence" of partners whose whole for­ with its stock went voting rights and there­ tunes were at stake, against the Hudson's fore ultimate control over policy. Why did Bay Company's directors, "to whom the In­ not the North Westers acquire enough Hud­ dian territory is a secondary object." Selkirk, son's Bay stock to win control? It was the on the other hand, thought that "in another obvious thing to do, and after 1806 Macken­ year, they will hold a different language." zie began to buy in conjunction with Selkirk, So the last attempt at compromise failed. whom be mistakenly supposed to be his It failed because of profound lack of trust, ally.^^ This attempt misfired, though Mac­ and because the Hudson's Bay Company kenzie remained a shareholder, attended demanded worship of its totem. With good general courts, and continued to believe that will, joint management might have worked; "Had tbe [North West] Company sacrificed it was, after all, accepted in 1821, even £20,000 which might have secured a pre­ though soon abandoned. But good will bad ponderance in the stock of the Hudson's Bay Company, it would have been money well spent." ^^ The idea came up again in 1811 '''File A.10/1, fo. 367H, Hudson's Bay Company Archives. during tbe negotiations already mentioned. •^File A.10/1, fo. 181, Hudson's Bay Company The North West partners at their July meet­ Archives. ing voted £ 15,000 for tbe purchase of Hud­ "^ Rich, Hudson's Bay Company, 2:298. "' Quoted in Chester Martin's Introduction to E. son's Bay stock "witb a view of establishing E. Rich, ed.. Journal of Occurrences in the Atha­ an Influence in the Committee of the said basca Department by George Simpson, xxii (Lon­ Company — in order to establish a Bound- don, 1938).

Winter 1966 175 ary Line with them — in the Interior coun­ rectors and the candidates for the following tiy." ^^ year, usually the same people.*® Proxies were In explaining why this resolution could allowed, but few shareholders bothered. not be acted on, we are reminded once more Some were beyond bothering, for of seventy- how tiny the Hudson's Bay Company was — seven share accounts in 1819, fifteen were in a point that is relevant to tbe Colonial Office the names of the dead and others were attitude towards it. The stock, £10,500 in being held in chancery pending settle­ 1670, had been raised by two bonus issues ment of claims. One shareholder in 1802 was and a modest paid-up issue to £103,500 in a lunatic; another, King George III, was in­ 1720, and there it stayed for the next hun­ termittently mad; ten or a dozen were dred years. The number of shareholders women. None took an active part in the was small: in 1808 there were 105 share ac­ company's affairs. The special general court counts, and by 1815, following Selkirk's of May 30, 1811, at which the Red River accumulation of stock, only seventy-seven. grant was passed, one of the historic meet­ Transfers were few: only 184 were recorded ings in the company's history, attiacted only from 1800 to 1820, many of them private twenty-four shareholders, proprietors of less deals in which, for example, the holding of than half the nominal capital. Thirteen of a dead man was split among his heirs.^^ them voted for the grant, nine being the Public sales of the stock were rare, if indeed governor and committee who proposed it they can be said to have taken place at all in and one being Selkirk, the grantee himself. the modern sense. Though an active stock Six voted against the grant, though three of market existed in London in the early nine­ them were disqualified for not having held teenth century, Hudson's Bay prices were their stock long enough. Five abstained.*" not quoted in The Course of the Exchange No great fortune, it seems, was needed to until 1820.^^ Such dealings as there were buy this dollhouse company. Why not the must have been by private treaty or through North Westers? Arthur S. Morton drew at­ the company's secretary. tention to the fact that Selkirk owned only a Mackenzie was probably not far wrong in little over £4,000 of Hudson's Bay stock at his estimate that it would cost £20,000 to the time of the Red River grant, but he did gain control of the Hudson's Bay Company not pursue the question why Selkirk, having during the period of competition. From 1808 got his grant, at once quadrupled his hold­ to 1820 prices of transfers were generally ing." From June 19 to July 15, 1811, tians- recorded in the company's books. With cer­ fers totaling more than £15,000 were tain interesting exceptions to be noted, the registered to him. The answer lies in the highest price was 82)2, the lowest 58)1 Prices company's transfer book. of 60-70 were the most common.^^ The money the North Westers voted in 1811 '= WaUace, ed., Documents, 268. Arthur S. Mor­ ton has erroneously stated this sum as £1,500 {The would have bought, at a price of 70, £21,000 Canadian West to 1870-71, 536). or £22,000 of Hudson's Bay stock, which, =" Files A.42/2^3; A.43/e-7, Hudson's Bay Com­ added to what they and their friends already pany Archives. "' The Course of the Exchange, published twice owned, would very likely have given them weekly by authority of the Stock-Exchange commit­ control. tee, records prices of leading shares and securities. It was not, in practice, necessary to own At the end of 1811 more than a hundred items are mentioned, which helps to put the London end of 51 per cent. Each November a general court the Hudson's Bay Company into perspective. of the Hudson's Bay Company was held to "'File A.43/6-7, Hudson's Bay Company Ar­ elect a governor and committee for the next chives. ''File A.1/48-50, Hudson's Bay Company Ar­ twelve months. The average number of chives. shareholders attending from 1801 to 1813 "File A.1/50, fo. 33d, Hudson's Bay Company was eleven, and this included the retiring di­ Archives. "Morton, The Canadian West to 1870-71, 537.

176 MINNESOTA History An artist's conception of rival fur traders soliciting business \H!'9^

In the summer of 1811, North Westers, stock there had been in previous years. In anticipating the partners' decision of July, 1812 there were only six transfers, in 1813 were busy buying stock in their own names: one, in 1814 three. John Inglis, Edward Ellice, John Fraser, Jr., As an engine of attack, the Hudson's Bay and Simon McGillivray. In this bid for con­ Company in 1811 had still to prove itself. trol, they were stopped, promptly and for­ But henceforth its defenses were sound. ever; and they were stopped by Selkirk With Selkirk and the governor and commit­ himseff who, whether he wanted to or not, tee owning among them more than £40,000 must have bought up every bit of stock that of stock, and with so much of the remainder anyone could be persuaded to part with. He in the hands of persons who were apparently bought that stock at 20-30 per cent above no more inclined to sell than they were to the price paid by anyone else. Among the part with the family silver, continuity of twenty-eight tiansfers in which prices were management and purpose was assured. The recorded, during the year 1811, thirteen moral pretensions of the company in London stand out, all purchases by Selkirk. In every were never relaxed. The morality of their case he bought at par, a level which Hud­ servants' actions in Canada, however, was son's Bay stock had not attained for years suitably modified to meet the needs of com­ and would not again reach until 1821. In petition. In tbe long run, this not only made 1811 no one else paid more than 80, some the contest fiercer but also (and paradoxi­ paid 70, a few paid 60.*^ Selkirk simply out­ cally) made a solution possible. By 1821 the bid the opposition. The effect of his buying Hudson's Bay Company had become an was not only to put an immediate check to organization the North Westers could join. North West purchases but to reduce to al­ Peter Skene Ogden and Samuel Black would most nothing what little activity in the scarcely have found places in the company of 1800; by 1823 even they could be ab­ •^ File A.43/7, Hudson's Bay Company Archives. sorbed.

Winter 1966 177 Mr. Lavender has written widely in the field of western history. His most recent books are The Fist in the Wilderness (1964) and The American Heritage History of die Great West (1965).

Some American Characteristics of the AMERICAN FUR COMPANY

DAVID LAVENDER

WHEN JOHN JACOB ASTOR launched Hudson's Bay Company for control of the the American Fur Company in 1808 he sup­ rich Athabasca country. He quite probably posed that he could achieve dominance over heard from the lips of one or another of the the Indian trade of the northern United Montreal agents — Alexander Henry, for States by emulating, in his own single per­ instance — something of the importance son, the corporate practices of the North which the Nor'Westers attached to finding West Company of Canada. He was wrong. Pacific approaches to the area, in order that Today, helped by the lens of historical per­ sea shipping might reduce the cost of sup­ spective, we can see, as Astor could not, that plying their western posts. He saw the com­ conditions south of the international border petition between the Canadian behemoths — those of geography, political climate, intensify after 1804, when the union of the economic attitudes, settlement, and so on —• XY and North West companies enabled the were very different from conditions to the "pedlars" from the St. Lawrence to resume north. These purely American determinants, their push across the continental divide with which often arose as irritations to Astor and still greater vigor. Although in 1807 Astor his field manager Ramsay Crooks, soon may not have known the exact result of these forced the company to abandon the original adventures into what is now British Colum­ Canadian patterns and develop character­ bia, he almost certainly was aware of the istics of its own. Not all were admirable, but trend.^ they were nevertheless representative of the Astor was aware too that during these American frontier milieu in which the firm same years, 1805-06, Lewis and Clark had operated. completed their transcontinental explora­ The reasons for Astor's initial leanings to­ tions and had made their preliminary reports ward Montreal are obvious. He had been to President Thomas Jefferson. Although the visiting the city almost annually on fur- explorers found the portage from the upper buying trips since at least 1788.^ There he Missouri to navigable waters on the Golum- bad learned to think of the Indian trade as a continent-wide enterprise. He knew of ' Kenneth Wiggins Porter, John Jacob Astor: the North West Company's struggle with the Business Man, 1:66, 412 (Cambridge, Massachu­ setts, 1931).

178 MINNESOTA History bia far more onerous than they had antici­ more of these ships could easily alter course pated, Lewis insisted that easily handled enough to land trade goods at tbe Columbia merchandise — bales of fur, for example — depot, pick up the beaver pelts assembled could be readily transported across the there, and then trade for sea otter skins along divide on horseback. Moreover, he wrote the northwest coast before continuing to Jefferson from St. Louis on September 23, Canton. 1806, that the valley of the upper Missouri Early in 1808 he passed on to President "is richer in Beaver and otter than any coun­ Jefferson and to Mayor De Witt Clinton of try on earth."* New York City his thoughts about forming By channels now unknown, echoes of that a company strong enough to effect these de­ statement reached Astor and quickened the signs. He added that he also hoped to force ideas already nibbling at the edges of his a withdrawal of the British traders operating planning. Could he not imitate the North in United States territory south and west of West Company's thrust by sending a strong the upper Great Lakes, around the head­ party along the route Lewis and Clark had waters of the Mississippi and westward to­ found, develop posts throughout the moun­ ward the Missouri. Jefferson responded with tains, and establish at the mouth of the his unofficial blessings and the legislature Columbia a sea-supplied depot like the one of New York State granted, without debate, the Nor'Westers contemplated? a formal charter to the American Fur Com­ He possessed resources equal to the plan pany— the patriotic name of which was — ample funds, competent agents in Lon­ hardly an accident.^ But in spite of Astor's don who could purchase desirable trade high-sounding declarations, the company's goods, and contacts with the leading fur first gestures were cautious indeed. markets of the world, including Canton, China. Since about 1800 his own ships had ONE EARLY deterrent in Astor's way was been carrying ginseng, silver bullion, and the Embargo Act of December 27, 1807, choice furs to the Far East, returning with and the uncertainties it created about im­ tea, silk, nankeens, and chinaware.* One or porting trade goods from England. The obstacle did not trouble him for long, how­ ° Porter, Astor, 1:170. The Hudson's Bay Com­ ever. Indians within the United States had pany had a tremendous advantage in being able to be supplied, and since the necessary mer­ to bring supply ships into the interior by way of Hudson Bay. 'The importance of geography in the chandise was available only in the British struggle between the companies is noted in several Isles, import exemptions were being granted books. See, for example, Ilarold A. Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian within a matter of months to American citi­ Economic History, 149-165, 263-279 (Toronto, zens, although Britons remained inter­ 1956); E. E. Rich, The History of the Hudson's dicted.*^ Astor could be confident, therefore, Bay Company 1670-1870, 2:66-287 (London, 1959); Gordon Charles Davidson, The North West of qualffying for similar privileges whenever Company (Berkeley, California, 1918). he chose. " Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed.. Original Journals Far more worrisome to him than political of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804^1806, 7:334-337 (New York, 1905). barriers were his fears of murderous compe­ •"For Astor's early ventures as an entrepreneur tition beyond the Rockies from the North in the fur and China trades, see Porter, Astor, West Company, whose ruthlessness he had 1:48-163. ''Porter, Astor, 1:164-168, 413-420. recently seen in operation against the XY ° In August, 1808, Ramsay Crooks obtained such group. And though Jefferson had com­ an exemption for his and Robert McClellan's trade mended Astor's plans in a general way, con­ on the Missouri. Thomas Maitland Marshall, ed.. The Life and Papers of Frederick Bates, 2:16 (St. crete help from the government was not Louis, 1926). Other examples may be found among likely to be forthcoming in the Oregon coun­ the Frederick Bates Papers in the Missouri Histori­ try, where national sovereignty had not yet cal Society, St. Louis; for instance, George Hoffman to Bates, October 21, 1808. been established. How, then, were the

Winter 1966 179 dangers attendant upon all-out economic credit. Instead of improving theff situations, warfare to be averted?'' most of them dug deeper into debt, and soon Two possibilities suggested themselves. they were not able to pay their Montreal Astor might either pay the North West Com­ suppliers. Late in 1806 those merchants who pany to yield him a clear field or, that failing, were also members of the North West Com­ persuade it to join him, rather than fight him, pany tried to restore order by bringing the in developing his western adventure. As disorganized individuals into a union known leverage for gaining the attention of the as the Michilimackinac Company.^" Montreal merchants he used the troubles in Within little more than a year Jefferson's which they had become involved on the nonimportation decrees had heaped fresh American side of the Great Lakes. trouble onto the winterers of the new com­ The union of the North West and XY com­ pany. A brigade of supply boats was fired on panies in 1804 had left scores of clerks un­ by United States customs officials at Niagara, employed. Many of them had drifted south and eight of the craft were impounded. of the border to join the fierce competition Meanwhile growing unrest among the In­ aheady boiling among the many tiaders dians of Tecumseh's confederation kept working out of Detroit and Michilimackinac. many natives from their hunting grounds. The commerce could not absorb them. The Napoleonic Wars were reducing the price of ' Astor, appealing on July 27, 1813, to President James Madison for government aid in maintaining deer, muskrat, and raccoon pelts, and at the Astoria during wartime, insisted that he had pre­ same time were ballooning the cost of ship­ sented his ideas for the Columbia adventure in per­ ping in necessary trade items from abroad. son at a meeting attended by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, General Meanwhile the United States government Henry Dearborn, and Madison, who had been sec­ was deliberately harassing foreign traders retary of state at the time of the alleged conference. — or so they believed — with hcensing and At this meeting, Astor continued, government help "was promised in the most Desided & explicit man­ customs regulations that brazenly abrogated ner." Dorothy Bridgwater, ed., "John Jacob Astor the freedom of movement supposedly guar­ Relative to His Settlement on the Columbia River," anteed them by Jay's Treaty. ^ The bitterest in Yale University Library Gazette, 24:61-64 (Octo­ ber, 1949). This was an extraordinary statement for pill came on August 26, 1805, when General Astor to have made to Madison, who reputedly James Wilkinson, governor of upper Louisi­ attended the meeting, if no conference had in fact ana, issued an edict barring foreigners from occurred. Astor, however, was capable of making astounding declarations under pressure, and since entering the trans-Mississippi West, al­ no other accounts of this pre-Astoria meeting exist, though for years British fur traders had been one is inclined to regard the "promise" of help as pioneering commercial routes across the belated wishful thinking. areas now comprising Iowa, western Minne­ 'For the Canadian plaints, see William R. Man­ ning, ed., Diplomatic Correspondence of the United sota, and the Dakotas. And finally, though States: Canadian Relations, 1784-1860, 1:571-596 the matter had not yet become serious, the (Washington, 1940); American State Papers: For­ American government itself was trying to eign Relations, 3:152, 164. " Clarence E. Carter, ed.. The Territorial Papers undermine the long-established friendship of the United States, 13:203 (Washington, 1948); of the British fur men and the Indians of the Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in the lake country by building a handful of trad­ Formative Years: The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts, 86 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1962). ing factories along the edges of the frontier.® ^°For information on the Michilimackinac Com­ In tiying to wriggle out of this economic pany, see Donald Grant Creighton, The Commercial vise south of the border, the Canadian trad­ Empire of the St. Lawrence, 1760-1850, 166 (To­ ronto, 1937); Louise Phelps KeUogg, The British ers contested ruthlessly with one another, Regime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, 259-262, using increased amounts of alcohol to in­ 265 (Madison, 1935); W. Stewart Wallace, ed.. Documents Relating to the North West Company, veigle still more skins from the Indians, 224-229 (Toronto, 1934); Wayne Stevens, "Fur including pelts pledged to some other win­ Trading Companies in the Northwest, 1760-1816," terer as security for goods issued earlier on in Mississippi Valley Historical Association, Pro­ ceedings, 9:283-292 (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1918).

