[MUSIC] Indigenous peoples had been trading amongst each other across far distances for thousands of years. Trade relationships were a big part of the connections between Indigenous nations across North America. Participation in the fur trade shaped the early relationships between European settlers and Indigenous peoples, and set out the economic and geographical infrastructure of Canada as a nation. The fur trade motivated Europeans to travel further into the interior of the continent. And many European settlements began as training posts. Many Indigenous people's traditional territories in Northern Canada were sites of fur trade activity. When we talk about the fur trade, we're really discussing a period of about 250 years. And this lesson only scratches the surface of that history. The fur trade doesn't only describe exchanges between First Nations and Europeans. The fur trade also took place between First Nations groups as European goods would travel in one direction and furs in the other. Many Indigenous peoples came into contact with the European trade goods before they met Europeans themselves. [MUSIC] >> The Beaver does everything perfectly well, it makes kettles, hatchets, swords, knives, bread, and in short, it makes everything. [MUSIC] >> Traditional Indigenous economies on North America are, generally speaking, largely based in sharing. In many Indigenous communities today the sharing economy is still present, but exists uneasily alongside the market economy. The idea of wealth determined by amassing a lot of material goods was unfamiliar to most Indigenous cultures. One reason that having a lot of material possessions wasn't important to many Indigenous peoples is that it doesn't make sense to accumulate a lot of possessions when you move to different areas following a seasonal cycle. It also doesn't make sense to have some members of your community go hungry or homeless. Every person had value and worth. For Indigenous peoples, before trading with the Europeans, fur wasn't necessarily seen as having value in itself. Over time, First Nations people would come to see material wealth as something to aspire to. Fur trading included hides of bear, moose, deer, marten, fox, and buffalo. But the most important and most valuable commodity was the beaver pelt. First Nations people valued beaver not only for its fur, but for food as well. After contact with Europeans, the fur of the beaver became much more important. Beaver fur was the main way that many First Nations could obtain European goods. To Canada and Northern US, prior to the fur trade, beaver populations were plentiful. But in Europe, over-hunting and the loss of habitat pushed the beaver population to the brink of extinction. Beaver fur has two layers, the guard hairs which are stiff, and the downy undercoat. The undercoat was excellent for making felt, and ideal for hat-making. At this time in Europe, felt hats were extremely fashionable, and this made the beaver felt in high demand by Europeans. In the early period of the fur trade, the furs Europeans wanted were actually the well-worn used pelts that First Nations had already used for clothing. This is because, while wearing these furs with the hair side inward for about a year or a year and a half, the guard hairs would fall off. Old winter coats became extremely valuable as they would be soft and well-suited for hat-making. These beaver pelts were referred to as castor gras. So the used furs that First Nations traded to the Europeans were essentially less valuable to the First Nations than the European goods. In the early stages of the fur trade, First Nations peoples gained a lot from this demand of beaver furs. The Montagnais trading captain who mentioned that the beaver does everything also goes on to say, the English have no sense. They give us 20 knives for this one beaver skin. Trade in beaver pelts in the 17th and 18th century would have been impossible without the cooperation and enthusiasm of Indigenous peoples to consume European merchandise and products. The fur trade offered Indigenous peoples unprecedented access to various useful technologies of Europeans, particularly metal. Trading old clothing or used furs gave them access to European technologies and material goods like metal objects, such as needles, pots and kettles, axes, ice chisels, hatchets, knives and projectile points. Other goods were traded, like guns, bullets, beads, linens for fishing nets, and mirrors. The only metal accessible before contact was copper, but it was too soft for utilitarian purposes. It's important to recognize that the fur trade was much more than an exchange of material goods. It was a time of social and cultural exchange that deeply affected Indigenous peoples and Europeans. It can be helpful to think about technology in terms of knowledge, instead of just material or physical objects. Indigenous peoples contributed not only their skills in hunting, but also their extensive knowledge of the land and ecosystems to the development of the hybrid economy known as the fur trade. The fur trade changed the social and economic patterns of Indigenous life. The role of the First Nations in the fur trade required some adjusting of traditional lifestyles to better take advantage of the opportunities the fur trade