Where was the first fur trading in North America?
30702722#4
Europeans mainly traded alongside the coast of North America with Native Americans. The early fur trade with Native Americans, which developed alongside the coasts of North America, was not limited to the beaver. Beavers were not particularly valued and people preferred "fancy fur" or "fur that is used with or on the pelt. The fur trade was viewed as secondary to fishing during this era.
The earliest North American fur trading did not include long distance transportation of the furs after they were obtained by trade with the First Nations; it started with trading near settlements or along the coast or waterways accessible by ship. Soon, coureurs des bois achieved business advantages by travelling deeper into the wilderness and trading there. By 1681, the King of France decided to control the traders by publishing an edict that banned fur and pelt trading in New France.
Voyageurs
20850603#2
French explorer Jacques Cartier in his three voyages into the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the 1530s and 1540s conducted some of the earliest fur trading between European and First Nations peoples associated with sixteenth century and later explorations in North America. Cartier attempted limited fur trading with the First Nations in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and along the St. Lawrence River. He concentrated on trading for furs used as trimming and adornment. He overlooked the fur that would become the driving force of the fur trade in the north, the beaver pelt, which would become fashionable in Europe.
The earliest European trading for beaver pelts dated to the growing cod fishing industry that spread to the Grand Banks of the North Atlantic in the 16th century. The new preservation technique of drying fish allowed the mainly Basque fishermen to fish near the Newfoundland coast and transport fish back to Europe for sale. The fisherman sought suitable harbors with ample lumber to dry large quantities of cod. This generated their earliest contact with local Aboriginal peoples, with whom the fisherman began simple trading.
North American fur trade
1642077#0
The American Fur Company (AFC) was founded in 1808, by John Jacob Astor, a German immigrant to the United States. During the 18th century, furs had become a major commodity in Europe, and North America became a major supplier. Several British companies, most notably the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, were eventual competitors against Astor and capitalized on the lucrative trade in furs. Astor capitalized on anti-British sentiments and his commercial strategies to become one of the first trusts in American business and a major competitor to the British commercial dominance in North American fur trade. Expanding into many former British fur-trapping regions and trade routes, the company grew to monopolize the fur trade in the United States by 1830, and became one of the largest and wealthiest businesses in the country.
American Fur Company
20850603#0
The North American fur trade was the industry and activities related to the acquisition, trade, exchange, and sale of animal furs in North America. Aboriginal peoples in Canada and Native Americans in the United States of different regions traded among themselves in the pre–Columbian Era, but Europeans participated in the trade beginning from the time of their arrival in the New World and extended its reach to Europe. The French started trading in the 16th century, the English established trading posts on Hudson Bay in present-day Canada in the 17th century, and the Dutch had trade by the same time in New Netherland. The 19th-century North American fur trade, when the industry was at its peak of economic importance, involved the development of elaborate trade networks.
North American fur trade
20850603#69
On the Pacific coast of North America, the fur trade mainly pursued seal and sea otter. In northern areas, this trade was established first by the Russian-American Company, with later participation by Spanish/Mexican, British, and U.S. hunters/traders. Non-Russians extended fur-hunting areas south as far as the Baja California Peninsula.
North American fur trade
26963215#7
Russian maritime fur trading in the northern Pacific began after the exploration voyages of Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov in 1741 and 1742. Their voyages demonstrated that Asia and North America were not connected but that sea voyages were feasible, and that the region was rich in furs. Private fur traders, mostly "promyshlenniki", launched fur trading expeditions from Kamchatka, at first focusing on nearby islands such as the Commander Islands. Unlike fur trading ventures in Siberia, these maritime expeditions required more capital than most "promyshlenniki" could obtain. Merchants from cities such as Irkutsk, Tobolsk, and others in European Russia, became the principal investors.
Maritime fur trade
52460#10
The French interest in Canada focused first on fishing off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. However, at the beginning of the 17th century, France was more interested in fur from North America. The fur trading post of Tadoussac was founded in 1600. Four years later, Champlain made his first trip to Canada in a trade mission for fur. Although he had no formal mandate on this trip, he sketched a map of the St. Lawrence River and in writing, on his return to France, a report entitled "Savages" (relation of his stay in a tribe of Montagnais near Tadoussac).
French colonization of the Americas
28889567#2
In 1679, French explorer Pierre-Esprit Radisson and financier Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye met in Paris, and laid the foundations for the establishment of a fur trading company they called the Compagnie du Nord. Its objective was to engage in fur trade in northern North America, where the English Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) had realized significant profits in that business. The Compagnie's first major expedition in 1682 successfully seized York Factory. After the Compagnie's profits were virtually wiped out by taxes imposed by authorities in New France, Radisson entered service with the HBC, and led several profitable shipping expeditions to Hudson Bay, including recovering for the company York Factory and the furs taken there.
Hudson Bay expedition (1686)
14893969#15
Innis's 15-page conclusion to the "Fur Trade in Canada" explains the significance of staple products, such as furs, to colonial development. It also explores the effects of the staples trade on the more technologically advanced home countries of France and Britain. "Fundamentally the civilization of North America is the civilization of Europe," Innis writes, "and the interest of this volume is primarily in the effects of a vast new land area on European civilization." He notes that European settlers in North America survived by borrowing the cultural traits of the indigenous peoples, but also sought to maintain European standards of living by exporting goods not available in the home country in exchange for manufactured products. In Canada's case, the first such goods were the staples cod fish and beaver fur. Later staples included lumber, pulp and paper, wheat, gold, nickel and other metals.
Harold Innis and the fur trade
5075309#14
For centuries one of the most important economic ventures in North America was the fur trade. This trade, which had been pioneered by the French, came to be dominated by the British as they gained increasing territory on the continent. The main British fur trading posts were located inside of what became the United States (the British were forced to relocate northward as borders were established with the new nation). First Nations were central to the trade as they were the primary fur trappers. The role gave the peoples of many of the First Nations a political voice as, though they were viewed as an underclass, they were too important to simply be ignored. The American Revolution led to intense competition between the British and the U.S. By the 1830s changing fashions in Europe had begun a steep decline in fur prices and an overall collapse in the market. Apart from the economic losses to "whites" involved in the fur trade, many of the First Nations were devastated, both in terms of economic loss and in terms of loss of influence in local politics.
Canada under British rule