180 MINNESOTA History By the fall of 1808 conditions were so un­ on similar functions for the North West stable that some of the disgusted traders did Company also held approximately half of not even go to their usual stations for the that company's stock. In the case of both winter. 1^ organizations the remaining half was di­ vided among the wintering partners. There AGAINST this background Astor, while were, at first, only eight such partners in the visiting Montreal in September, 1808, made Pacific Fur Company, half of them Cana­ his first move to assert dominion over the dians whom Astor had enticed away from fur trade of the northwestern United States. the North West Company. Among them He offered the Montreal merchants $550,000 those eight men held thirty-five shares. The for the troublesome Michilimackinac Com­ remaining fifteen shares were reserved for pany and said he would add another $50,000 partners whom Astor might appoint in the for a free hand in the still undeveloped future. A council of the Pacific Fur Com­ Columbia country. The Montrealers asked pany field partners was to be held at Astoria $700,000 and negotiations paused.^^ each year, much as the wintering partners During the next few years the Canadians of tbe North West Company met annually blew alternately hot and cold toward Astor's at Fort William on Lake Superior. As was flirtations, depending on the erratic course true in the North West Company, precau­ of the United States Congress in relaxing or tions were taken to prevent the eastern tightening its various embargo acts.^* In the agent, Astor in this case, from arbitiarily spring of 1810 Astor finally decided to press overriding any unanimous desire of the win­ ahead to the Columbia without them. To terers. Since the cast of the company was this end he formed his famous Pacific Fur thus definitely Canadian, it was appropriate Company, using the North West Company that Astor did not attach to it the name of his as a model. recently chartered American Fur Company He issued a hundred shares of stock, the — although obviously he set up the Pacific same number the North West Company had Fur Company not for that reason but rather determined on after its amalgamation with to keep his Pacific partners from exerting the XY group. Half of the shares went to any claim on the American Fur Company Astor, who was to act as the company's im­ when and if he chose to activate that still porting agent for goods and its exporter of quiescent trust.^* furs. The four Montreal firms that carried The activation soon developed, but in a limited way. Two of the four Montreal firms "Manning, ed., Canadian Relations, 1784-1860, 1:601-605, 800; "Memorial of the Merchants of comprising the Michilimackinac Company Montreal," in Michigan Pioneer Collections, 25:250- sold out their interest to the other two. The 258 (Lansing, 1896). Among those who sat out the purchasers, Forsyth, Richardson and Com­ uncertain year in Montreal was Robert Dickson, a leading figure among the Michilimackinac win­ pany and McTavish, McGillivrays, and terers. Louis A. TohiU, "Robert Dickson, British Company, renamed their white elephant the Fur Trader on the Upper Mississippi," in North Montreal-Michilimackinac Company. Beset Dakota Historical Quarterly, 3:37 (October, 1928). ^ Bridgwater, ed., in Yale Library Gazette, 24:62. by fresh embargo troubles the new firm soon "" David Lavender, The Fist in the Wilderness, yielded to Astor and with tbe American Fur 110-127, 147-150 (New York, 1964). Company formed an organization called the " For the organization of the North West Com­ pany, see Wallace, ed.. Documents, 1; Davidson, South West Company, whose sphere of North West Company, 13. On the Pacific Fur Com­ operations extended from the Great Lakes pany, see Wilson P. Hunt's manuscript notebook in westward past the Mississippi — but not the Missouri Historical Society. That Astor con­ sidered the Pacific Fur Company part of a broader very far past. Article 14 of the contract estab­ plan is indicated by his calling the Far West group lishing the new firm specifically excluded by the name "American Furr Company" in cor­ territory beyond the upper Missouri. Thus respondence about commercial relations with the Russians in Sitka. Porter, Astor, 1:459. Astor would remain a competitor of the

Winter 1966 181 Canadians on the Columbia, but would be thereupon faced with the problem of their partner in the East.^" securing exemptions so that they could con­ Surviving records say very little about the tinue employing French-Canadian voy­ relationship between tbe new South West ageurs. Only French Canadians could Company and its winterers. The field traders endure the rigors of the tiade — or so Ram­ seem not to have had a voting voice and ap­ say Crooks insisted, using arguments being parently they traded entirely on their own repeated almost exactly today by California risk, bound only by contracts — and debts lemon growers pleading for the admission — to buy from the South West Company of braceros from Mexico. ^^ and return their furs to the same organiza­ In 1816 the arguments prevailed and all tion. In any event, whatever the arrange­ American trading firms, even those as far ment, the new organization followed a away as St. Louis, were allowed to bring Canadian pattern that had been established over the border the French Canadians they long before the American Fur Company needed. There is no evidence that in this entered the field. particular matter Astor received any favors from the government that were not accorded THE WAR OF 1812 prevented normal evo­ equally to his American competitors.^" lution. On October 16, 1813, the Pacific Fur The exclusion of Canadian traders from Company passed into the hands of the the United States (as distinct from boat­ Nor'Westers.^^ Thus we can scarcely even men ) probably did discourage Astor's Mon­ conjecture what new American features treal partners in the South West Company. might have developed in its operations if it But other troubles were bothering them far had remained under Astor's control during more. Their resources had been strained by the period when William H. Ashley's moun­ the low prices and high costs resulting from tain men began thrusting westward in the the Napoleonic Wars and from the growing 1820s. Almost surely, however, there would have been modifications. ^'^ Terms of the agreement are in Porter, Astor, 1:461-469. In addition to a hoped-for freedom from Eastward, conditions were reversed: after embargo restrictions, the Canadians gained, by their the war Astor acquired the South West association with Astor, entry to the Chinese markets Company from his Canadian partners. A from which purely Canadian concerns were ex­ cluded by the monopolistic charter of the East very questionable half truth suggests that India Company. the Canadians yielded because Astor per­ " T. C. Elliott, "Sale of Astoria, 1813," in Oregon suaded the United States Congress to pass, Historical Quarterly, 33:43-50 (March, 1932). "Porter, Astor, 2:694, 696. on April 29, 1816, an act which barred all " Instances of the suspicions are scattered foreigners from the American Indian trade, throughout the second volume of American State unless those foreigners received special ex­ Papers: Indian Affairs; see, for example, pages 1-9. See also Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., "The Fur emptions from the president — a power Trade in Wisconsin 1815-1817," in Wisconsin His­ later delegated to the Indian agents and torical Collections, 19:376-379 (Madison, 1910). certain territorial officers.^'' Actually, tbe ex­ " Crooks to Astor, Aprfl 5 [?], 1817, in Mackinac Letter Book No. 1. Photostatic copies of three clusion act needed no lobbying by Astor or Mackinac Letter Books are among the American anyone else to assure its passage. The entffe Fur Company Papers in the Wisconsin Historical West, which had long been suspicious of Society. The original of Letter Book No. 1 is in the Missouri Historical Society; the other two are in British fur traders, was more than ever con­ the Robert Stuart House, Mackinac Island. The vinced after the war that pacification of the author used the Wisconsin copies. Indians could not succeed until Canadian '^Crooks to Astor, May 25, 1818, in Mackinac fur men had been barred from the country.^^ Letter Book No. 1; Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., "The Fur-Trade in Wisconsin 1812-1825," in Wis­ The exclusion act attempted this. Astor and consin Historical Collections, 20:36 (Madison, his American competitors, notably David 1911). A fuller discussion is in Lavender, Fist in the Wilderness, 228-237, 455. For a somewhat dif­ Stone of New Hampshire and Detroit, were ferent stand, see Porter, Astor, 2:694-697, 702-704.

182 MINNESOTA History intensity of their competition with the Hud­ Fur Company. Ramsay Crooks became liai­ son's Bay Company. As one particularly son man between John Jacob Astor and tbe ferocious phase of that struggle, a group of traders in tbe field. The Canadian custom of North West Company metis on June 19, dividing the trading country into depart­ 1816, massacred Governor Robert Semple ments was followed to some extent. In the and nineteen settlers from Lord Selkirk's early years the chief department was Michi­ agricultural colony at Red River. The cold limackinac, where Robert Stuart was in eye of the home government was now upon charge; James Abbott supervised Detroit. the entire conduct of the fur trade, and When the American Fur Company at last under the circumstances the South West moved into St. Louis in 1822 the first man­ Company probably seemed to represent a ager there was James Abbott's brother niggling little worry that could well be Samuel, then Stone, Bostwick and Company, dispensed with. Accounts that overlook this and, in 1827, Pierre Chouteau, Jr.^^ background while expatiating on Astor's Not until we consider Crooks' arrange­ wily machinations in obtaining full control ments with his company's winterers do the of the company are guilty of distortion. differences between the Canadian and The purchase was consummated early in American firms become pronounced. This in 1817 for about $100,000, and at last, nine turn demands, for understanding, a survey years after its chartering, the American Fur of the markedly different economic attitudes Company was operating as a self-contained north and south of the international border. unit.^i Immediately conditions below the Unrestrained competition between the border began impressing upon it certain North West and Hudson's Bay companies forms and policies different from those of — free enterprise, one might say — had its Canadian models. brought deplorable evils to the trade. Mo­ nopoly, Parliament was informed, was far THE CHANGES were not all-pervading, preferable.2^ Even geography fostered however. Astor, or more properly John monopoly north of the border. TrafiBc to the Jacob Astor and Son, a firm established in Canadian Indian country advanced through 1818 to include young William Backhouse two constricted thoroughfares, both of which Astor, followed a familiar pattern as im­ were closed much of each year by winter — porting and selling agent for the American Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrence River. Traffic thus was easy to control, and this in "^Crooks to Astor, April 5 [?], 1817, Mackinac Letter Book No. 1; Crooks to Astor, February 7, turn encouraged combinations and eventual 1818 (photostatic copy), American Fur Company monopoly. Great trusts appeared in each Letters I, in the New York Public Library. See also Porter, A^tor, 2:699. section, outgrew their own areas, clashed, ''''Letters dated April and May, 1817, in Macki­ and finally, under a royal charter of March, nac Letter Book No. 1; Porter, Astor, 2:718, 735, 1821, united on a still broader scale. 744, 762. "'Rich, Hudson's Bay Company, 2:405. Conditions in the United States, on the

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Winter 1966 183 other hand, encouraged fragmentation itself helped preclude monopolistic fur rather than union, no matter how earnestly trading by establishing here and there along Astor, influenced by his Canadian associa­ the frontier trading factories which were tions, might desire otherwise. Three major supported by public funds and did not have routes to the interior were available, each to show a profit to stay in existence. with variants, and many were open the en­ Lastly, American economic philosophy tire year. One was by way of the Hudson was by nature opposed to monopoly. For River and the Mohawk Valley, and its one example, after the Revolution the potentials were quickened by the Erie Canal, Continental Congress made a tentative start authorized in 1817, the same year that the toward chartering monopolistic land com­ American Fur Company attained control panies in Ohio but was soon forced by of the South West Company. Another was frontier protest to abandon the practice. the government-built, heavily traveled Na­ Tentative suggestions that the government tional Road across the Allegheny Mountains. bring order to the fur trade, somewhat as Most significantly, there was the Mississippi. the English had, by chartering a single huge Steamboats quickly multiplied the traffic company, got nowhere.^* Even Ramsay using the waterways. The snorting new Crooks was aware of the feeling and warned craft reached St. Louis in 1817, Lakes Erie Pierre Chouteau in 1834, shortly after the and Huron in 1819, and the site of today's Western Department had split away from Twin Cities in 1823. This high fluidity of the original American Fur Company, that commerce helped disgruntled fur traders "your business so much resembles a monop­ elude the "system" of any would-be monop­ oly that there will always be strong jeal­ olist and find other sources of goods. Only ousies against you."^^ where a single trade artery dominated a Uniform trade conditions north of the large region, as in the case of the Missouri border meant uniform practices in dealing River, did any department of the American with the winterers. After the coalition of Fur Company approach economic domi­ the firms, the new Hudson's Bay Company, nance-—^a dominance which was diluted under the deed poll of March 26,1821, took again in the Rocky Mountains. There sev­ over the field practices developed first by eral suppliers, including brigades of the the North West Company.^'' Clerks were Hudson's Bay Company, were able to con­ stimulated by the prospect of becoming verge on the rendezvous of the mountain shareholding partners who voted in com­ men from various directions. pany councils. No such arrangement existed Canals, steamboats, the National Road, in the South. No winterer owned shares. and a milder climate than in the North (Except for the Astors, only Crooks, Stuart, brought settlers as well as goods into the and Benjamin Clapp, as agents, held stock West—^and into relatively close contact in the American Fur Company.) No win­ with the Indians. Even where agriculture terer could vote about any company policy. was not an attraction, the beginnings of And each made his own arrangements about settlement existed at the military forts, buying goods and selling furs through the which drew sutlers, soldiers' wives, and camp followers to Sault Ste. Marie, Green "^ Roy Robbins, Our Landed Heritage: The Public Bay, Chicago, Prairie du Chien, Fort Snell­ Domain, 1776-1936, 11-13 (Princeton, New Jer­ ing, and to the Missouri River near today's sey, 1942); American State Papers: Indian Afairs, Omaha. The Indians, then, could go to 2:64, 65-67; Katherine Coman, "Government Fac­ frontier stores for theff goods rather than tories: An Attempt to Control Competition in the Fur Trade," in American Economic Association, deal only, as once they had to, with duly Bulletin, 4th series, no. 2, p. 374-384 (April, 1911). licensed, company-governed fur traders. "= Crooks to Chouteau, February 23, 1834, Chou­ And, finally, the United States government teau Collection, in the Missouri Historical Society. °°Rich, Hudson's Bay Company, 2:406.

184 MINNESOTA History company as best he could, according to commission, and half the cost of boats, food, the conditions surrounding him. and wages for voyageurs during the year, Local traders who were strongly estab­ the company advancing the other half. At lished bought their supplies from the com­ the end of the year all furs (and maple pany at a standard markup, as though the sugar and lead) were turned over to the parent firm were nothing more than a whole­ company, and profits or losses were shared sale distributor, and conducted their busi­ on the same fifty-fifty scale. This course gave ness entffely on their own risk, even dealing incentive to the winterer, helped protect the with company competitors if they so chose. company from heavy losses, and at the same If competition was particularly bitter, how­ time let Astor share fully in unexpectedly ever, and winterers feared they could not good returns for any one year.^^ show a profit for a year's work, the company Competition of course was the greatest paid them flat salaries rather than let some source of loss, and the company did its best rival take over the area. The company's own to achieve a monopoly. In 1822 Astor, preference was a profit-sharing arrangement Crooks, and Senator Thomas Hart Benton whereby the winterer paid half the cost of succeeded in having Congress eliminate the the goods plus transportation and handling government trading factories. Crooks drove Stone out of Michilimackinac by enticing ^Porter, Astor, 2:825; Lavender, Fist in the Wil­ away Stone's winterers. When Stone re­ derness, 459. Russell Farnham, one of the best and established himself in St. Louis as Stone, most loyal of the company's traders, received $1,000 a year when competition grew harsh in Iowa in Bostwick and Company, tbe Astor firm met 1822-23. William Morrison, who opposed the Hud­ the threat by employing Stone and Bostwick son's Bay Company in the Rainy Lake country, as agents, only to jettison them when better received $1,400 a year. Crooks to S. Abbott, De­ cember 19, 1822; Crooks to Morrison, November 24, opportunities appeared with Bernard Pratte 1821, in Mackinac Letter Book No. 2. and Company, the eventual Western De-

A scene in the .store ? of a nineteenth-century fur trading post

Winter 1966 185 partment. Unable to crush the upstart Fur Company ledgers still preserved in Columbia Fur Company, the Western De- Ottawa show clearly, by a listing of salaries, partinent and the American Fur Company that the so-called boatmen really retained together absorbed that tough-fibered group command, contrary to the law.^" and turned it into the famed Upper Mis­ Liquor, which would draw skins from souri Outfit. But they never did get rid of Indians when nothing else could, was hordes of opportunistic small timers — Wil­ smuggled into the Indian country in dis­ liam Wallace in Indiana, William Farns­ maying quantities, both by the company and worth and Daniel Whitney at Green Bay, by independents, under the pretense that it James Lockwood and Michael Dousman was intended as solace for the boatmen. (for a time) at Praffie du Chien, Vance Indian agents rash enough to interfere were Campbell in Iowa, the firm of Valois and instantly sued for trespass, as warning for Le Clerc on the Missouri and so on — the other ofiicials to be wary.^" Violations of most violent of whom were the company's edicts that tried to confine the tiade to des­ own disgruntled employees. Thus, though ignated locations were equally widespread. many Americans damned the company as a The company itself did not in general monopoly, the effectiveness of its control authorize and sometimes did not even know did not approach the true dominance about the misconduct of its traders. Yet its enjoyed by the Hudson's Bay Company own arrangements with its winterers en­ north of the border, where conditions were couraged sharp tiading, and when trouble very different.^* resulted the company had to come to the help of the traders or lose their confidence. ANOTHER distinctive characteristic of the The result was a continuing and bitter antip­ company was its lawlessness — not a fla­ athy between the company and the Indian grant disregard of fundamental moral codes, agents and army officers charged with en­ but the kind of arrogance that ignores regu­ forcing the laws. Where true monopoly lations which appear to the regulated as existed in the North, by contrast, the chief ill-judged or inconvenient. This was a com­ factors of the Hudson's Bay Company, who mon frontier trait. Westward-moving squat­ had no need to try to beat out anyone, be­ ters and speculators were notorious, for came arms of the government, responsible example, in the way they defied government for the administiation of justice.^^ edicts concerning land appropriation. West­ Fundamentally, the problem sprang from ern mountain men, even those unassociated the rapid spread of settlement south of the with the American Fur Company, paid no attention whatsoever to prohibitions against °* Coman, in American Economic Association, trapping on Indian lands. It was perhaps Bulletin, 368-388; Crooks to S. Abbott, October 25, 1821; Crooks to Stuart, Aprfl 8, 1822; Crooks reprehensible, but not extraordinary, that in to Astor, April 23, 1822, in Mackinac Letter Book 1818 both David Stone and Ramsay Crooks, No. 2. Porter, Astor, 2:741-745; Lavender, Fist in competitors at the time, used similar illegal the Wilderness, 380. For the small traders named, see the index in the latter. devices for countering an unexpected stif­ ^ David Lavender, Westward Vision: The Story fening in the exclusion act against foreign of the Oregon Trad, 121-128 (New York, 1963); traders. The employment of foreign boat­ Lavender, Fist in the Wilderness, 283; W[illiam] J. Snelling, "Geographical Sketch of Oregon Ter­ men was, by contrast, still permissible. ritory," in New England Magazine, 2:326 (April, Astor's and Stone's foreign winterers were 1832); American Fur Company Ledgers, 1817- therefore listed as boatmen and the agent at 1834 (microfilm copy), Huntington Library, San Marino, California. The originals are in the Public Mackinac was told that the outfits were Archives of Canada, Ottawa. really in charge of certain American youths '"Two noteworthy affairs, involving John Tipton recently hired as apprentices. The agent and Lawrence Taliaferro, are summarized in Lav­ ender, Fist in the Wilderness, 355, 371. accepted the declaration, but the American "'• Rich, Hudson's Bay Company, 2:404.

186 MINNESOTA History border. The United States government, al­ and advancing civilization the company though committed to fostering this expan­ altered it.s internal stiucture and practices as sion, also tried to protect the Indians by circumstances required. It did not, however, such paternalistic methods as establishing originate. Astor was an adapter, not an in­ trading factories, Indian agents, and army novator. Thus, if inventiveness is a truly policemen — devices unheard of north of Yankee trait, then the American Fur Com­ the border, where settlement spread slowly. pany was not fully American. Otherwise it In meeting these pressures of government was typically a product of its times.

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The regent (1825)

Winter 1966 187 Fur Trade Sites: CANADA

J. D. HERBERT

Mr. Herbert is the director of the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature in Winnipeg. His illustrated talk, entitled "Canadian Historic Sites of the Fur Trade," was presented at the North American Fur Trade Conference on November 2, 1965. The brief explanatory text which accompanies this photographic essay is adapted from Mr. Herbert's talk. The sites are confined to those where structural remains still exist or where significant excavations have taken place.

IT IS OCCASIONALLY forgotten that the fur trade began much earlier than we may think and that ff had ffs beginnings on the extieme east of this continent. Port Royal (above) was established by Pierre Du Gua de Monts in 1605 on the Minas Basin off the Bay of Fundy. Destioyed by the British in 1613, its remains were discovered and its restoration was begun in 1938. Le Manoir Lachine (lower right), in the general vicinity of Montreal on Lac St. Louis, is associated with Sieur de la Salle and was con­ structed about 1670. It may well be the oldest house in Canada. To the north and west, along the Albany River in Ontario is the sffe of the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Albany (lower left). The old store pictured here was built approximately a hundred years ago. It has recently been demolished.

188 MINNESOTA History P - •/ B B • • i • /i t^ M i / _ :9k

YORK FACTORY stands on the bank of the Hayes River in Manitoba where it empties into the western side of Hudson Bay. The warehouse (above) is tbe only building remaining. Although it still belongs to the Hudson's Bay Company, it has been abandoned for a decade and is rapidly deteriorating through vandal­ ism and neglect. At the left is a fur press used until faffly recent years at York Factory — surely the latest of its kind in North America. It is made of solid English oak timbers and uses neither a screw nor a lever, the weight of the wood being sufficient to compress the skins. Ll'-''d'.. »A

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PRINCE OF WALES FORT (upper left) was established in the 1730s by the Hudson's Bay Company. Situated on the north side of the mouth of the Churchill River, this stone stronghold had forty-foot walls which defied French attempts to demohsh it in 1781. This Manitoba fort is a national historic park, administered by the Canadian government, remaining in Canada is Lower Fort Garry and has been partially restored. Up the (lower left), constructed during the 1830s Churchill about two miles is Sloop's Cove and 1840s. A national historic park since where in 1767 Samuel Hearne chiseled his 1951, it is the pride of the National Parks name on this rock (top right). Inland and Branch. This photograph is of the southwest south at Playgreen Lake and the Jack River bastion which looks as it did when first built. stands Norway House (center), erected All that is left of Upper Fort Garry is a stone about 1825 and owned by the Hudson's Bay gate (lower right), today belonging to the Company. The most complete fur trade fort city of Winnipeg. Now in the heart of the downtown area, this fort was erected in 1835 near the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. s

190 MINNESOTA Hlstory WESTWARD in Saskatchewan, in the midst of a more modern establishment, stands the old stone magazine at Cumberland House (upper left). Its exact age is unknown, but it is reputedly over a hundred years old. Much farther west, in British Columbia, is Fort Langley, built on the left bank of the Fraser River in 1827. This view (center) shows one of the buildings which has been reconstructed by the National Parks Branch. At Stuart Lake, farther north in the same province, Simon Fraser erected a post in 1807 which came to be known as Fort St. James. This picture (upper right) is of a fish cache, possibly the only one of its kind in Canada, which points up the fact that the inland posts of this area survived on the an­ nual salmon catch. The last photograph in this east-to-west look at Canada's fur trade sites is the bastion at Nanauno on Vancouver Island (right) which, strictly speaking, had nothing to do with the trade. Although it was built in 1852 by the Hudson's Bay Com­ pany, it was designed to protect a town established to develop coal mines for the British Royal Navy. The structure was moved from its original site a short distance away in 1891.

Winter 1966 191 t,4^ »^ 1

Fur Trade Sites: The PLAINS and the ROCKIES

MERRILL J. MATTES

Mr. Mattes is a historian with the Natiorud Park Service in its office of resource planning in San Francisco. The illustrations on the following pages are from those used with his paper on "Landmarks, Posts, and Rendezvous: The Plains and the Rockies."

FUR TRADE SITES understandably tend to be elusive, debatable, and, at best, fragile and frequently unrecognizable. This picture essay begins with St. Louis, which has a better claim to recognition as the gateway to the West tiian any other community. The warehouse of Manuel Lisa (insert, above) stood where the Gate­ way Arch (top left) now rises to commemorate the epic of westward expansion. Up the Missouri River near Arrow Rock, Missouri, is the lonely grave of William H. Ashley (lower right), one of the giants of the fur trade. Farther along, toward Independence, Missouri, before the river turns north to St. Joseph, stands Fort Osage (1808-19). Built on a site chosen by William Clark, the old factory operated by William Sibley, the blockhouse, and the captain's quarters have been carefully restored by Jackson County (lower left). fcSiiitf***^*"" -B''-

SARPY'S POST at Bellevue, Nebraska, was in North Dakota is the one where Toussaint the beginning of that state's continuous set­ Charbonneau and Sacagawea lived (left tlement. The interior of the post store as center). Some landmarks have disappeared restored by the Nebraska Historical Society through natural action, like Fort Mandan, is shown in a diorama (above). built by Lewis and Clark, which is now North along the Missouri near the town somewhere in the Missouri. Many others, of Fort Pierre, South Dakota, is a concentra­ among them tbe American Fur Company's tion of sites, including the hill (upper right) Fort Berthold, have been inundated by dam where tbe 1742 lead plate of the Verendrye and reservoir construction. Comparative expedition was found. photographs taken from Crow Flies High Among several Hidatsa and Mandan vil­ Butte in 1950 (right center) and 1965 (bot­ lage sites near the mouth of the Knife River tom) show how a dam can obliterate the features of a historic landscape. FORT BENTON, Montana, founded by the American Fur Company in 1846, is a mar­ velous survival of an old steamboat town. The picture at left shows the adobe remains of the original post. Three Forks (below) in the same state is a landmark of the Lewis and Clark expedition and also the site of a Missouri Fur Company fort established in 1810 by Andrew Henry and Pierre Menard.

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194 MINNESOTA History WHILE the Missouri River was tbe first great highway of fur trade advance, the Platte River route carried tbe largest volume of traffic between St. Louis and the moun­ tain rendezvous points. Most famous, per­ haps, of its landmarks is Chimney Rock (left) in extreme western Nebraska on the south side of the North Platte River. South on the Santa Fe Trail in Colorado is Bent's Old Fort, a national historic site. An archaeological salvage operation con­ ducted in the past three years has revealed structural features. From these and from the known architectural design (above) a re­ construction is tentatively planned.

Winter 1966 195 THE RETURNING ASTORIANS (above) are depicted in one of many fur trade paint­ ings in the Oregon Trail Museum at Scotts Bluff, Nebraska. Named for one of Ashley's lieutenants, the place has been a national monument since 1919. A few miles to the west is Roubadeau Pass (top left) where in 1849 Joseph Robidoux, Jr. — the name has acquired many spellings — operated a blacksmith shop and trading post. Fort Laramie, Wyoming, most famous of all the Platte River posts, was pivotal to the entire fur trade of the Plains and the Rockies. The adobe sutler's store of 1849 (center left) represents the transition to military contiol. Ten miles west is Register Cliff (lower left), the location of Seth E. Ward's tiading post. Crossing the continental divide in Wyo­ ming is South Pass (below). First discov­ ered by Robert Stuart, it was found again by Ashley's men. tly

ACROSS tbe continental divide to the west, near Pinedale and Daniel, Wyoming, a small shrine to Father Pierre-Jean De Smet (above) overlooks the Green River Valley. The famed Jesuit missionary visited the last rendezvous there in 1840. At the headwaters of the Green River is Union Pass (left), a crucial point in the fortunes of the Astorian expedition of 1812. In many ways the fur trade is ideally com­ memorated in the museum at Moose, head­ quarters for Grand Teton National Park. The mountain range (below) was named by French-Canadian trappers in 1811.

Winter 1966 197 Mr. Washburn is chairman of the department of American studies at the Smithsonian Institution and editor of The Indian and the White Man, published in 1964 as one of the Documents in American Civilization Series.

