9780803243293

Lucrative, far-reaching, and complex, the fur trade bound together Europeans and Native peoples of North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.Rethinking the Fur Tradeoffers a nuanced look at the broad range of contracts that characterized the fur trade, a phenomenon that has often been oversimplified and misrepresented. These essays show how the role of Native Americans was far more instrumental in the conduct and outcome of the fur trade than previously suggested. Rethinking the Fur Tradeexposes what has been called the "invisible hand of indigenous commerce," revealing how it changed European interaction with Indians, influenced what was produced to serve the interests of Indian customers, and led to important cultural innovations. The initial essays explain the working mechanisms of the fur trade and explore how and why it evolved in a North Atlantic context. The second section examines indigenous perspectives through primary-source writings from the period and considers newly evolving indigenous perspectives about the fur trade. The final sections analyze the social history of the fur trade, the profound effect of the cloth trade on Indian dress and culture, and the significance of gender, kinship, and community in the workings of economic exchange.

Susan Sleeper-Smith, professor of history at Michigan State University, is the author of Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes and the editor of Contesting Knowledge: Museums and Indigenous Perspectives (Nebraska 2009).

Contributors: Dean Anderson, Donald F. Bibeau, Mary Black-Rogers, Bruce J. Bourque, Jennifer S. H. Brown, Allen Chronister, James L. Clayton, Bruce Cox, W. J. Eccles, William F. Ganong, James A. Hanson, Gail D. MacLeitch, D. Peter MacLeod, D. W. Moodie, Jacqueline Petersen, Carolyn Podruchny, Gail DeBuse Potter, Arthur J. Ray, Timothy J. Shannon, Susan Sleeper-Smith, Helen Hornbeck Tanner, Reuben Gold Thwaites, Sylvia Van Kirk, Richard White, and Ruth H. Whitehead.

List of Illustrations	p. viii
List of Tables	p. ix
Source Acknowledgments	p. xi
New Perspectives
Cultures of Exchange in a North Atlantic World	p. xvii
Indian Voices Introduction	p. 3
Of the Mission of Saint Francois Xavier on the "Bay of Stinkards," or Rather "Of Stinking Waters"	p. 7
On the Hunting of the Gaspesians	p. 10
The Hunting of Moose, of Bears, of Beavers, of Lynxes, and other animals according to their seasons	p. 17
Tarrentines and the Introduction of European Trade Goods in the Gulf of Maine	p. 22
The Anishinabeg Point of View: The History of the Great Lakes Region to 1800 in Nineteenth-Century Mississauga, Odawa, and Ojibwa Historiography	p. 45
Fur Trade Literature from a Tribal Point of View: A Critique	p. 65
The Social and Political Significance of Exchange Introduction	p. 83
Agriculture and the Fur Trade	p. 88
"Give Us a Little Milk": The Social and Cultural Significance of Gift Giving in die Lake Superior Fur Trade	p. 114
"Starving" and Survival in the Subarctic Fur Trade: A Case for Contextual Semantics	p. 157
The Growth and Economic Significance of the American Fur Trade, 1790-1890	p. 160
"Red" Labor: Iroquois Participation in the Atlantic Economy	p. 181
The Fur Trade and Eighteenth-Century Imperialism	p. 215
The Middle Ground	p. 246
Creative Misunderstandings and New Understandings	p. 305
Cloth Trade Introduction	p. 315
Indians as Consumers in the Eighteenth Century	p. 320
Dressing for Success on the Mohawk Frontier: Hendrick, William Johnson, and the Indian Fashion	p. 344
The Flow of European Trade Goods into the Western Great Lakes Region, 1715-1760	p. 385
The Matchcoat	p. 411
Chiefs Coats Supplied by the American Fur Company	p. 414
The Myth of the Silk Hat and the End of the Rendezvous	p. 420
Gender, Kinship, and Community Introduction	p. 439
Women, Kin, and Catholicism: New Perspectives on the Fur Trade	p. 443
"The Custom of the Country": An Examination of Fur Trade Marriage Practices	p. 481
Woman as Centre and Symbol in the Emergence of Metis Communities	p. 519
Prelude to Red River: A Social Portrait of the Great Lakes Métis	p. 529
The Glaize in 1792: A Composite Indian Community	p. 561
Festivities, Fortitude, and Fraternalism: Fur Trade Masculinity and the Beaver Club, 1785-1827	p. 593
Index	p. 621
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

We're the #1 textbook rental company. Let us show you why.

Rethinking the Fur Trade

0803243294

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

Rewards Program