After the negotiation of Jay’s Treaty (1794), the northern border was defined and trade along the Mississippi passed to the American Fur Company under John Jacob Astor. ![]() With the conquest of New France in 1763, the French trade shifted to Scottish merchants operating out of Montreal. For roughly the next hundred years, this northern region saw competition of varying intensity between the French and the English. Then in 1670, a charter was granted by the British crown to the Hudson’s Bay Company, which began operating from posts along the coast of Hudson Bay (see Figure 1). In the seventeenth century, following the Dutch, the English developed a trade through Albany. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers, and down the Mississippi. The first firms to participate in the fur trade were French, and under French rule the trade spread along the St. ![]() There was also a market in deer skins that predominated in the Appalachians. High quality pelts are available only where winters are severe, so the trade took place predominantly in the regions we now know as Canada, although some activity took place further south along the Mississippi River and in the Rocky Mountains. Exchange at first was haphazard and it was only in the late sixteenth century, when the wearing of beaver hats became fashionable, that firms were established who dealt exclusively in furs. Indians would trade the pelts of small animals, such as mink, for knives and other iron-based products, or for textiles. Lewis, Queen’s University IntroductionĪ commercial fur trade in North America grew out of the early contact between Indians and European fisherman who were netting cod on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and on the Bay of Gaspé near Quebec. ![]() The Economic History of the Fur Trade: 1670 to 1870įrank D.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |