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Indigenous Power in the North American Fur Trade

Hermis Reyes

The Virtual Museum of New France’s Fur Trade Exhibition provides looks into a sector of trade that is rarely remembered and historically underestimated. The goal of this exhibit is ambitious yet warranted through its clarification of the fluctuating tides of North American fur production in relation to consumer trends and other external influences. This exhibition aims to clarify the history of the fur trade centered in the Hudson Bay and Laurentian Basins. It illuminates historical circumstances and opposes the passive narratives attached to Indigenous identities during colonization, presenting native Montagnais, Algonquins, Hurons, Saulteaux, Potawatomis, and Choctaws as calling the shots in fur negotiations in the region extending from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic coast.


The exhibit decisively redefines the fur trade and the actors partaking in it to offer a deeper understanding of its development. This begins with the deceptiveness of the term ‘fur trade’. According to the exhibit, the fur trade is not just an economic catalyst, but a lifestyle that establishes population centers like Detroit or Quebec. As such, it is stated that European demand for fur determines North American migration and settlement patterns. This historical framing may overestimate European influence, so it is quickly added that the development of the fur trade is a product of mutual relations between the Indigenous and colonial entities. These trade alliances, along with the fact that Indigenous trade is centered in communal redistribution rather than wealth accumulation, subsequently entrench Indigenous economy and make it subordinate

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Beaver fur was widely used in hatmaking

to global demand. Exploring this further, the exhibit reveals that most French colonists initially adopted and operated under Indigenous American norms. This integration places them within intertribal alliances and rivalries, circumstantially benefitting some groups and harming others. One example of this is Iroquois opposition to the Huron and their French allies, which leads to the capture and killing of many French colonists throughout the 1680s and 1690s. The focus on these alliance structures highlights active Indigenous participation in the fur trade, which fed Europe and the rest of the Americas. Since conflict is inherent in such alliances it is understandable how historical developments thereafter are not in favor of Indigenous sovereignty.

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Fur production centers including the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, and the Hudson River.

 

Despite this cooperation, it becomes clear that the fur trade was a conduit for European influence. Colonists became agents of change as Indigenous numbers dwindled. Indigenous centrality is lost because of an influx of efficient metal tools from the Europeans and their inherently communal economies. In conjunction, these aspects of the trade create Indigenous dependency on French metal tools, which would heavily contribute to the historic rarity of Indigenous narratives.

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Indigenous toboggans used to transport fur

A particularly noteworthy aspect of this exhibit is its attention to the pelt to felt process. The French were heavily inspired by Indigenous knowledge and experience when it came to various colonial processes. For example, it would not have been possible for French interior runners to achieve widespread fur transport had they not adopted Indigenous creations like snowshoes, toboggans, and birch bark canoes. As such, the exhibit reinforces colonial experimentation and cooperation, illuminating how the French plugged into trade networks. The action of plugging into these cultural and economic spheres cultivated by Indigenous society shows just how dependent the colonists are at the start. This coincides perfectly with the pelt transformation processes, which were appropriated from Indigenous knowledge. The exhibition further details how, from a demand standpoint, beaver fur was the most desirable because of its softness, malleability, and water resistance. From a supply standpoint, the underfur had these qualities because it had barbed strands that are easy to link. However, this conclusion is only reached as a result of a buildup of Indigenous trial and error throughout generations. Furthermore, Indigenous fur experts had two ways of separating the fur in order to ensure quality. The first method is Castor gras fur separation, where the pelt is sewn onto garment and is in direct contact with Indigenous skin; over months of abrasion and exposure to human fluids, the guard fur falls off, leaving the underfur intact. This method became the foundation for the subsequent Castor sec separation method, which was suited to mercantile frameworks because of its efficiency. This second method requires that the pelt be sun dried after harvest and the guard hairs later removed by felt makers in Europe. This part of the exhibit makes it especially clear how colonists adopted Indigenous ideas and reworked them for colonial efficiency in response

to the growing wealth in the mainland.

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Through extensive research into multiple aspects of the fur trade and eye-opening interpretations of the role indigenous people played in this trade, the exhibit makes an effective case for the importance of North American fur in the development of globalization and modern identities.

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