Introduction:
History is rich in unintended consequences. The commercial fur trade was established by early contact between Indians and Europeans who were exploiting the cod fisheries in New Foundland, Canada. Indians traded the pelts of animals, such as beavers and minks, for knives and iron-based products in exchange for textiles (Nassaney 41). The exchange was initially disorganized until the 16th century, when fur became a sought marketable commodity. Most of the trade occurred in Canada, but some activity took place in areas around River Mississippi and within the Rocky Mountains. The first companies to engage in the activity were of French origin, but the Dutch and Englishmen entered the field in the seventeenth century.
As the demand for fur, mainly to make warm clothing for the winter, hats, and robes, the market was saturated with merchants and fur and wool buying companies. The trade entailed massive imports and exports of fur, from America to Europe and across other global countries across Asia and Australia. The fur prices significantly rose, and beaver populations continued to decline in most of the areas, for instance Europe (Van and Evelyn 59). This trade had opened a new level of anthropological interaction that had significant influence on the societal organization in America and across other global countries.
This report validates how historical economic activities have influenced how societies are entirely transformed, ranging from social, political, material, to ideological outcomes. As societies acquire marketable commodities, interactions between the transacting parties are expanded, creating new relationships and anthropological possibilities, such as intermarriages, conflicts and wars, as well as other inter-cultural transformations.
This paper will focus on the North American fur trade, and the series of trade engagements that shaped the societal organizations within the ancient American society. It will also explore the cumulative impacts on the former social, political, cultural, and ideological facets.
Fur-trade society:
Various fur trade scholars have devised the term ‘fur society’ to describe the new social relationships, family arrangements, interethnic unifications, and the novel utilization of material culture that define the resultant cultural amalgamations that arose whenever natives and new comers interacted. Other authors have found it critical to reflect on the Western Great Lakes as a focal cultural point of contact, in which new social and conceptual dimensions emerged as an outcome of cross-cultural interactions that were neither French, Dutch, nor native (Nassaney 45). A keen exploration of this fur trade and anthropological evidences espouse both interpretations.
Interdependence and mutual influences:
These alliances also helped the French to keep off the British companies along the Eastern Seaboard, which was essential in maintaining a French monopoly and reducing the levels of fur merchandise competition. The native alliances not only allowed trade in fur only, but also it further opened exchange platforms for food, clothing, firearms, technology, and technical expertise and knowledge need to open up the North American territories, which were still unfavorable for any settlement.
Contacts between the natives and the merchants allowed cultural exchange. Due to the close level interactions, the merchants learnt native languages and cultures. They further adopted the native technologies for the sake of surviving the adverse environmental conditions (Northrup 115). They consumed native food and wore the native clothing, and employed native tools besides their European tools.
Intermarriages:
Many French merchants married the native daughters and took country wives for themselves. These wives were often the trading partners or whom the traders wished to establish trading rapports. These intermarriages helped to foster expedient trade relations, binding them together in both political and social dimensions. Marriage introduced a merchant into a native clan, paving way for trade and economic activity, kinship interactions and other reciprocated obligations (Nassaney 63).
It is convincing that the native women sought men who could easily afford their economic needs. Marrying the merchants offered them access to European trade commodities and accorded them significant influence among their tribes. Some native women entered into the fur trade by themselves. These women had more power in influencing the community into more trade agreements with the European merchants. This aspect infers that the female had now acquired a sense of autonomy and freedom that was initially inexistent.
It is remarkable that the children resulting from the intermarriage were known as metis, implying that they were half-French and half native. Having been brought under the convergence of the two cultures, most of these children were groomed to become diplomats operating in both French and native political institutions. Interestingly, which was against the societal norm, some of these children were sent to Montreal for education, especially the daughters, while others went into trade. In this event, a mixed heritage did not contribute to a negative social implication; it allowed the individuals to function in the worlds of both their French fathers and their native mothers.
Shifting political alliances and power:
The resultant military alliances established through the fur trade stimulated a new political arena that was initially absent. Hierarchies became evident ranging from the highly affluent business owners, paramount chiefs, the ordinary citizens, and the lowest peasants. It is evident that these power orders influenced territorial conquests and trade alliance influences. The European merchants against other rival native communities and rival European merchants often entangled native communities into warfare (Merchant 83).
The natives could switch their alliances between the French, Dutch, and British to safeguard their economic and political interests. This aspect then explains the bloody warfare encounters between the Algonquian peoples, who were mostly allied with the French, and other native communities, such as the Iroquoian who were allied to the British. These communities were stirred into destroying themselves, dying in large numbers as the merchants sought their entry point. In this regard, the centrality of the natives in the trade activity was often ignored.
Religion and world view:
In the course of the interactions, the Roman Catholic missionaries endeavored to convert most of the natives, compelling them to abandon their traditional religious beliefs and systems, into Christianity. Some natives embraced the new religion while some retained their traditional systems (Merchant 86). It is in this perspective the concepts of Christians and heathen emerged, and the natives had to rethink their religious views. Churches and cathedrals were erected across New Foundland, Quebec and the Christian religion continues to thrive in other American regions.
Conclusion:
Contact with the Europeans changed many traditional practices though other conservative practices endured. New social, religion, economic and political arrangements developed. Native gender roles seemed to shift as patterns of life were altered. For instance, the missionaries made the men to work on the farms, while according to the traditional systems women were supposed to work. The fur trade had opened up new opportunities, which were not merely subsistence-based, but transcending the conservative cultural attributes, power circles and economic models.
The accumulation of European goods (clothing, jewelries, ammunitions, alcohol, metal goods, tobacco among others) into the native homes granted a sense of prestige, wealth and prosperity within the community, and individual material possession was regarded with more gravity than in the traditional set-up (Carlos 96). It is in this vein that the modern day political, economic, social and ideologies in America acquired base; corresponding to most of the arrangements and institutions based in European counties, and have and will continue to evolve as inter-ethnic interactions persists.
Works cited:
Carlos, Ann M, and Frank D. Lewis. Commerce by a Frozen Sea: Native Americans and the European Fur Trade. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Internet resource.
Merchant, Carolyn. Major Problems in American Environmental History: Documents and Essays. Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.
Nassaney, Michael S. The Archaeology of the North American Fur Trade., 2015. Print.
Northrup, Cynthia C. Encyclopedia of World Trade: From Ancient Times to the Present., 2014. Internet resource.
Van, Sickle N. D, and Evelyn Rodewald. The Indian Way: Indians and the North American Fur Trade. North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2011. Print.