Symbol, Utility, and Aesthetics in the INDIAN FUR TRADE

WILCOMB E. WASHBURN

THE TERM "trade" is a deceptively simple on what he "gave" a price appropriate to the word to describe a complex process. When system of his European trading associate. Europeans first met Indians, the exchange The subordination of the exchange of of goods that took place bore almost no rela­ goods to noneconomic purposes in Indian tion to the economic process witb which we society is demonstrated by the enormous sig­ are familiar. The Indian tended to give gen­ nificance of gifts. The bestowing of presents erously of his material goods and his serv­ was used, for example, to establish rank and ices without apparent demand for return, prestige, as well as to mark important oc­ although he welcomed and expected such a casions in the life of an individual. The return. The words of Christopher Columbus ceremonial exchange of favors played an im­ are significant testimony to this phenome­ portant part in intertribal diplomacy, where non: "They are so ingenuous and free with presents symbolized specific messages. all they have, that no one would believe it While the exchange of such gifts can be who bas not seen it; of anything that they interpreted cynically, such an explanation possess, if it be asked of them, they never fails to perceive the many noneconomic pur­ say no . . . and they are content with what­ poses that the system encompassed. The ever trifle be given them." ^ term "Indian giver" implies this cynical Moreover, the Indian had no particular Western reaction to Indian giving, while ig­ economic need for the products first offered noring the cultural context of the act. by the European — items like beads, mir­ The important role of gifts in Indian-white rors, bells, and caps — but received them relations has been analyzed by Wilbur R. gratefully for their decorative, aesthetic, Jacobs in Diplomacy and Indian Gifts. Nu­ magical, curiosity, or amusement "value." merous objects were made to "speak" as When he learned what pleased tbe Euro­ words, and such phrases as "bury the pean, the Indian generously offered his hatchet" and "smoke the pipe of peace" sug­ "products" — such as gold ornaments — in gest the fundamental impact of these Indian measure that astounded tbe European who practices. Jacobs, quoting Sir William John- thought in economic terms. This process continued, in some degree, until the Indian " Quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, adopted white economic values and placed 1:303 (Boston, 1942).

198 MINNESOTA History and status. The pipe tomahawk of Rotten Foot, a noted Wichita warrior, is a symbol of status as well as an item of utility. Since white culture was strongly oriented to the material aspect of things, it is no surprise that misinterpretations of the object were prevalent on both sides and continue to weaken ethnohistorical analysis. Let us consider for a moment one of the principal items used in the Indian fur trade. The pipe tomahawk is an object which al­ lows us to study the problems both of sym­ bolic value and of European adaptabihty to the requirements of Indian "demand." We are ignorant of who created this instrument, where he did so, and under what motives and conditions. We do know, however, that such tomahawks appear to have originated about the beginning of the eighteenth cen­ tury, and that tbe pattern of their distribu­ tion favored the northeastern section of the United States. We also know, from written sources as well as from archaeological and other evidence, that they were tremendously Catlin's portrait of Rotten Foot popular.^ The pipe tomahawk might never have son, goes so far as to attribute Pontiac's War been developed at all and might never in large measure to tbe "lack of presents from have played a role in relations with the Indi­ both the French and the English." ^ ans but for a historical accident. Perhaps an ingenious trader or blacksmith put two ideas IN INDIAN CULTURE the "object" pos­ (and objects) together in one form and cre­ sessed an extensive symbolic meaning that it ated the revolution that followed. He may lacked in European or American culture. have been consciously combining utility and The thing, whether a wampum belt, a calu­ symbol, or perhaps utifity and utility, or per­ met, or a hatchet, contained a message far haps even symbol and symbol. Did he start beyond its material utility. George Catlin's with aesthetic intent also? Was the first pipe portraits of leading Indian figures record tomahawk a presentation piece witb an in­ the use of such objects to express dignity scribed message? We do not know. " Wilbur R. Jacobs, Diplomacy and Indian Gifts: If the development of the pipe tomahawk Anglo-French Rivalry Along the Ohio and North­ is a historical accident and not the result of west Frontiers, 1748-1763, 161 (Stanford, Califor­ the inevitable sweep of economic forces, nia, 1950). 'Arthur Woodward, "The Metal Tomahawk: Its then there is no reason it could not have Evolution and Distribution in North America," in been developed earlier. Nor is there any rea­ Fort Ticonderoga Museum Bulletin, January, 1946, son why other objects or techniques could p. 2-42; Harold L. Peterson, American Indian Tom­ ahawks, 33-39 (Museum of the American Indian, not have been devised to serve the purposes Heye Foundation, Contributions, vol. 19 — New of the European nations engaged in the York, 1965); George A. West, Tobacco, Pipes and "trade." Smoking Customs of the American Indians, 245, 267, 317-325 (Milwaukee Public Museum, Bulle­ Was there not a general poverty of imagi­ tins, vol. 17 — Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1934). nation on the part of the European trader as

Winter 1966 199 a result of which he often failed to perceive Pennsylvania trade and for presentation pur­ the true demand of the Indian? Was this not poses.''^ One of the research problems in this merely another example of the blindness that field is to determine how many of these sil­ led early explorers to overlook the real riches ver objects were used in the exchange rela­ of fur that they actually found in favor of tionship of the trade, and how many were the imagined riches of gold that they hoped dispensed as gifts, favors, or political sym­ to find? The prevalent mercantilistic as­ bols. sumptions under which the first trading An even greater problem, however, is the ventures were organized, combined with question of why such silver works were not European ignorance of Indian values, used in the trade until the eighteenth cen­ caused further distortion of the terms of tury. Certainly the ability to produce them trade, as we would understand those terms existed a hundred years earlier. Certainly the today.* demand for them on the part of the Indians The existence of an unfulfilled demand always existed — at least in latent form. Sev­ is suggested by instances of Indians convert­ enteenth-century observers noted that the ing practical, utilitarian objects into decora­ Indians often wore ornaments of copper or tive items. Thomas McCliesh, the chief of brass and were exceedingly proud of them. York Fort of the Hudson's Bay Company, Indeed, ornaments in these materials were wrote in 1728: "Concerning buying the In­ made not only by the Indians, but by Euro­ dians' old kettles, they always convert them peans for the Indians. in making fine handcuffs and pouches which is of greater value with them than twice the * For a discussion of the noneconomic role of the price of the kettle."^ One not infrequently fur trade as an instrument of national policy, see finds in the early literature other examples Paul C. Phillips, The Fur Trade, 2:563-573 (Nor­ man, Oklahoma, 1961). The relationship between of Indians converting utilitarian objects the decline of the fur trade and the decline of mer­ received from the whites into items of cantilism is a subject that deserves further study. It decoration. is possible that the trade, because of its nonutili- tarian ramifications, required such a framework of governmental purpose. THE USE of silver objects in the trade is ° Kenneth G. Davies, A. M. Johnson, and Richard Glover, eds., Letters from Hudson Bay, 1703^0, another subject concerning which our un­ 134 (London, 1965). derstanding is incomplete. The term "silver " Ramsay Traquair, "Montreal and the Indian trinkets," used in a comparatively recent Trade Silver," in Canadian Historical Review, study of the subject, reflects the rather con­ 19:1-8 (March, 1938). On trade silver see also William M. Beauchamp, Metallic Ornaments of the descending way in which such objects have New York Indians, 10 (New York State Museum, been viewed.^ "Trinkets" is, of course, a per­ Bulletins, no. 73 —• Albany, 1903); Arthur C. Parker, fectly appropriate term from the European "The Origin of Iroquois Silversmithing," in Ameri­ can Anthropologist, new series, 12:349 (July-Sep­ point of view, but it masks the symbolic, re­ tember, 1910); Marius Barbeau, "Indian Trade ligious, political, and aesthetic values that Silver," in Royal Society of Canada, Transactions, these things possessed for the red man. The series 3, vol. 34, section 2, p. 30, 36 (1940); Barbeau, "Indian-Trade Silver," in The Beaver, December, word "ornament" is better but still fails to 1942, p. 10-14; George I. Quimby, Jr., "Notes on capture the full Indian meaning. Indian Trade Silver Ornaments in Michigan," in It is known that an immense quantity of Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, Papers, 22:15 (1937); and "European Trade Articles crosses and brooches (valued at the sum as Chronological Indicators for the Archaeology of of £4,000 in the four years from 1797 to the Historic Period in Michigan," in Papers, 24:29 1801) were made by Montreal silversmiths (1938); Robert C. Alberts, "Trade Silver and Indian Silver Work in the Great Lakes Region," in Wiscon­ for the fur traders James and Andrew sin Archeologist, new series, 34:1-121 (March, McGill. An impressive number of silver 1953). pieces (worth £2,800) were made by three 'Traquair, in Canadian Historical Review, 19:7; Philadelphia craftsmen in the 1760s for the Harrold E. Gillingham, Indian Ornaments made hy Philadelphia Silversmiths, 25 (New York, 1936).

200 MINNESOTA History According to archaeological and docu­ ANOTHER vital aspect that must be probed mentary evidence, the production of such more deeply before we can fully understand ornaments by Europeans in the early period the fur trade is the setting or conditions was small. That silver objects were made as under which the exchange took place. Here, early as the 1660s, however, is indicated by as in the case of the pipe tomahawk, we have two Indian badges, or medallic passports, in a historical example which throws significant the Virginia Historical Society. An act of hght on the trade. I refer to the "trappers' the General Assembly of Virginia of March rendezvous" which developed in the western 1661/62 provided for the manufacture of United States in the period of the 1820s and silver or copper plates engraved with the 1830s. The invention of the trappers' spring names of appropriate Indian towns to be rendezvous was attributed to General Wil­ given to all the nearby "kings" under Eng­ liam H. Ashley by Hiram M. Chittenden in lish domination. After Bacon's Rebellion in his study of the American fur trade.^'^ John 1677, a handsome silver medallion was pre­ C. Ewers has suggested that it is more prob­ pared in England for the loyal Queen of ably an "adaptation of the pre-existing Sho- Pamunkey and presented with appropriate shoni trading rendezvous, at the same season ceremonies.^ of the year and in the same region, to the Yet the practice of giving or trading silver advantage of white trappers." Ewers' con­ objects did not really become "big business" tention is vigorously denied by Dale L. Mor­ until the late eighteenth century. Why? I gan, who reasserts the priority of Ashley in suspect that a general lack of imagination initiating the custom.^^ on the part of Europeans is chiefly respon­ Whatever the origins of the rendezvous, sible. I suspect too that a few imaginative its method was a new one. It was not tbe individuals eventually caught up, two cen­ manner in which the fur trade had been car­ turies late, with the potential demand. An­ ried on previously, either in this area or in other factor may have been the increasing other parts of the continent. As a technique rivalry between the French and English, it succeeded, whereas previous attempts which created competition at that time in of the fur trader bad run into persist­ the production of attractive trade goods. ent opposition and frustration from the In­ Whatever the sequence of events, by 1829 dian inhabitants. Certainly the shift from an American official observed that Indian the territory of the Blackfoot to that of the medals were not only "tokens of Friendship," friendly Crow and Shoshoni had a signifi­ but "badges of power to them, and trophies cant influence on the success which came to of renown."' the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.'^^ But may not the conditions under which the 'Virginia Historical Society, An Occasion Bulle­ trade took place have been an influence more tin, no. 11, p. 79 (October, 1965). "Quoted by Francis Paul Prucha, "Early Indian significant than we are prepared to realize? Peace Medals," in Wisconsin Magazine of History, The rendezvous removed the trade from a 45:280 (Summer, 1962). purely commercial, military, or economic "" Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West, 1:273 (New York, 1902). See also LeRoy context to one more nearly resembling a so­ R. Hafen, ed.. The Mountain Men and the Fur cial occasion, where an atmosphere of good Trade of the Far West, 1:75-81 (Glendale, Califor­ will, equality, and good cheer predominated nia, 1965). " Ewers, "The Indian Trade of the Upper Mis­ over economic considerations. The resulting souri before Lewis and Clark: An Interpretation," synthesis was revolutionary in its implica­ in Missouri Historical Society, Bulletin, 10:431n. tions. The furs still got to St. Louis. The trade (July, 1954). See also Ewers, ed.. Adventures of Zenas Leonard, Fur Trader, xiii (Norman, Okla­ goods still got to the Indian. But the emo­ homa, 1959); Morgan, ed.. The West of William H. tional release for both white and Indian, the Ashley, xxix, xliv, 94, 106, 108, 118, 145, 149, 168 jubilant excesses, the liquor, the women, and (Denver, Colorado, 1964). the meeting in a context of equality re- " Ewers, ed., Zerms Leonard, viii-xii.

Winter 1966 201 deemed a process which might otherwise relationships of sex and family, creating have been merely a cold exchange of ma­ bonds and sentiments which largely neu­ terial goods. tralized the impediments of ignorance and The rendezvous was the ideal form by greed. One thinks of James Isham, the Hud­ which the individualism of the American fur son's Bay Company factor of the eighteenth trade could succeed without the need for century, the "Grand Old Man" of the fur the elaborate controls which the Hudson's trade, who influenced a generation of factors Bay Company, for example, imposed on its to the practice of kindliness toward the In­ servants. Without this social outlet individ­ dians.^" The success of the Johnsons in New ual trappers might have outraged Indian York owed much to a similar personal in­ nations and American national policy alike; volvement with the Indians with whom they instead they were renewed and revived in dealt. The significance of the personal rela­ the rude "pleasure dome" of the rendezvous. tionship was, I am afraid, never fully under­ It is a curious coincidence that the United stood by high-ranking administrators, and States Indian factory system expired about national and economic values suffered as a the same time that the private tiappers' ren­ result. dezvous was born. The reasons for the de­ The North American fur trade was much mise of the factory system are many and more than the simple exchange of economic diverse, but I would suggest that it was or­ values. It was a way of lffe for individuals ganized on such an explicitly economic basis and for nations, differing for the invid- that it could not achieve even its economic uals and nations involved. It cannot be purpose, to say nothing of its potential for studied in isolation as an economic phe­ noneconomic purposes.^^ The reluctance or nomenon. It must be studied in terms of the inability to utilize gifts, credit, or alcohol, cultural totality in which it was involved and the failure of responsible officials to and approached through all the strands of travel to the Indian country or to enter into meaning which explicate a society and its the types of quasi-Indian cultural situations actions. which distinguished other fur trade opera­ tions combined to prevent the over-all cul­ '^ See Ora Brooks Peake, A History of the United States Indian Factory System, 1795-1822, 204-256 tural adjustment necessary to win success in (Denver, Colorado, 1954). even the narrowest economic sense. I suspect "Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada, 40 (New also that more imagination and plentiful Haven, Connecticut, 1962). ''^E. E. Rich and A. M. Johnson, eds., James supplies of items of symbolic significance — Isham's Observations on Hudsons Bay, 1743, cii whether as gifts or trade items — might (London and Toronto, 1949). well have won for the government houses, which were backed by the prestige and power of the United States itself, a success equal to or superior to that achieved by the private companies. The close personal relations between re­ sponsible oflBcials and Indians that devel­ oped in Canada may well have provided a more suitable philosophical and practical context for later relations with the Indians than was achieved farther south. As Harold A. Innis has pointed out, the "fur tiade de­ manded a long apprenticeship on the part of its personnel in dealing with Indians." i* This frequently involved the most intimate ERMIM'E

202 MINNESOTA History Mr. Witthoft has been associated as an archaeologist with the Pennsylvania State Museum in Harrisburg and has published a number of reports in American Antiquity and other archaeological fournals.