provided, and to serve their own interests, including acquiring European goods. Indigenous societies incorporated, and adapted to, and used European goods in various ways within their own cultural contexts. Historians identify three or more different phases throughout the fur trade. Over the course of the fur trade, the relationship between Indigenous and European participants changes dramatically. The first phase is marked by Indigenous peoples having a great deal of agency. The second phase is marked by increasing Indigenous dependency on the fur trade. The third phase is when the Europeans gained control of the trade and negative impacts began to overtake the benefits for Indigenous peoples. France set up colonies and forts, primarily to engage in fur trade. And the French were able to work with already existing Indigenous trade networks. As we mentioned, trade was already very important in the region, and goods were traded extensively between Indigenous groups. The fur trade required close cooperation with First Nations. And the French realized it was important to have good relations with Indigenous nations. >> The early part of a fur trade is characterized by Indigenous advantage. In the 250 years of the fur trade there was several alliances and many shifts in power and advantage. For example, in the 1600s the French trading connection to the interior of the continent was controlled by two Indigenous power houses, the Algonkins and the Wendats, who had a long standing trade relationship together. The Wendat would source furs for First Nations groups in regions north and west of their territory. In turn the Wendat would trade with the Algonkin traders who would be the people to trade directly with the French. Acting as middlemen, the Wendat traded north for furs with the Anishinaabe and Nehiyawak and deliberately controlled the French access to these fur resources. This strategy put both the Algonkins and the Wendat in an incredibly powerful position. It was also beneficial to the French traders as they were allowed to stay at Quebec, Montreal and Tadoussac, and the furs were brought to them. Access to weaponry of the French allowed the Algonkins and Wendat to successfully defeat enemies in the short term, such as the marauding Haudenosaunee, particularly the Oneida and the Onondaga. When the Dutch arrived on the scene further south, they became the rival of the French. The Haudenosaunee then aligned themselves with other nations near them, what was to become the powerful League of Haudenosaunee or Five Nations Confederacy comprising of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. Remember earlier when the Algonkin and Wendat often suffered from rage from the Oneida and Onondaga? Now, this same geographic area had two European nations present, the Dutch and the French, both eager to make alliances for commercial, land, and military purposes. The European nations were in fierce competition, so they wanted to make alliances with Indigenous nations. Forming alliances with Europeans helped Indigenous nations fight with better weapons and bargain for goods and services. But it also had negative impacts in the long term. The control of the fur trade became threatened as the French began to bypass the Algonkins to deal directly with the Wendat and they were successful. This is a great example of how shifts in trade partnerships and alliances formed and reformed as regional resources became depleted and Europeans moved west and north. After a series of crushing defeats by the League of Haudenosaunee and their English allies, the loss of people from diseases such as smallpox, the Wendat Confederacy fell apart. Suddenly, there was a gap left in the trade network that had the French traders move westward from their settlements on the St. Lawrence. This led to the development of a chain of inland forts by the French. The established trading alliances were destroyed and it was a struggle to realign the roots into the interior. The impact of the dispersal of the Wendat included a change in geographic concentration of the fur trade and a greater influence of the British. A shift in geography was to more northerly and westerly areas, and this paved the way for the rise of the Hudson's Bay Company. As the Hudson's Bay Company built trading posts in the region, they came into direct competition with the French. >> The 1670 Charter provided a small group of well connected individuals with monopoly rights and protection by charter from the state. In this sense the Hudson's Bay Company was one among many European companies that built an extensive network that engaged in trade, exploitation, plunder, and slavery. A justification for monopoly rights was based on the risks to investment because of the uncertainties of long distance trade. The Hudson's Bay Company was established by a group of wealthy English merchants. Then, in 1670, the King of England, Charles II, unilaterally granted the Hudson's Bay Company title to Rupert's Land, a huge trek of land that included all of the lands drained by rivers flowing into the Hudson's Bay. This royal charter also granted the company the unassailable right to trade into Hudson's Bay. This area, approximately one-third of Native Canada, was renamed Rupert's Land by the British. Almost as an