478 



FUK TKADE 



[b. a. e. 



in Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., xvii, pt3, 

 1905; Dorsey and Voth in Field Columb. 

 Mus. Publ., Anthrop. ser. ; J. O. Dorsey 

 in 13th Rep. B. A. E., 1896; (ioddard in 

 Univ. Cal. Publ., Am. Archaeol. and 

 Ethnol., I, 1903; Hoffman in 14th Rep. 

 B. A. E., 1896; Holm, Descr. New 

 Sweden, 1834; Hough in Rep. Nat. Mus., 

 1896; Kroeber in Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. 

 Hist., XVIII, ptl, 1902; Mindeleff in 8th 

 Rep. B. A. E., 1891; Nelson in 18th Rep. 

 B. A. E., 1899. (a. c. f.) 



Fur trade. The fur trade was an im- 

 portant factor in the conquest and settle- 

 ment of North America by the French 

 and the English. Canada and the great 

 W. and N. W. were long little more to 

 the world than the "Fur Country." La- 

 hontan (New Voy., i, 53, 1703) said: 

 "Canada subsists only upon the trade of 

 skins or furs, three-fourths of which come 

 from the people that live around the great 

 lakes." Long before his time the profit 

 to be gained in the fur traffic with distant 

 tribes encouraged adventurers to make 

 their way to the Mississippi and beyond, 

 while the expenses of not a few ambitious 

 attempts to reach Cathay or Cipangu 

 through a n. w. passage to the South sea 

 were met, not out of royal treasuries, but 

 from presents and articles of barter re- 

 ceived from the Indians. The various fur 

 and trading companies established for 

 traffic in the regions w. of the great lakes 

 and in the Hudson bay country exercised 

 a great influence vipon the aborigines by 

 bringing into their habitat a class of men, 

 French, English, and Scotch, who would 

 intermarry with them, thus introducing 

 a mixed-blood element into the popula- 

 tion. Manitoba, Minnesota, and Wiscon- 

 sin in particular owe much of their early 

 development to the trader and the mixed- 

 blood. Theproximityof hunting grounds 

 to the settlements beyond the Alleghanies 

 favored the free hunter and the single 

 trapper, while the remote regions of the 

 N. W. could best be exploited by the 

 fur companies. The activity of the free 

 trapper and solitary hunter meant the 

 extermination of the Indian where possi- 

 ble. The method of the great fur compa- 

 nies, which had no dreams of empire over 

 a solid white population, rather favored 

 amalgamation with thelndiansas the best 

 means of exploiting the country in a ma- 

 terial way. The French fur companies of 

 early days, the Hudson's BayCompany ( for 

 two centuries ruler of a large part of what 

 is now Canada), the Northwest Company, 

 the American Fur Company (in the initi- 

 ation of which patriotism played a part), 

 the Missouri Fur Company, the Russian- 

 American Company, the Alaska Commer- 

 cial Company, and others have influenced 

 the development of civilization in North 

 America. The forts and fur-trading sta- 



tions of these companies long represented 

 to the Indian tribes the white man and 

 his civilization. That the Hudson's Bay 

 Company abandoned its line of forts on 

 the seacoast and went to the Indian hunt- 

 ing grounds, ultimately taking possession 

 of the vast interior of Canada, was due 

 largely to the competition of rival fur 

 traders, such as the Northwest Company. 

 Intimate contact with Indian tribes was 

 thus forced on rather than initiated by the 

 Hudson's Bay Company. The pioneers of 

 the fur trade were the solitary trappers 

 and buyers, whose successors are the free 

 traders on the upper Mackenzie today. 

 They blazed the way for canoe trips, fur 

 brigades, tradingposts, and, finally, settle- 

 ments. It was often at a portage, where 

 there were falls or rapids in a river, that 

 the early white trader established him- 

 self. At such places afterward sprang up 

 towns whose manufactures were devel- 

 oped by means of the water power. The 

 Indian village also often became a trading 

 post and is now transformed into a mod- 

 ern city. Portages and paths that were 

 first used by the Indian and afterward by 

 the fur trader are now changed to canals 

 and highways, but other routes used by 

 fur traders are still, in regions of the far 

 N., only primitive paths. Some, like 

 the grande route from Montreal to the 

 country beyond Hudson bay, are followed 

 by white men for summer travel and 

 pleasure. In the N. W. the fur trade 

 followed the course of all large streams, 

 and in some parts the leading clans de- 

 rived much of their power from the con- 

 trol of the waterways. 



The appearance and disappearance of 

 fur-bearing animals, their retreat from 

 one part of the country to another, influ- 

 enced the movements of Indian tril>es. 

 This is particularly true of the movements 

 of the buffalo (q. v. ), though the decrease 

 of other large game was often the compel- 

 ling motive of tribal migration. The hunt 

 of the buffalo led to certain alliances and 

 unions for the season of the chase among 

 tribes of different stocks, a few of which 

 may have become permanent. Thus the 

 Jiutenai, Sarsi, Siksika, and Atsina have 

 all hunted together on the plains of the 

 Saskatchewan and the upper Missouri. 

 The occasional and finally complete dis- 

 appearance of the buffalo from these 

 regions has weighed heavily upon the 

 Indian tribes, the buffalo having been to 

 some of them what the bamboo is to the 

 Malay and the palm to the West African, 

 theirchief source of food, fuel, clothing, 

 and shelter. The extermination of thewild 

 buffalo caused the discontinuance of the 

 Kiowa sun dance (Mooneyin 17th Rep. B. 

 A. E., 346, 349, 1898) and affected likewise 

 theceremonies of other tribes. In several 

 tribes the buffalo dance ivas an important 