Archaeology as a Key to the Colonial Fur Trade

JOHN WITTHOFT

ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY of the fur crecy and general illiteracy combined to trade in eastern North America has been to obscure the history of crafts, and most of the a large extent object-centered. There are trade goods from the sixteenth, seventeenth, several reasons for this. The early Colonial and early eighteenth centuries must be ana­ fur trade was carried on at coastal ports and lyzed and dated by the techniques of pre­ white settlements and did not involve any history. This is done by finding them in permanent business establishments. The sites which can be dated, and then dating trader resident among tbe Indians and the other sites by finding in them items which established fur trading post were features have already been dated by excavation. Such of the later westward expansion, not of the a process would be very faulty if it were ap­ early trade. Such shoreline trading sites as plied in a chain-like fashion, but it can be did exist have largely been destioyed by the markedly valid when archaeologists deal erosion and land subsidence which bas been with large samples from many areas almost universal along the Atlantic Coast. and with interlocked networks of sites. The white trader, therefore, has left little The gunflint industry, for example, went trace, either among documentary sources or through a succession of technological stages. in the ground. He must be followed through European literature and manuscript sources the occurrence of his trade goods in Indian provide little information, practically all of sites. it later than 1780. Most of what we know European goods are useful in dating abo­ about early gunflints has come out of Ameri­ riginal sites, yet in almost every case, dates can soil, and our dates for steps in the evo­ for specific types of European-made objects lution of the fire flint depend upon site have to be derived from archaeological con­ contexts in North America. texts, since the literature and other sources Glass beads are the most useful gauge for of Europe contain little information on or­ dating American Indian sites of the Colonial dinary manufactured products.^ Craft se- period. They occur in abundance and were subject to rapid changes in technology. ^ Dutch and English white pottery pipes are a There are many distinct types — more than notable exception, but even in this case we lack a thousand in North America — and their documentary material from earlier times, and few styles show a pattern of cyclical recurrence, European pipes came into Indian possession before 1650. with only minor differences to distinguish Winter 1966 203 the beads of one decade from those of their all consistent with the dates. The Wyandot recurrence five or more decades later.^ But had attended a conference in Albany, New given correct identification, they permit very York, in 1742. precise dating. Moreover, bead types seem Among the various objects inclosed in a to be international in their distribution, and crude coflBn with the skeleton of a child were their dates appear valid on a world-wide two bronze medals of George II and Caro­ basis. Systematic studies of the trade bead line, which we believe were minted in 1738, types of North America, Africa, Asia, India, and two pewter porringers with handles in and South America will no doubt lead in an early eighteenth-century British style. time to new insights concerning European They were carefully cleaned, and a legible glass manufacture and world commerce in Francis Basset touch was found preserved in this era. the corroded metal of one of them. Because Context data for trade goods has been of the date of the site, this mark had to be derived from sites of Indian towns, from the that of the father; therefore all Basset pieces association of types in Indian grave lots, with this mark are his, and all those with from occurrences in documented house sites the other Basset mark are by his son. A prob­ of early settlers, and from artifacts found on lem which had been considered insoluble the sites of military operations. Military was thus cleared up. camps of short duration and houses which were burned at a known time have provided THE EARLIEST fur tiade was carried on critical samples, but all sites have yielded by unrecorded fishermen and coastwise tiav­ valuable source material for the history of elers, who protected their monopoly by a European technology. Craft objects which conspiracy of silence. We do not know are intermixed without regard to date in the whether this traffic began in 1498 or before superficial layers of European sites may be 1400. Even archaeological evidence is re­ found delicately separated by decade in the markably sparse. Perhaps the major trade sites of Colonial America. goods were perishable materials such as A striking example of the usefulness of woolen fabrics; hemp (marijuana) may also such archaeological data is a recent break­ have been an important commodity. through in the history of American pewter. Indian sites of this stage are extremely Scholars had long been puzzled over the difficult to identify and interpret. Each vil­ problem of distinguishing tbe work of Fran­ lage normally includes a single piece of Eu­ cis Basset I of New York, who worked be­ ropean brass, usually a delicately made and tween 1730 and 1755, from that of his son, finely joined tubular bead. What trade goods Francis Basset II, who worked from 1754 to exist are concentrated in a few of the graves. 1777. Valuable inferences on technological A Seneca village in the Genesee Valley is and stylistic changes in pewter making the best studied site of this stage. It yielded awaited identification of the work of the two one brass bead, and less than 1 per cent of men. However, it had been impossible to say the graves contained European goods. The which touch mark was used by the father trade objects are quite different from those and which by the son. of any later stage. They are not goods made The answer came from the site of Old for the Indian trade, nor are they the ordi­ Kuskuskies at West Pittsburgh, Lawrence nary domestic objects of Europe; they reflect County, Pennsylvania, a Wyandot town of the ways of the sea. 1747-51. This band of Indians had killed Among parts stripped from ships are bolts. some French traders on the Sandusky in 1747 and had fled east to the British-domi­ "^A systematic study of glass bead types is not nated area. The site is tightly documented yet available. However, Kenneth E. Kidd of Trent University, Ontario, has such a monograph in and dated, and the objects found there are preparation.

204 MINNESOTA History metal rings from rigging, and metal tips from a steel knife fragment, or debris from tbe belaying pins. Broad, thin knives appear to native reworking of European metal. Glass have been specialized tools of the fisherman. beads seem to be absent from living areas; Spiral brass earrings, worn in the left ears of most are found with infant burials. Indian burials, represent a direct transfer­ The most distinctive and numerous object ence of the ancient sailor's caste mark; this is an oval glass bead, opaque and ranging was the seaman's charm against bad eye­ from faded white to jade green to blue in sight. Strings of glass beads, especially in color. It is found only in this horizon.^ Chev­ blue, probably came from sailors who wore ron beads are more numerous than in later them as a protection against the evil eye. sites. Although found in small percentages Thin-walled tubular beads with large open­ as late as 1640, they are abundant only in ings, spherical blue beads of a widespread sites earlier than 1600. Flush-eye beads are type, and faience beads formed upon a sub- also diagnostic of sites from the second stage spherical clay core are characteristic. Brass of the trade. Both chevron and ffush-eye kettles were cut up into ornaments and types are closely related to Islamic mosaic knives; even bails and tabs which held the glass.* Steel table knives and steel axes are bails were used. Steel axes were so precious present but not abundant, and brass was that they were sawed with slabs of sand­ known, but kettles were still cut up rather stone into narrow chisel-like blades, and than used as cooking utensils. A few steel theff eyes were ground into adz blades. axes were sawed into smaller tools. Sawed-up axes, some of the bead types, large knives, and ship fittings are considered THE 1590s brought a revolution in the fur diagnostic of this earliest stage. trade, with a vast increase in European con­ The sites with objects from the earliest tacts and reorganization of aboriginal power trade have been tentatively dated at about centers. The Hurons, Iroquois, Susque­ 1550 on the basis of seriation with later sites. hanna, Powhatan, and Cherokee became the The St. Lawrence Valley, the Maritime great middlemen in the fur trade, trapping, Provinces, and Newfoundland should yield buying, and looting beaver from the con­ more precise information on this stage, since tinental interior and carrying it to nearly early trade and fishing are believed to have depopulated coasts for rendezvous with sail­ been centered there, but little work bas been ing ships. Very few European objects trav­ done in that area. Sixteenth-century sites of eled west of these five native political the Gulf drainage basin are even less groups; most trade goods stayed in their known. In the coastal plains and piedmont towns. Intertribal wars began for control of of the Southeast, major Indian villages tbe trade and for access to interior beaver which probably date from the late 1500s hunting lands. have not yet produced European objects. Tbe third stage, beginning somewhat Trade goods from the late sixteenth cen­ before 1600 and extending into the 1620s, co­ tury are almost as little known as those incided with the first successful French, Brit­ of the first stage. Village sites are thinly ish, and Dutch colonies but probably had scattered with brass and iron scrap, so that little connection with them. Many tiade ob­ any token excavation produces a brass bead. jects which are well known from the Indian sites have never been found where white " This has been designated the Blue Rock green settlements existed nor in the port towns. A type. conspicuous example may be noted at * Chevron beads also characterize the early Span­ Jamestown, where despite the abundance of ish period in Florida, and we suspect that they were among the earfiest trade beads in the North­ glass trade beads in contemporary Indian east. They have not chanced to turn up among the sites, practically none have been found in small samples available in sites from the first stage the excavations at the settlement. On the in the fur trade. Winter 1966 205 other hand, the pottery tableware and clay is predominant — even in a small sample — pipes so conspicuous at Jamestown are the date is close to 1600. barely present in nearby Indian villages. Practically all of the other bead types of Curiously, some of the pewter objects found this stage are spherical or subspherical, with in seventeenth-century Indian sites have no almost no cylindrical or tubular examples. parallels in either the Colonial settlements All have dull surfaces, none of them being or in the collections of Europe. coated with transparent clear glass, as are There is an abundance of data from Iro­ the beads of the next stage. quois and Susquehanna sites of this stage. The five Indian confederacies which con­ The first brass kettles appear in graves. The trolled the fur trade along the eastern mar­ Seneca had ceased to use stone ax blades, gin of the continent sat like robber barons being entirely supplied with steel ones, upon the trading paths, the hunting grounds whereas half of the Susquehanna ax, adz, to the west, and the coastal trading points. and hoe blades were of stone, half of steel. Little beaver was traded from any other Steel knives had entffely replaced flint. tribes at the ports, few trade goods passed Many arrowheads were cut from brass, but beyond the confederacies, and many interior flint tips predominated. A few lead bullets tribes were exterminated or decimated by and shot occur, but no firearm fragments raids for fur. The scant trade goods that do have yet been found. Shell wampum of the appear in the interior provide a terminal type used in treaty belts appears for the first date for major protohistoric cultures there. time, along with earlier types of shell beads. Apparently only the early blue — the Hoof-handle brass spoons, tiny brass pipes commonest and cheapest bead type — was (made for use with hemp?), sabers, bottle passed on into the interior by the native fur glass, and fragments of European white clay trade.® The only other European goods pipes are found occasionally. Cannel coal known from western sites of this age are and catlinite beads indicate contacts with brass cones and outline figures of salaman­ the Ohio, as do potsherds from the Fort ders and catfish, made of sheet brass and Ancient cultures. found in infants' graves with early blue Glass beads occur in profusion and vari­ beads. Identical brass figures of water dogs ety. They are concentrated in graves but (mud puppies) and fish are otherwise are also broadcast throughout the village known only in Siouxan sites of the central sites. The majority of the beads are of a Roanoke Valley, suggesting that there were type or series of types which we have called trade contacts with peoples of the Carolina "early blue."^ This bead type is found as a piedmont over the great trading path be­ tiny minority in sites from tbe first and sec­ tween Virginia and the Ohio. The presence ond stages of the trade and in sites as late " Examples found in Florida have been described as 1650; it may have been in existence at as "Estaufa blue"; collectors erroneously call it the time of the earliest trade, but it is over­ "Jamestown blue." whelmingly abundant just before and after " The only glass beads which I know of from the Keyser complex of western Virginia, the Clover 1600. It is a small, spherical to oval, sky blue complex of the West Virginia panhandle, the bead of weak glass, filled with capillary bub­ Monongahela Woodland of southwestern Pennsyl­ ble holes and strains parallel to the bole. It vania, and the Madisonville complex of central weathers and etches very badly in alkaline Ohio are the early blue type. Unfortunately these sites have received little respectable excavation and soil, and it is normally so weak and dam­ have been torn apart by collectors. Few of the aged that it is not recovered from sites dug beads have been saved or preserved, because they over by the pot hunter. Many examples have are usually found in so strained and eroded a state that they are shattered in the ground or in the fingers longitudinal stripes in white. Despite the of the collector. The early blue bead may be wide­ long period over which this type appears, spread and unrecorded in many other areas, since it is a good, sensitive dating device. When it archaeological pot hunting has had so notorious a history in the Midwest.

206 MINNESOTA History of early blue beads in some numbers, with handle knives, rapiers, daggers, plate armor, the absence of other types, places the death specialized carpenter's and other craft tools, date for tbe Fort Ancient cultures very and the first Dutch pottery pipes appear. shortly after 1600. Wampum belts occur as grave offerings, and wampum beads are more abundant than THE FOURTH STAGE, marked by the first at any other time. Extended burials begin to appearance of firearms in northeastern sites, occur, reflecting changes in sleeping posture is usually merged into sites with a longer that came with the use of woolen clothing occupation and can only be segregated and bedding. Objects made of tin plate are through study of grave-lot association. How­ noted for the first time — doubtless from the ever, one Seneca site near Rochester Junc­ shops of Saxony. tion, New York, was occupied for just the Glass beads are found in huge quantities. proper interval to define this stage. It is be­ Most of them are cylindrical, the size and lieved to date from about 1630. shape of belt wampum, in a variety of colors The guns are mainly primitive or transi­ and stripings. A few polychrome spherical tional fiintlock mechanisms: snaphaunces, beads of the "Venetian" type occur, and the dog locks, and Jacobean locks. The sudden only necklaces made up entirely of this type abundance of firearms, coincident with the come from sites of this age. The most spec­ early period of invention in firelock mecha­ tacular bead type of all, a chevron bead the nisms, speaks eloquently about the economic size of a pullet egg, is found only at this importance of the fur trade. Rochester Junc­ stage, but it is mainly represented by broken tion was far better armed than Jamestown. fragments scattered on village sites. Susquehanna communities of the same age The sixth and last stage in great native are equally well supplied with guns, mark­ wealth, and the stage of complete decadence ing the beginning of a new era in Indian in native crafts in the Northeast, was from warfare. 1660 to 1700. Except for beads, tiade goods Beads of this stage are distinctive. Most are eccentric; we even have a French pewter of them are small spherical and seed beads chamber pot from a Susquehanna grave, a in a wide variety of colors, most of them refinement which could scarcely have been monochrome. They are coated with a thin found in Baltimore or New York at this time. layer of crystal clear glass, giving them a Long pewter pipes with animal and human brilliance unequaled in any other stage. figures perched on the front rim of the bowl Beads shaped like a grain of maize and made are ordinary; no European records or paral­ of brilliant transparent yellow and green lels are known. crown glass, and seed beads of the same Glass beads are monotonous and without glass are common, but they are generally interest; practically every one is a pea-sized deeply corroded, with an opaque white and pea-shaped mass of monochrome dull chalky surface. Large spherical dull black black glass or Indian-red glass, with a few beads with spirals and guilloches enameled green equivalents. Seed beads of the same in yellow or white are another distinctive glasses are common but have usually been type limited to this stage. lost in digging graves of this period. Prac­ Sites of 1640-60 are sharply delimited tically no beads of any other type are found. as a stage among the Seneca, but the Susque­ Discs cut from broken delft plates are hanna towns had a longer time range, and found in Indian sites of this age. Similar there the fifth stage can be separated only discs from Colonial white sites, such as through the analysis of grave lots. Guns were Brunswick Town, North Carolina, are inter­ abundant, arrowheads scarcely present; na­ preted as checkers. Since there are no Euro­ tive pottery was obsolescent, brass kettles pean dishes in the Indian sites of the same in normal use. Seal-handle spoons, apostle- age, the discs probably were gaming pieces