afterthought, the crown realized that the region's residents might take issue with this land transfer and resist. They gave instructions to the local governor, John Nixon, to discuss the new ownership of land with the local Native leadership. Here are the 1680 instructions given. >> In the several places where you are or shall settle, you contrive to make compact with the Native captains or chiefs of the respective rivers and places. Whereby it might be understood by them that you had purchased both the lands and rivers of them, and that they had transferred the absolute propriety to you, or at least the only freedom of trade. [MUSIC] >> On paper, the Hudson's Bay Company had a monopoly over a vast territory, but in reality, the Hudson's Bay Company only controlled a small area adjacent to the shores of James and Hudson bays. The Hudson's Bay Company established factories at the mouths of major rivers flowing into Hudson's Bay, providing a convenient route for Native traders to deliver furs. While the company sent explorers inland to encourage more groups to trade, the Hudson's Bay Company did not try to establish inland posts until the 1770s. Hudson's Bay Company succeeded as well as it did, because the traditional trade routes to the south had been disrupted with the fall of the Wendat. The Nehiyawak that lived along the Hudson's Bay were looking for trade opportunities, whereas before, they preferred to avoid the Europeans. The French also saw the opportunities in the fair trade in the west, so they made efforts to establish good relationships with the Nehiyawak and other groups in the west. French traders focused on the interior more because they wanted to cut off Hudson's Bay Post from supplying outlying regions by moving inland from Montreal and circling around the areas of Hudson's Bay. As a result, the various Indigenous Nations became very good at taking advantage of European interest and alliance and friendship. The Northwest French fur trade network disappeared after France handed New France over to the British through the Treaty of 1763. The Northwest Company, originally founded in 1779 by a loosely organized group of traders in Montreal, wanted to crack to open the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. The Northwest Company merged with smaller rivals and extended their trade to the Athabasca and Mackenzie districts. This was a bold and risky move, capitalizing on the rich furs from the North and The Northwest Company became a fierce rival for the Hudson's Bay company. By 1784, The Northwest Company had formed a powerful partnership of nine different fur trading groups and built a robust economic entity that openly defied the royal charter. The men, many of whom were experienced Canadien, worked for The Northwest Company and became known as the Nor'Westers. >> So far, we have discussed the impact on the Indigenous population due to the arrival of Europeans coming to North America to work in the fur trade and/or settle on the land. We have yet to discuss one of the most exceptional consequences of European and Indigenous encounters. As the trading networks grew, Hudson's Bay Company men and the French men of The Northwest Company adopted the trading practices of the Indigenous population. Securing the economic bonds and loyalty that came with kinship ties, Indigenous women and their kin would secure trading privileges through marriages and long-term relationships with the newcomers. These bonds were often called Marriage à la Façon du Pays, and while mutually beneficial were not always permanent. The offspring of this relationships became known to the Hudson's Bay Company as Half-Breeds or Mixed-Bloods, while the French called their children Bois Brûlé or Métis. Little could have anyone predicted that, through a serious of unforeseen circumstances, time and human nature, these relationships would create a new nation, the Métis People. [MUSIC] >> There's two major ways of thinking and talking about Métis in Canada. The first and more dominant way tends to understand Métis as being mixed in ways that other Indigenous people are not. Very often, people will talk about Métis people as being of mixed Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry, as though most or all other Aboriginal people are not also of mixed Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry. So that's not a particularly persuasive way of thinking and talking about Métis identity. The other way of thinking and talking about Métis identity is as an Indigenous people. And in that context, when we think about Indigenous peoplehood, we think about our relationships to place, we think about our relationships to land, we think about our relationships to other Indigenous people. And we also think about things like our economy, our culture, our language, our art. All the different kinds of things that you normally think about when you talk about people. The Métis are a people. We are an Indigenous people. We are a post-contact people, but we are a people. Our origins are in the early 19th century, late 18th century. We are linked through particular kinship networks to other Indigenous peoples of the Northern Plains. Our main areas of trade are what is now Western Canada. And the easiest way to think about what it means to be Métis