The Indian Trade
Encyclopedia
Trade
Trade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...
between Europeans and their North American descendants with the Indigenous people of North America (today known as Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, and First Nations in Canada, but formerly as "Indians").
The term Indian Trade describes the people involved in the trade. The products involved varied by region and era. In most of Canada the term is synonymous with the fur trade, since fur for making beaver hats was by far the most valuable product of the trade, from the European point of view. Other products desired by the Europeans produced other components of the Indian Trade, including the deerskin trade
Deerskin trade
The deerskin trade between Colonial America and the Native Americans was one of the most important trading relationships between Europeans and Native Americans, especially in the southeast. It was a form of the fur trade, but less known, since deer skins were not as valuable as furs from the north...
in the what is now the east coast of the United States, and the Pemmican
Pemmican
Pemmican is a concentrated mixture of fat and protein used as a nutritious food. The word comes from the Cree word pimîhkân, which itself is derived from the word pimî, "fat, grease". It was invented by the native peoples of North America...
and buffalo
American Buffalo
American Buffalo may refer to:*American Buffalo , a play by David Mamet*American Buffalo , a 1996 film of Mamet's play directed by Michael Corrente*American Buffalo , a United States coin...
skin and meat trade on the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
.
For the indigenous people the most desirable European goods were those things that aided their survival in the landscape, but which they did not have the technology to manufacture themselves. This especially included goods made of metal
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
such as trap
Trap (tactic)
A trap is a device intended to catch an intruder or prey. "Trap" may also refer to the tactic of catching or harming an adversary. Conversely it may also mean a hindrance for change, being caught in a trap.-Device:*Animal trapping*Bird trapping...
s and snare wire, pots and pans, knives, sewing needles, muskets and later rifles, arrowheads and spear points, axes
Axes
Axes may refer to:* Axes, woodworking hand tools* The plural of axis* Axes , a 2005 rock album by the British band Electrelane* X and Y axes, or X, Y, and Z axes, perpendicular lines used in the Cartesian coordinate system...
and plough
Plough
The plough or plow is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture...
s, and so on. As well they could obtain glass beads for decoration, wheat flour
Wheat flour
Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of wheat used for human consumption. More wheat flour is produced than any other flour. Wheat varieties are called "clean," "white," or "brown" if they have high gluten content, and they are called "soft" or "weak" flour if gluten content is low...
and baking soda for making bannock
Bannock
Bannock has more than one meaning:* Bannock , a kind of bread, usually prepared by pan-frying* Bannock , a Native American people of what is now southeastern Oregon and western Idaho* Bannock County, Idaho* Bannock, Ohio...
/fry bread, molasses
Molasses
Molasses is a viscous by-product of the processing of sugar cane, grapes or sugar beets into sugar. The word molasses comes from the Portuguese word melaço, which ultimately comes from mel, the Latin word for "honey". The quality of molasses depends on the maturity of the sugar cane or sugar beet,...
as a sweet treat, machine-woven cloth
Textile industry
The textile industry is primarily concerned with the production of yarn, and cloth and the subsequent design or manufacture of clothing and their distribution. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry....
for making clothing, gunpowder
History of gunpowder
Gunpowder was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the invention of nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin, smokeless powder and TNT in the second half of the 19th century...
for their guns, horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s for transportation, woollen point blankets for warmth and protection, and tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
for smoking and chewing. Of course a trade in alcohol was also a notable part of the trade in certain eras. The French traded brandy, the British rum, and the Americans whiskey or "firewater
Firewater
Firewater is a US indie rock group founded by Tod A. in 1995. He describes them as a"wedding band gone wrong".After Tod left his previous group, Cop Shoot Cop, he quickly regrouped and formed Firewater to explore the styles of music Cop Shoot Cop had only hinted at, including klezmer, cabaret, ska,...
".
The diversity of the products traded was made possible because of a global
Proto-globalization
Proto-globalization or 'early modern globalization' is a period of the history of globalization roughly spanning the years between 1600 and 1800. First introduced by historians A. G...
trade network
Trade route
A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a single trade route contains long distance arteries which may further be connected to several smaller networks of commercial...
controlled by European trading companies backed by the military power of imperial states
Empire
The term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....
. Beads could come from China or Italy, tobacco from the American South, molasses and rum from the Caribbean, with the metal goods and wool originating in England.
Trade between European nations and the natives began from the earliest the very beginning of European colonization of the Americas
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
. Trading was a major focus of activity especially in the case of the French
French colonization of the Americas
The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued in the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, and in South America...
, the British
British colonization of the Americas
British colonization of the Americas began in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia and reached its peak when colonies had been established throughout the Americas...
, the Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
and the Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants. Among its founding fathers was Willem Usselincx...
.
Fur
Fur is a synonym for hair, used more in reference to non-human animals, usually mammals; particularly those with extensives body hair coverage. The term is sometimes used to refer to the body hair of an animal as a complete coat, also known as the "pelage". Fur is also used to refer to animal...
, food or other items as gifts. The Europeans would then feel no obligation to assist the natives against their enemies, which was the purpose of the gift-giving, from the native perspective. The Europeans never did catch on and were frequently viewed by the natives as welchers on the implied pledge of alliance they'd entered into by accepting the gifts.
After observing that Europeans were just as eager to trade with their enemies as themselves, the natives did eventually get the picture; but especially in New France
New France
New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...
, in Carolina, Virginia, and New England
British colonization of the Americas
British colonization of the Americas began in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia and reached its peak when colonies had been established throughout the Americas...
and in New Netherlands the Europeans became drawn into the endemic warfare of their trading partners.
After the United States became independent, trading with the Indians/Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
was nominally regulated by the Trade and Intercourse Act
Indian Intercourse Act
The Nonintercourse Act is the collective name given to six statutes passed by the United States Congress in 1790, 1793, 1796, 1799, 1802, and 1834. The Act regulates commerce between Native Americans and non-Indians...
, first passed on July 22, 1790. The Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
issued licenses to trade in the Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
, which in 1834 consisted of most of the United States west of the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
, where mountain men and traders from Mexico freely operated.
Rarely the term Indian trade can also refer to the cession of lands in exchange for promises of European goods. This is usually instead referred to as treatymaking. See also aboriginal title
Aboriginal title
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism...
.