Winter 1966 207 made in white settlements. Bottles occur for plucked out the guard hairs, which made the first time in abundance in the Susque­ the pelt differ from shorn beaver in that the hanna sites. Some are Rhenish stoneware stiff long hairs had been completely removed jugs, others are square glass case bottles. rather than cut off at the level of the soft However, every site produces a few unique underfur. Tanning and plucking beaver items, unknown in the surviving collections meant many days of work by Indian women, of Europe and not previously found in the and women had much to say in the negotia­ course of excavation. A few decanters of Ve­ tions of the trade. netian glass, odd pieces of pewter, and some Even more important was the existence peculiar steel tools and weapons represent of a unique market. American beaver was types not otherwise known. not used in Europe at this time but went to the fur auctions in Moscow, from which it MAJOR EVENTS in the Northeast had run was transshipped to unidentified Oriental their course long before 1700. The Huron markets. American beaver was in little de­ tribe had been destioyed by the Iroquois in mand among hatters in the early period, 1648. Thus the Huron sites provide us with since European beaver — until its extinc­ a good cutoff date for certain types of trade tion — was the preferred material for felting goods. After 1648, the Iroquois dominated into hats. the northern trade routes over the French Pennsylvania Indians tiaveling to coastal River to the west, and held the Missisauga, ports in 1675 received a rude awakening on the Amikwa, and the Chippewa subject as the eve of their death at Seneca and Cayuga canoemen in the trade across the northern hands. Beaver was suddenly worth much rivers and lakes. War with the Susquehanna less. The Oriental market had collapsed, and for control of more southerly routes to the the only remaining demand was from hat­ interior was intensified. ters, who bought American beaver as a poor The Iroquois nearly exterminated the Sus­ substitute for the beaver of Europe. The quehanna in 1675, thus providing us with great age of American Indian wealth had another secure cutoff date for several kinds ended forever. of trade goods. The Seneca, dominant in the After 1700 guns were rarely placed in Iroquois confederacy, were next doomed. In graves, and all trade goods were less abun­ 1687 a French army of voyageurs, adventur­ dant. Sites are smaller, and total populations ers, and Christian Indians under the Mar­ were vastly reduced. The most distinctive quis de Denonville fell upon the Seneca bead types of this stage are large, translu­ country. They burned every Seneca commu­ cent, spherical or polyhedral forms which nity and killed many of the people. The were made by spinning a band of molten towns burned by Denonville have been iden­ glass upon a spindle or wffe. Some are tified in the ground and are our major anchor spheres of milk glass, opalescent, white from point for seriations within the historic Sen­ air bubbles whipped into the molten glass. eca sites. From 1675 until the close of the Others were faceted by stiokes of a flat or American Revolution, Seneca remnants were floral-carved paddle. A variety of tubular engaged in bitter warfare with the Chero­ and wampum-shaped beads occurs in bright kee and Catawba of the Carolinas and with colors; they often show striations from hav­ the Miami of western Ohio. But the no man's ing been drawn through a die before they land had become so broad that conclusive were cut into segments. Die-drawing of victories were impossible, and only raids for beads was apparently a new technique in murder could be accomplished. the glass industry of the early 1700s. Beaver was the great fur in early Colonial Quartz beads are a scant but characteris­ commerce. Two features account for its tic feature in sites of this age. They were value. The first was Indian labor: Indians made in India and were cut from rock crys-

208 MINNESOTA History tal, sard, and carnelian. Bottle fragments are abundant. Pots or buckets of tin plate had largely replaced tbe more expensive brass kettles. Small triangles of blue and white agate glass (faked agate), sawed to shape and perforated at one corner, were worn suspended from a hole in the septum of tbe nose. Minnesota catlinite, worked into beads, pendants, and calumets, also occurs in some abundance for the first time. TO THE ARCHAEOLOGISTS sifting the Eastern sites of the Seneca, Delawares, soil of Indian graves and village sites, the Conoy, Shawnee, and others contain beads fur trade appears witb two distinct facets. from the 1700-50 interval intermixed with Its history is part of the development of all the bead types of 1630-90. In ceme­ European technology and commerce; it is teries of the earlier sites from 25 to 90 per also a chapter in the story of American In­ cent of the graves have been looted, but only dian cultures. Our studies of the successive beads and wampum have been removed. stages in tbe growth of the fur trade and of Some were disturbed when the bodies were tbe object contents of each contribute to still partly articulated, for bones are scat­ both areas of knowledge. Tbe European tered on the grave bottom, not mixed into framework is that of technical advance, eco­ tbe fill. Thus the grave cover had been in­ nomic expansion, and the evolution of craft tact enough so that the whole burial could guild, shop factory, and factory. The Indian be removed without dissecting away the context is that of technological decay, social soil. Often a leaf-mold lens in the depression disintegration, and dependency. at the top of the grave fill indicates that it In our growing picture of the Indian and was looted before the site was first plowed. white history of Colonial and Federal times, Thus the evidence is clear that as their pros­ more emphasis is being placed on the archae­ perity declined the eastern tribes were re­ ology of Indian sites. Those from the earliest duced to the expedient of digging the graves stage call for greater study, and many areas, of their grandfathers for wampum. such as the Deep South and the Canadian Seaboard, have scarcely been touched. The need is critical, for the vandalistic collector is destroying sites neglected by the student.

A^

Winter 1966 209 Mr. Clayton, who is on the faculty of the University of Utah, is serving this year as visiting assistant professor at Dartmouth College. He is the author of an article on "The Impact of Defense Spending on Utah's Population Growth, 1940-1964," published in the Summer, 1966, issue of the Utah Historical Quarterly.

The Growth and Economic Significance of the AMERICAN FUR TRADE, 1790-1890

JAMES L. CLAYTON

ALTHOUGH there are excellent works on exotic species of fur bearers, such as the fur almost every aspect of the American fur seal, and some very common but not exotic trade, an over-all statistical study has never furs, such as the raccoon, have been ex­ been compiled. Consequently, while most cluded from many fur trade studies for rea­ of the virile adventures of fur trade history sons that are not entirely clear. have been told in vivid detail, several funda­ American fur traders usually divided theff mental questions of considerable signifi­ pelts into four categories: furs, skins, robes, cance have been left unanswered. Foremost and hides. Under "furs" were grouped all among these questions are: To what extent, of the fur-bearing rodents (including the if any, was the fur trade related economi­ fiber-producing beaver), felines, canines, cally to the westward movement? Did the weasels, and marsupials. "Skins" almost al­ fur trade ever have real economic impor­ ways meant those of deer, bear, or raccoon, tance, either nationally or by region? Was but might include a few elk, moose, and, the center of its operations always in tbe later, antelope. A "robe" always referred to Far West? Was the beaver actually the lead­ ing fur, or did it only appear to be? Finally, ^This study is arbitrarily limited to the United were the famous trading companies we States during the century 1790-1890 because sub­ stantial fur trade data of a statistical nature already know so much about more important than exists for the Colonial period — see Murry G. Law- tbe thousands of independent traders who son, Fur: A Study in English Mercantilism, 1700- left few if any records? The answers to these 1775 (Toronto, 1943)^—and because the frontier had virtually disappeared by 1890. By "United and similar questions can be approached States" is meant not only the territory within its only through statistical methods.^ jurisdiction but also the territorial waters and furs taken on the high seas by hunters flying the Stars and Stripes. The writer has chosen the path of con­ THE USE of the word "fur" in such a study formity rather than accuracy in using "United needs careful definition at the outset. As States" and "America" synonymously — a practice for which he owes an apology to Canadian and employed here the term includes all animal Mexican readers. Finally, a note of gratitude to peltries of commercial significance used as several persons who have made helpful comments material in lining or trimming articles of on this paper: Dale L. Morgan, Oscar O. Winther, Douglass C. North, Paul W. Gates, David M. Ellis, wearing apparel, or for constructing entffe John E. Sunder, and some whose names are not garments. Heretofore, certain somewhat known to the writer.

210 MINNESOTA History one side of a winter-killed buffalo cow or sary to determine the number, kind, and of a young bull dressed with the fur on, and value of all pelts gathered throughout the a "hide" was the full pelt of a summer-killed United States for every year in question. buffalo cow, dressed without the hair, or of This is impossible. Such data exists neither a short-haffed bull. These definitions will be for the country as a whole nor for any given foUowed throughout this paper. When the region within it. There are accurate produc­ term "furs" alone is used, it is meant to in­ tion records for a few of the larger com­ clude skins also, where appropriate. panies during a limited number of years, To acquire reliable data on the growth of but such data alone is too scanty to show the American fur trade for the period 1790 production flows by region.^ to 1890, when the buffalo herds were gone, Fortunately there are other ways of meas­ the frontier was settled, and urbanism was uring the growth of the fur trade. All avail­ well advanced, it would normally be neces- able data indicates that before the Civil War the bulk of American furs were ex­ " Among a dozen depositories, the most complete ported rather than consumed at home. Rec­ American Fur Company production statistics seen ords of the leading fur companies clearly by the writer are in the company records at the New-York Historical Society. All American Fur testify to this. They are substantiated by the Company papers cited in this article are in this census returns of 1840, the only year in which collection. the trade was surveyed, and by a statement " See especially "Furs and Skins," American Fur Company Papers; "Packing Book, 1830-33," and of the leading fur merchant in London. For "Fur Sales at New York City, 1859-64," Chouteau the decades following the Civil War, sup­ Collection in the Missouri Historical Society, St. porting data is less voluminous but no con­ Louis. Returns of the 1840 census show that furs and skins worth $1,065,896 were gathered in the trary evidence is apparent, and the pattern United States that year; the secretary of the treas­ of exports remained unchanged. Export ury reported that furs and skins exported for the figures, therefore, are tbe most reliable indi­ year beginning October 1, 1839, were valued at $1,237,789. In 1842 Niles Weekly Register said the cators of the growth of the American fur value of furs and skins gathered in that year was trade during the nineteenth century.^ $760,214. Exports for the year beginning October 1, 1841, amounted to $598,000. These figures, al­ During the whole of this period the ma­ though not absolutely reliable, tend to substantiate jority of furs shipped abroad went to Great available company records. United States Census, Britain. Figures compiled before 1822 are 1840, Statistics of the United States, 408; 26 Con­ gress, 2 session, House Executive Documents, no. not always reliable, but from that date until 122, p. 252 (serial 386); 27 Congress, 3 session, 1890 Great Britain received 74 per cent by House Documents, no. 220, p. 10, 46 (serial 425); value of all United States fur exports. A Niles Weekly Register, 63:27 (1842). C. M. Lamp- son, London's leading fur merchant of the time, record was also kept of both the number and maintained that the whole of the American fur kind of furs shipped from the United States crop eventually found its way to the London mar­ to Great Britain; consequently, the trends ket. Lampson to Ramsay Crooks, December 1, 1845, American Fur Company Papers. For a thorough of the trade for that period can be deter­ bibhography on the economics of the post-Civil War mined with reasonable accuracy. Henry fur trade, see Ernest Thomas Seton, Life-Histories Poland compiled a list of fur importations of Northern Animals: An Account of the Mammals of Manitoba, 2:1203-1220 (New York, 1909). into Great Britain by species and origin for * Poland, Fur-Bearing Animals in Nature and every year from 1763 to 1891. This record is Commerce, xxvii-xxx (London, 1892). Figures on the best starting point for any extended fur exports may be found in the annual treasury analysis of the fur trade of North America.* reports, published as House Executive Documents and also bound separately after 1817 as Annual Re­ Historians have been reluctant to use ports of the Secretary of the Treasury. These figures Poland's data, possibly because the sources have been compiled for the years prior to 1884 in 48 Congress, 1 session, House Miscellaneous Docu­ cannot be verified. When corroborated by ments, no. 49, part 2, p. 32, 130 (serial 2236). They available records of tbe major American fur are lacking for the years 1792-95. Herein they are companies and by data from government cited as Secretary of the Treasury, Annual Reports, except where a specific report is quoted. sources, however, Poland's figures can be

Winter 1966 211 most valuable for showing trends over a from the United States to Great Britain in­ fairly long period. For example, his general creased substantially in every decade from accuracy can be checked by valuing each 1820 to 1890. His data is substantiated by species of fur bearer according to the prices the annual reports of the secretary of the offered by the American Fur Company for treasury, which show that the value of fur number 1 prime skins, less 20 per cent for exports to Great Britain increased in every nonprime skins. The writer did this for all decade. Together, these figures indicate that years from 1820 to 1850, except six for which the American fur trade underwent consider­ price data is unavailable. Poland's figures able growth from 1820 to 1860 instead of were found to be within 10 per cent of the declining, as many have supposed. More value of fur exports to Great Britain as listed important, they show that a further fivefold in the annual reports of the secretary of the increase in exports occurred between 1860 treasury. Again, one may also check Poland's and 1890. Paradoxically, this later period of tabulations for the major fur bearers during greatest expansion has received the least at­ the years 1831-43 against those given in tention from historians. John MacGregor's Commercial Statistics (1850). Although the data often differs NOT ALL of the furs exported increased in widely for any given year, the trends are quantity during this period, and some ac­ invariably the same.® tually declined. According to Poland, of the Prior to 1822, Poland's data is not very twelve varieties shipped to Great Britain useful. His figures are rounded and appear prior to the Civil War, there was a sub- to be estimates rather than tabulations, and tantial and steady increase in muskrat, rac­ before the 1820s many British companies coon, fox, and mink, and a moderate increase were gathering furs within the United States in deer, otter, and wolf. The number of fisher and their returns cannot be separated from and bear pelts rose in the 1830s but dimin­ Poland's figures. For this period, therefore, ished thereafter. Only two furs decreased one must rely on United States export tabu­ consistently: beaver and marten. Poland's lations alone. figures clearly indicate a general pattern of Judging from the annual reports of the growth during the years 1820-60, not simply secretary of the treasury, the American fur a large increase in one or two furs. trade grew rapidly during the latter part These trends are substantiated by the of the 1790s, fell off somewhat at the turn of available records of the major companies the century, and then almost doubled its engaged in the trade before the Civil War. production until it was cut short by the em­ The American Fur Company — by far the bargo of 1808. Thereafter it languished until largest and most important trading concern the close of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, in the United States at that time — kept ac­ only to rise again with renewed vigor as curate lists of all furs received from its out­ Europeans, long deprived of luxuries, began fits. These are available in summary form buying furs in large quantities. Unfortunate­ for the years 1829-31 and in complete detail ly, there seems to be no way of breaking for 1834-45. The Chouteau companies of down the trade on a fur-by-fur basis for St. Louis kept a partial record of the furs these early years. All authorities agree, how­ and skins marketed, and this information is ever, that the beaver was of commanding also available for the years 1831, 1835-39, importance. Beginning in the 1820s the American fur "Poland's figures may have come from Hudson's trade entered a period of sustained growth Bay Company records, from trade information avail­ able when he compiled his work, or from His which was not to abate until the Great De­ Majesty's Custom and Excise. Alice M. Johnson of pression of the 1930s. According to Poland, the Hudson's Bay Record Society, London, to the the total number of furs and skins exported author, June 26, 1962; R. W. Hyman of the British Museum, London, to the author, June 25, 1962.

