The Natives Fur Trade, 16401844

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The Natives Fur Trade, 1640-1844

• I. Intro
• II. Natural Environments of the West
• III. Cultures of the West
• IV. 'Partners in Fur'
• V. A New Trade, 1780s-1840s
• VI. The Cordilleran Fur Trade

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Reading/Test Question (last week)

• How, according to Harris, did the disciplinary
  technologies (maps, numbers, law, the geography
  of resettlement) have an important impact on the
  management of the Native population?
• www.nipissingu.ca/faculty/jamesm

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Borders

• South -- 49th parallel (prairies 1818, BC 1846)
• Eastern border of Manitoba -- 1912
• West -- Alaska panhandle

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Natural Environments of the West

• western mountain cordillera and vast central
  interior
• interior is cold and dry
• mean temp -20, Jan
• 100-150 days frost free p.a.
• Landscapes of prairie west
• Prairie
• Parklands
• Cdn shield

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Landscapes of the Western Interior
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Mixed Grass Prairie (Grasslands National Park)
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Natural Environments of the West

• Landscapes of BC
• Coast Mountains
• interior plateau
• Rocky Mtns assoc ranges
• Coast -- wet mild
• plateau - dry colder
• Key Rivers
• Nelson River
• Saskatchewan River
• Columbia River

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Coast Mountains the Interior Plateau
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Territories of the Fur Trade, 1830
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Cultures of the Cordillera

• Coast and Interior
• Haida, Nuuchahnulth, Tsimshian
• Potlatch
• Carrier, Sekani

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First Nations of the Cordillera
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Houses
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Cultures of the Cordillera

• Coast Salish (near Vancouver)
• Musqueam
• Kwantlen
• Tsawwassen
• house group
• Halkomelem language
• Interior Salish
• Nlha7kapmx
• 30 languages from 4 (7) language groups

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Lower Mainland c. 1820
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The Fraser Canyon
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Cultures of the Interior, c 1820
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Assiniboine Hunting Party, 1824
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Cree Family, 1821
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Partners in Furs

• Middlemen
• Cree Assiniboine
• 1670s -- HBC at York Factory
• 14 MB for musket -- sell for 50 MB
• Kettle -- 8 to 20 MB
• Before 1760 -- 70 of trade at York Factory with
  middlemen

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Partners in Furs

• Who was in charge?
• Were Natives exploited?
• Dependent?

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Partners in Furs

• Territorial expansion
• Guns
• Horses (1730s)

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A New Trade, 1780s - 1840s

• Fall of New France
• provisioners (pemmican)
• Rise of the Métis
• American buffalo trade
• Rise of the Blackfoot
• Smallpox, 1837-38
• Food failures -- Ojibwa

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Exploration Contact on the Pacific

• Explorers
• Spain -- Juan Perez, Juan Francisco de la Bodega
  y Quadra (1775)
• Britain -- James Cook the Nuuchahnulth (1778)
• Northwest Company traders -- Alexander Mackenzie,
  David Thompson

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The Nuuchahnuulth
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James Cook at Nootka Sound
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Haida Raven by Lyle Campbell
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The Fur Trade

• The Maritime Fur Trade in the Pacific
• sea-otter pelts
• James Hanna 560 sea-otter pelts 20,000 in
  1785
• trade with China
• Boston Men vs. King George Men (1790s)
• collapse of sea otter popln (1820s)
• The impact of the trade on First Nations?

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The Fur Trade

• The Inland Trade
• Fort Astoria (1811)
• Oregon Territory (1818)
• George Simpson
• Fort Vancouver
• Oregon Treaty (1846)