212 MINNESOTA History and 1860-61. This data represents a sizable value of furs and skins exported from this percentage of the United States fur returns country are available in the United States from the late 1820s to the early 1860s.« Treasury reports for all but four years since To illustrate, from 1829 to 1831 the 1790. Although they are probably not abso­ American Fur Company harvested annually lutely accurate for any single year prior to an average of 708,000 furs, mostly muskrat, the 1820s, they show conclusively that ex­ raccoon, deer, and beaver. These figures in­ cept for tbe period of the embargo and tbe clude the harvest from both the Far West War of 1812 tbe value of exports was steadily and the Great Lakes region. A decade later, growing from 1796 to 1890. It is apparent from 1835 to 1842, the American Fur Com­ that the rate of growth from the 1820s to pany, having yielded its territory west of the 1890s, measured by value of exports, is the Missouri River to the Chouteaus, aver­ somewhat less than when measured by the aged 589,000 robes, furs, and skins annually. numbers of furs and skins shipped to Great These returns, however, were for the Great Britain. This difference is easily explained. Lakes region alone. Add to this approxi­ The furs which constituted the bulk of the mately 214,000 furs that were marketed export trade depreciated in value; if an in­ yearly by the American Fur Company for crease in price occurred, it lagged con­ the various Chouteau companies. These furs siderably behind the proportionate increase were included in the earlier figure, and if in numbers. The average annual price of they are taken into account the total is muskrat skins in the 1850s, for example, was 803,000 compared with 708,000 for tbe 1829- only nine cents; hence, althougb the number 31 period. This is an impressive increase in of muskrats exported to England increased light of the fact that by 1835-42 the fur by 8,930,000 during the decade, the value trading area bad been considerably reduced added was only $80,280.'^ Also, those furs by settlement. that increased most rapidly in numbers were The growth of the American fur trade generally the least valuable. from 1820 to 1860 can also be shown by the Thus far we have said nothing about the value of furs harvested. This method of growth of the trade in relation to the domes­ measurement affords a number of insights tic market. What evidence we have — and not apparent if the trade is gauged by num­ it is admittedly scanty — suggests that no bers only. Figures for the average annual single pelt was of greater importance during the second (and possibly the third) quarter " See 22 Congress, 1 session, Senate Documents, of tbe nineteenth century in the domestic vol. 2, no. 90, p. 78 (serial 213); "Furs and Skins, market than the buffalo robe.'* In every year 1834-42," and "Receiving Books," vol. 3-6, Ameri­ can Fur Company Papers; "Packing Book, 1830- for which we have reliable records of peltries 33," Chouteau Collection. sold by the Chouteaus, robes were from two ' Figures on muskrat skins are calculated from a to three times more valuable in the aggre­ table in Anne Bezanson, Robert D. Gray, and Miriam Hussey, Wholesale Prices in Philadelphia, gate than any other pelt. By the early 1860s, 1784-1861, 2:150 (Philadelphia, 1936). Bezanson's robes represented almost 90 per cent by price data is based on the average monthly price of value of all pelts marketed by that com­ number 1 prime muskrat at Philadelphia, second only to New York City as a fur marketing center in pany. Buffalo robes were second in aggre­ the United States. World prices were set at London gate value in the returns of tbe American and Leipzig. Fur Company from 1835 to 1842. " The most useful studies of the economic aspects of the buffalo robe trade are Frank Gilbert Roe, The Beyond a crude estimate, the number of North American Buffalo (Toronto, 1951); William robes marketed in the United States during T. Hornaday, "The Extermination of the American Bison," in Smithsonian Institution, Annual Report, any decade is undeterminable. For the part 2, p. 367 (Washington, 1889); Seton, Life- 1820s, receipts at New Orleans are probably Histories of Northern Animals, 1:247-303; Martin the best indicator of robes harvested. From S. Garretson, The American Bison (New York, 1938). 1822 to 1830 an annual average of 8,689

Winter 1966 213 packs or approximately 104,000 robes was Prom 1828 to 1833 the fur trade grew deposited for reshipment to New York City. vigorously and during this period almost all During the 1830s this figure fell to 3,140 of the companies expanded operations. Ex­ packs or about 37,600 robes per year, but by ports rose steadily from $442,000 in 1827 to that time many western robes were begin­ $842,000 in 1833, the latter figure the highest ning to be shipped via more northerly routes for any year since the War of 1812. The to eastern and midwestern markets. Avail­ price of beaver averaged $5.99 per pound in able data for St. Louis receipts during the Philadelphia during these years and was 1830s indicates that about 90,000 robes per higher than for any comparable time be­ year were sent down the Missouri River, tween 1784 and 1861.^^ This five-year period and this increased to 100,000 per year dur­ is sometimes considered the heyday of the ing the 1850s and 1860s.9 Beyond this, one American fur trade. If one compares it only cannot be specific. The domestic trade in with the years immediately preceding and furs was probably never as important, how­ considers beaver alone, such an interpreta­ ever, as the export trade. tion is partially justified. It is more correct, however, to view the late 1820s and early AS TO the nature of tbe American fur trade, 1830s as the last vigorous gasp of a dying it is abundantly clear that it may be divided era, whose glory was perched perilously on economically into three major eras charac­ high prices and romantic exploits rather than terized by the dominant fur of the time. upon solid production. From 1790 to the 1820s this was, of course, In 1834 the substantial control of the trade the beaver. Through the 1860s the raccoon by the American Fur Company was broken was most important, and from the 1870s to when John Jacob Astor sold out to his part­ the 1890s the fur seal predominated. ners, Ramsay Crooks, Pierre Chouteau, Jr., The era of the beaver is the best under­ and others. Before that year the firm had stood and on it there is little new informa­ probably controlled about three fourths of tion to offer. The tiade in beaver reached its the export market, but thereafter the com­ apogee during the first decade of the nine­ pany, together with its exclusive agents, teenth century. These ten years saw pelts was to be content with about haff the mar­ estimated at $160,000 sent to Great Brffain ket. By the late 1830s new concerns had annually. Following the War of 1812, pro­ moved into areas previously controlled by duction fell markedly. According to Poland the American Fur Company, and unusually the number of beaver skins imported into bitter competition was the result. This was Great Britain from the United States plum­ notably the case in the Ohio Valley — a meted from about 56,000 annually between prolific fur-producing region — where the 1818 and 1822 to less than 7,000 yearly from firms of George and William Ewing pressed 1823 to 1827. Because before 1822 beaver the older company especially hard. As a di­ exports had represented more value than all rect consequence of this renewed competi- other furs combined, the removal of this bul­ wark brought a decline in the trade as a " See Roe, The North American Buffalo, 489-520; Hornaday, in Smithsonian Institution, Annual Re­ whole. In 1825, however, the price of beaver port, part 2, p. 502; Merrill Burfingame, "The Buf­ began to rise rapidly and by 1830 it had al­ falo in Trade and Commerce," in North Dakota most doubled. This increase naturally led Historical Quarterly, 3:262-291 (July, 1929). '" Poland, Fur-Bearing Animals, xxvii-xxx; Bezan­ to more vigorous and extensive trapping, son, Gray, and Hussey, Wholesale Prices in Phila­ particularly in the Far West, and in 1828 delphia, 1784-1861, 2:7; Isaac Lippincott, A Cen­ exports were rising again. Receipts of furs tury and a Half of Fur Trade at St. Louis, 233-239 (Washington University, Studies, vol. 3 — St. Louis, at New Orleans, for example, show a steady 1915). increase from 24,000 pelts in 1827 to over " Calculated from a table in Bezanson, Gray, and 96,000 pelts in 1833. i« Hussey, Wholesale Prices in Philadelphia, 1784r- 1861, 2:7.

214 MINNESOTA History tion, the quantity and value of fur exports dominant fur in the American trade. Rac­ doubled after 1838, and in 1840 they were coon exports to England during the 1830s larger than for any previous year in the cen­ more than doubled over the previous dec­ tury. ^^ ade, rising to above 2,500,000, with a value Contrary to some accounts, figures indi­ estimated at $1,431,000." Moreover, unlike cate that the depression of 1837-39 had lfftle beaver, substantial numbers of raccoon pelts effect on the American fur trade. Tbe value were retained in the United States for use of exports remained stable from 1836 to as hats, coats, and trim. Unfortunately there 1838; thereafter it rose sharply until 1841. is no way of measuring the extent of this Prices were set by the London auctions, and domestic trade, although it was undoubtedly European demand held steady until May, large. 1841, when the market collapsed, as it did This shift not only marked the end of an periodically. By 1843 exports had experi­ epoch but also the end of a process as old enced the severest decline since the 1820s. as the trade itself. From the very beginning Beaver dropped to $2.62 per pound, the of the North American fur trade, the beaver lowest price since 1809, and muskrat fell to had been the most sought-after fur bearer. the lowest figure since the American Revolu­ Strangely enough, it was popular not for its tion, except for a short period in 1838-39. pelt but for its fiber, the short, downy gray Even with this disastrous situation, how­ felt at the base of the guard hairs. This fiber ever, the average annual value of exported was pounded, mashed, stiffened, and rolled furs from 1840 through 1845 was higher than into hats by experts in Europe. In the 1830s for any peak year since the War of 1812. ^^ wool, silk, and other materials came into use The key to this incongruous situation is for hats. Strictly speaking, therefore, the not hard to find. During the mid-1830s period before the 1830s should be called the the ubiquitous and unpretentious raccoon fiber trade and not the fur trade, because quietly replaced the august beaver as the the "fine fur" bearers played only a minor role in comparison with the beaver. ^ 22 Congress, 1 session. Senate Documents, vol. 2, no. 90, p. 78; Secretary of the Treasury, Anntml Reports. The Detroit Department of the American THE PLACE of the raccoon as a fur bearer Fur Company harvested 132,000 furs in 1838, and is not generally recognized. It was trapped increased competition raised this figure to 727,000 by 1840; see "Furs and Skins," in American Fur in significant numbers only to the north of Company Papers. the Ohio River, and that area received little '" Bezanson, Gray, and Hussey, Wholesale Prices attention from writers on the fur trade after in Philadelphia, 1784-1861, 2:7, 150; Secretary of the Treasury, Annual Reports; Anne Bezanson et al.. the raccoon became important. Outside the Wholesale Prices in Philadelphia, 1852-1896, 269 Great Lakes region the raccoon was of no (Philadelphia, 1954); Poland, Fur-Bearing Animals, significance. Only a few were found in xxx—xxxii. "Seton believed that not more than half of the Canada and the Far West. Within the Ohio raccoons killed were marketed in London. Life- Valley, the raccoon was trapped primarily Histories of Northern Animals, 2:1017. in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, but it was '° Of the 561,000 raccoons gathered by the Ameri­ can Fur Company in 1835-^2, almost 500,000 came found in considerable numbers throughout from the Ohio Valley. On the natural habitat of the the region. The finest pelts came from the raccoon, see Seton, Life-Histories of Northern Ani­ Kankakee and White River basins in Indiana mals, 2:1013; John James Audubon, Quadrupeds of North America, volume 2, under "raccoon" (New and were darker in color than those taken York, 1849). On the raccoon trade, see Bert Anson, elsewhere, some being almost completely "The Fur Traders in Northern Indiana: 1796- black. Those taken to the east of this region 1850," Ph.D. thesis. University of Indiana, 1943; Anne Ratterman, "The Struggle for Monopoly of the were nearly as good, but raccoons from Fur Trade," Master's thesis. University of Minne­ south of the Ohio had short, thin pelts and sota, 1927. References to the basins of the Kankakee were not marketable.^® and White rivers in Indiana are numerous in the American Fur Company Papers. Several factors were responsible for the

Winter 1966 215 increased significance of the raccoon trade. Company received over two thirds the value In 1837 the Russians lowered their fur tariff, of its stock in government money and paid and raccoon skins were particularly sought dividends totaling 50 per cent. Although after by Russian Jews and Poles, who payments to other firms are not so well demanded coonskin caps a la Davy Crockett. documented, it is known that the Ewings of The czar interdicted their use in 1846, but Indiana continued their fur trading opera­ in the meantime demand for the heavy, tions long after these had ceased to be long-haired, densely furred pelts had risen profitable, solely as an excuse for submitting in Germany, where they were used not only further claims.^* Thus, when the demand for for hats but for trimming coats and were raccoon increased, conditions for meeting it preferred to the lighter, less bulky furs in use were unusually propitious. today. During these years almost all raccoon The price of raccoon varied widely after pelts were sent first to London, where C. M. the late 1830s. Before that a pelt was worth Lampson and Company controlled (and about fifty cents; thereafter sometimes as stabilized) the market, re-exporting in turn much as $1.25. About two thirds of the rac­ to eastern Europe.^^ coon crop of the American Fur Company At the same time a uniquely favorable was graded number 1 prime, and about situation in America aided the expansion of a third of this was labeled "Indian raccoon production. In 1825, at the request Handled." ^^ Such pelts were more care­ of the Osage Indians, the federal govern­ fully cured, usually softened by chewing, ment began to pay individual Indian debts and were consequently worth more. Every to fur traders out of tribal funds. The phi­ effort was made to expedite handling be­ losophy behind this practice was simple: cause tbe raccoon pelt deteriorated faster The government was vitally interested in than most other furs. Indian land cessions to meet the needs of an Despite the Russian interdiction of 1846, expanding population. Since the good will the raccoon continued to dominate the of a trader was often crucial to the success­ American fur trade until after the Civil War. ful conclusion of a treaty. United States According to Henry Poland, over 4,000,000 authorities saw no evil in speeding the pelts were exported to England during the negotiations by providing for the satisfac­ 1840s, almost double the number sent in the tion of traders' claims. This practice — per­ 1830s, and the two decades which followed haps innocuous at first — grew gradually " See especially the correspondence between but steadily until by the late 1830s about Ramsay Crooks and CM. Lampson in the Ameri­ $200,000 was secured annually by traders can Fur Company Papers, and the Crooks-Ewing from Indian treaties, and in 1842 such claims correspondence in the George W. and Wilham G. Ewing Papers, Indiana State Library, Indianapolis. amounted to over $2,000,000. The bulk of " See Charles Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and this money was paid to individuals in the Treaties, 2:220 (Washington, D.C, 1904); 23 Con­ Great Lakes region — the heartland of rac­ gress, 1 session. House Reports, no. 474, vol. 4, p. 95-128 (serial 263); 31 Congress, 1 session. coon production.^'' House Reports of Committees, vol. 3, no. 489 (serial This powerful government subsidy, most 585). Debt claims are provided for in many of the treaties in Kappler, Indian Affairs, volume 2. Claims of which was doled out during the depres­ payments to traders and companies may be found sion years of 1837-42, gave several com­ in the index to the "Special Files," a series of un­ panies and many individual traders a new classified folders in the Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Archives. lease on life and invigorated the region's fur ^^See Ramsay Crooks to Wildes and Company, industry. A small operator with a capital in­ July 30, 1836; John Whetten to William Brewster, vestment of only $1,000 might receive more February 20, 1837; Crooks to Brewster, May 18, 1839; all in American Fur Company Papers; 23 than that amount in claims paid, while large Congress, 1 session. House Reports, no. 474, p. corporations fared even better. From 1835 95-128. to 1838, for example, the American Fur ""Furs and Skins," in American Fur Company Papers.

216 MINNESOTA History accounted for over 9,000,000. Other furs — led to the domestication of mink and the such as muskrat were produced in greater establishment of mink ranches in the United quantities, but their total value was still States during the mid-1870s. Beginning in considerably less than that of raccoon. Al­ 1876, however, the price of mink declined though we do not have reliable price data rapidly and did not rise again until the on all the furs in the trade, it is incontestable twentieth century. that until the 1870s the raccoon continued The growth of the skunk fur industry was to be America's most important fur export.^" about half as fast as that of mink. During the 1860s annual exports of skunk to Great IF POLAND'S FIGURES are reliable for Britain amounted to about 100,000 pelts; showing trends before the Civil War, we by the eighties this figure had tripled. Worth may fairly assume that they continued to be, not more than 25 cents in 1860, the value of and we may use them for the same purpose a skunk pelt rose to $1.00 by 1870 and re­ in the years that followed the conflict. Ex­ mained about there until the 1890s.^^ ports to Great Britain indicate that three It was the fur seal, however, which clear­ furs showed remarkable growth after the ly dominated the American trade from the Civil War: mink, skunk, and fur seal. Dur­ 1870s to the 1890s. No other fur was even ing the 1860s approximately 32,000 mink half so important in aggregate value.^^ In­ were exported annually to Great Britain; deed, the seal was by all odds the most im­ by the end of the eighties this figure had portant pelt economically in the American risen almost tenfold. Behind this increase fur trade until the twentieth century. in mink exports was a rise in price from During the early part of the nineteenth about $2.50 per pelt in 1860 to $4.00 in century, hundreds of thousands of seal pelts 1873.^^ This increase — dictated by fashion were taken from tbe South Pacific. These were usually marketed in China and Russia, but owing to indiscriminate slaughter the ^ Poland, Fur-Bearing Animals, xxx-xxxii; Bezan­ son, Gray, and Hussey, Wholesale Prices in Phila­ seal rookeries in that area were soon de­ delphia, 1784—1861, 2:150. See also Bezanson et al.. pleted. During the early and mid-nineteenth Wholesale Prices in Philadelphia, 1852-1896, 17, century, agents of the Russian government 101, 203, 206, 269, 302. "^ Poland, Fur-Bearing Animals, xxx-xxxii; Bezan­ had also been harvesting about 20,000 fur son et al., Wholesale Prices in Philadelphia, 1852- seals annually from the Bering Sea, but be­ 1896, 302. cause the pelts were poorly cured, demand '"' Poland, Fur-Bearing Animals, xxx-xxxii; Bezan­ son et al.. Wholesale Prices in Philadelphia, 1852- for them was insignificant.^* 1896, 302. With the purchase of Alaska by the United ^ This is based on Poland's returns and Bezan­ son's prices for beaver, muskrat, mink, skunk, rac­ States in 1867, however, the number of coon, and deerskins. For other furs, estimates for fur seals exported from American jurisdic­ scattered years were used. tions increased almost immediately to over ^For the most complete study of the fur seal industry, see United States State Department, Fur 100,000 a year. We have accurate and reason­ Seal Arbitration: Proceedings (Washington, 1895). ably complete data on the fur seal industry Volumes 2, 3, and 9 are especially valuable, specifi­ after that date. The United States govern­ cally, 2:264-267, 9:529-534. The best authority on the subject is Henry W. Elliott. See especially his ment in 1870 awarded a twenty-year lease of "The Fur Seal Industry of the Pribylov Islands, the seal fisheries on the Pribilof Islands to Alaska," in George Goode, The Fisheries and Fish­ the Alaska Commercial Company, which ery Industries of the United States, 2:321 (Wash­ ington, 1887); and his report in 54 Congress, 1 was allowed to harvest 100,000 mature session. House Documents, vol. 54, no. 175 (serial bachelor seals annually, paying in return a 3421). yearly rent of $55,000, and $2.62 in taxes on '^ Appendix to the Case of the United States be­ fore the Tribunal of Arbitration, 1:104 (Washington, each pelt taken. From 1870 to 1890 the com­ 1892). This is bound with Fur Seal Arbitration, vol. pany harvested over 1,800,000 fur seals at 2. See also 63 Congress, 2 session. House Reports an estimated profit of $18,754,000.^5 (Public), vol. 2, no. 500, part 1, p. 1.

Winter 1966 217 During this period the industiy was de­ with the growth pattern just discussed. From veloped under careful management and in the 1790s to the War of 1812 there were no co-operation with C. M. Lampson and Com­ powerful fur trading monopolies in the pany of London, consignee for nearly all United States.^^ The sea otter tiade was han­ Alaska sealskins. Improvements in dyeing, dled by a number of small merchants in constancy of supply, and considerable adver­ Boston, seals were sought by an entirely dif­ tising encouraged expansion in the market ferent group, and beavers were taken by and a consequent rise in price from $5.26 per literally hundreds of individuals. Competi­ pelt in 1870 to a high of $35.47 for superior tion was fairly open and exports were heavy, lots in 1890. The skins were shipped first to amounting to well over $800,000 annually the west coast of the United States and during the peak years 1804-07. During the thence to London. After being sold there 1820s and 1830s, however, when large and they were dyed and dressed, and then about powerful concerns such as the American Fur 75 per cent of the total crop was re-exported Company, the Rocky Mountain Fur Com­ to the United States. When they entered, an pany, and the Chouteau companies sent import tax of 20 per cent ad valorem was hundreds of men great distances into the levied. Thereafter the pelts were dressed wilderness in search of pelts, exports fell. again, cut, and finally sold for trimming on Indeed, only in one year (1833) did fur coats, sleigh robes, and other popular items. exports exceed $800,000 during the two What had begun on the misty rookeries as a decades. These figures give the impression fatty fur worth a few dollars was finally sold that large companies and monopolistic prac­ for about $70.2« tices tended to retard rather than expand In 1890 a new twenty-year lease was production. granted to another concern, but the era of This impression is strengthened by the the fur seal was virtually over. Although history of subsequent decades. By the early between 1890 and 1910 only 343,356 seals 1840s most of the large and famous com­ were harvested on the islands, and in 1893 panies either were leaving the scene or were a treaty was signed limiting the wasteful restricting their activities and taking propor­ practice of pelagic sealing, by 1910 a mere tionately fewer furs than before. Replacing 133,000 fur seals remained.^^ them was a host of farmers, lumbermen, and The aggregate value of pelts taken from other permanent settlers who began trap­ 1870 to 1891 was $29,788,582. In addition to ping in their spare time. Again exports in­ this, the United States government had re­ creased markedly, rising to over $1,000,000 ceived $4,894,323 in taxes and $1,100,000 in annually in 1840, 1845, 1846, and from 1857 rent under the lease with the Alaska Com­ to 1861. This change is made graphic by mercial Company. Not to be neglected is comparing the number of furs sent down the more than $3,000,000 in tariff revenue from Missouri River to St. Louis by the "moun­ the dressed skins shipped back from London tain men" (most of whom worked for some for final processing and sale in the United concern) with those sent by farmers and States.28 All told, almost $40,000,000 was other part-time trappers of a later day. Dur­ added to the United States economy by the ing the era of the mountain men, seldom fur seal industry during these two decades, were more than 3,000 packs of furs sent via or about eight times the total returns for the Missouri to St. Louis. From 1879-88 an beaver before the Civil War. "'For a summary of this subject, see Fur Seal LOOKING BACK to 1790, one is particu­ Arbitration, 2:187-218. ^ 63 Congress, 2 session. House Reports (Public), larly struck by two major organizational vol. 2, no. 500, part 1, p. 2. changes in the American fur trade during '^Fur Seal Arbitration, 3:540-547. its first century which correspond closely =»See Paul C Philhps, The Fur Trade, 2:54, 57, 99, 100, 137, 152 (Norman, Oklahoma, 1961).

218 MINNESOTA Htstory average of 19,000 packs arrived. There may states combined. Three other Middle Atlan­ have been some difference in the size of the tic states — Connecticut, New Jersey, and packs for these two periods, but it is unlikely Pennsylvania — together almost equaled that a sixfold difference existed. It seems New York, an indication that the fur indus­ certain therefore that the ubiquitous part- try of the United States was a highly con­ time trapper — the unheralded "egg-money centrated one. In the Midwest Chicago, St. man" — was of considerably more economic Paul, and Detroit were the most important importance than the famous mountain fur-processing centers, and in the Far West 30 man. only San Francisco had a fur industry worth The second major organizational change talking about. ^^ in the trade relates to the pattern of market­ ing. In 1870 there were less than two hundred THE ABOVE data on the growth of the fur furriers in the United States. They employed trade, its three distinct eras of production, 2,900 people and had a gross product of and its shifting organizational patterns sug­ $8,900,000. By the end of the century, how­ gest a number of conclusions: ever, the number of furriers had grown First, the American fur trade was never fivefold. They then employed over 27,000 very important economically, even in its workers and had a capital investment of palmiest days. This is true for the Colonial $30,000,000 and a gross product of over period and for the present century as well. $55,000,000. The basic reason for this spurt Regardless of continued growth, the fur in activity was a rapid increase in tbe num­ trade as a business simply did not amount ber of persons in the United States able to to much, any time, anywhere. Despite the buy luxuries. This enhanced demand was romanticism in which it has been wrapped stimulated by increased advertising. for many years, despite the number of books During those thirty years the United States about it which continue to appear, it was had begun importing more furs than it ex­ actually of no importance to the economy of ported, thus meeting to a large extent the the United States as a whole, and nearly the needs of the wealthier group within its rising same is true of its regional significance. population and at the same time beginning Second, it is incorrect to speak, as some to challenge the traditional European fur have done, of the "decline of tbe American processing centers of London and Leipzig. fur trade" for any extended period during By 1900 over $12,000,000 in duty-free and the nineteenth century. Except for tbe 1820s dutiable skins were entering the United and 1880s, fur exports increased, often sub­ States market — three times the quantity stantially, in every decade. As one type of exported. Most of these came partly proc­ pelt fell off in importance, it was simply essed from Great Britain and Germany. By replaced by another. Nor did the American the end of World War I this shift was com­ fur trade decline in relative economic sig­ pleted and the United States was the world's nificance, for all during the century it repre­ leading marketer of furs.^^ sented approximately 1 per cent of total As one might expect. New York State exports. had almost as many furriers as all other Third, the popular idea that the coming of civihzation automatically caused the fur " Lippincott, A Century and a Half of Fur Trade, 233-239; 51 Congress, 1 session. House Executive trade to decline must be discarded. It not Documents, no. 6, part 2, p. 391 (serial 2738). only grew with increased settlement, but on ^ United States Census, 1870 Compendium, p. at least one occasion its principal base of 802; 1900, Manufactures, part 1, p. 8, 218-223, 537; Secretary of the Treasury, Annual Reports. operations actually shifted toward the center See also Harold A. Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada, of population and away from the frontier. 386-392 (Toronto, 1956). The beaver, bear, fur seal, and buffalo de­ "" United States Census, 1890, Manufactures, clined with the westward movement, but part 1, p. 334-639. Winter 1966 219 the smaller animals such as the raccoon, tion may also have doubled, but during the mink, and muskrat seemed to thrive as set­ 1870s the raccoon was overwhelmed in im­ tlement increased. In short, the inevitable portance by the fur seal, whose aggregate thrust of civilization actually stimulated the value in that decade was almost five times vigor of the fur trade and enhanced its rela­ greater than raccoon exports. For the whole tive importance. period under discussion it is quite possible Fourth, it is clear that the American fur that the fur seal added twice as much value business was not primarily a far-western to the United States economy as any other phenomenon. From 1790 to the War of 1812 wild animal sought for its skin. the center of the trade lay east of the Missis­ Fifth, and finally, the above evidence sippi River and north of the Ohio. Not until lends support to the contention that the fur after the War of 1812 did it shift to the trade as such did not play a very important Missouri River basin and the Rocky Moun­ role in our dynamic westward expansion. It tains. In the years between 1815 and 1830 is true that some trappers eventually became most of the beavers trapped in the United guides for government and emigrant expedi­ States were taken in the Far West, but as tions, but their contributions were minor. beavers began to decline during the 1830s There is no correlation between the health and 1840s, the brief heyday of the western of the fur trade and population shifts. Nor, fur trade drew to a close.^^ as we have seen, is there consistency in No other fur took the place of the beaver direction of movement. The number of per­ in that region, although the harvest of buf­ sons involved was insignificant and the value falo robes increased modestly until after the of the trade, even locally, not very impres­ Civil War. This conclusion is substantiated sive. This is not to say that the American fur by the returns received at New Orleans and trade had no importance as a vehicle of St. Louis, by available company records, westward expansion, but that its importance and, more important, by John E. Sunder in must be sought in areas other than eco­ the only thorough account of the fur trade nomics. of the Far West for this period.^* The Great Lakes region was, in fact, economically more '^ Hiram M. Chittenden states that a "fair" esti­ important in the American fur trade than mate of the value of beavers trapped in the Far any other. By 1840 the United States Census West from 1815 to 1830 at $4 per peff would be about $1,500,000. The American Fur Trade of the Bureau estimated the value of fur returns Far West, 1:7 (New York, 1902). During these for that year from the Great Lakes region years the value of beaver exports to England, if at $515,000. The Far West, on the other computed at the same price, would have been about $2,000,000 according to Poland's figures. Since most hand, yielded only $373,000 in furs and pelts went to England, it would appear that the skins. In 1841 the Detroit Department of Par West was the major source of beaver during the American Fur Company alone produced these years. ^•'See WiUiam F. Switzler, "Report on the In­ $377,200 in furs and skins.^s This repre­ ternal Commerce of the United States," part 2, in sented about 40 per cent of tbe total United Bureau of Statistics, Treasury Documents, no. States fur exports of that year, and the com­ 1039b, p. 191 (Washington, D.C, 1888); "Packing Book, 1830-1833," and "Fur Sales, 1859-1864," in pany was but one of several outfits trading Chouteau Collection; "Furs and Skins, 1859-1864," in tbe Great Lakes region. An important rea­ in American Fur Company Papers; John E. Sunder, son, of course, is the fact that the habitat of The Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri, 1840-1865, 16, 79, 104, 159, 201, 216-220 (Norman, Okla­ the raccoon was confined to that area. homa, 1965). From 1844-53, fur arrivals at St. As the Great Lakes region eclipsed the Louis varied from 1,000 to 3,000, the average being about the same for the end of the period as for the Far West, it was in turn overshadowed by beginning. See Lippincott, A Century and a Half of the Bering Sea and its islands. The value of Fur Trade, 233-239. raccoon exports almost doubled from the ^^ == United States Census, 1840, Statistics, p. 408; 1860s to the 1880s and domestic consump­ "Detroit Department," in Miscellaneous File, American Fur Company Papers.

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