is to think about the core and periphery through which Métis moved in and came out during the 19th century, in particular. So you think about Red River, which is now in and around Winnipeg, Manitoba. You think about Pembina, which is in the United States, and you think about Fort Edmonton. If you think about those as separate hearts and the heartbeat is through which the Métis came in and out of those different places to trade, went out onto the prairies to live with kin, came back to trade again seasonally as the buffalo trade got larger and larger and more economically advantageous for them to do. >> So far, we have focus our discussion of fur trading on the East Coast. Let's now move further west and take a look at how the fur trade affected other First Nations. During the 17th and 18th centuries, unlike the eastern First Nations, some Indigenous groups had not yet had direct contact with any Europeans. But due to extensive trading networks, this didn't stop European goods, like metal and firearms, from reaching the Plains First Nations including the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Siksika, Kainai, Peigan and Tsuu T'ina. The changing geography of the fur trade was reflected in tribal movements and economic reorientations to new environments. The fur trade gradually moved west with the expansion of Assiniboine and Nehiyawak into western territories. Assiniboine and Nehiyawak groups arrived on the Plains at the end of the 17th century and continued expanding west. For Nehiyawak on the plains and parklands, buffalo hunting meant, there was less direct independence on the fur trade than for Nehiyawak groups eastward and northward. The trading networks of Nehiyawak and Assiniboine, or Hohe Nakota, had spread European goods across the Plains. These people specialized as middlemen. They brought furs to the factory and returned with trade goods. Some Plains First Nations, especially the Blackfoot, had no reason or impetus to trade directly with the Hudson's Bay Company on Hudson Bay. In the mid-1770s, the Hudson’s Bay Company expanded into the interior to confront The Northwest Company. And in so doing, they bypassed these middlemen. Naturally, it was not in the interest of these middlemen to lose their economic niche. You can see how the fur trade expanded already existing trading networks. And so, from the 18th and 19th centuries, Indigenous peoples on the Plains also benefited greatly from the fur trade. [MUSIC] >> We, as women, had a lot of work to do. And even it pre-dates fur trade, but it's sort of was part of that as well because of our necessities of life. And so we couldn't go to a shopping mall to acquire things. We had to use what nature gave us. And so hide tanning actually is something that was really, really vital. Everybody, every woman had knowledge of tanning hides, and so did men. But it was the women who actually did most of the work when it came to hide tanning. This tool actually is in itself [COUGH], a tool that was made from the front leg bone of a moose. And I made this tool, I did have a little bit of help with the saw just to get it nice and straight but the teeth are cut into it. So that it could grab the flesh. So this is used as a, it's called a fleshing tool, and the way that we hold it is like this. I brace it around my wrist, and I hold it close to the teeth and then I strike the hide. I don't scrape it so much, but I strike it almost at a 90-degree angle. And that pounds through the membrane that's on the inside of the hide to loosen those fibres so that the hide, the flesh I should say, rolls off on its own as you pound along, and you keep pounding it back and forth. And so I still use the bone flesher for my deer hides, because they're thinner. But I like to use my metal one. And this is something that with trade, with fur trade, they would have started using metal goods. Maybe not one like this but they would have used items such as, say a shotgun or maybe, I don't think it was called a shotgun at that time. [LAUGH] But a rifle that was of no use, they would take it apart and use pieces of it. And so the barrel was often used as a fleshing tool, and so that was one of the first tools that they would have made out of a rifle. And so that fur trade, even though it was something that was welcomed because of the materials, the items were still used in the same way. So I love that part about the fur trade and how they were just adapted from a bone tool to a metal tool. But, it's still the same. So for instance, the copper pot was something that was used. Before the copper pot was used for boiling water, a stomach bag, the bison stomach was used. It was hung in kind of a tripod and then there was a fire right close by, not under it because it would just burn, but close by and rocks were put in that fire. And then those rocks were taken and put into the stomach bag. And this was transferred back and forth, these rocks were transferred back and forth until that water boiled. So you can imagine the time it would take. And then once the water was boiling they continued to do this to keep the heat and then added their wild game, wild meat, wild vegetables so that they could make a type of stew or soup. And so when the copper pot came along during the fur trade, it was actually one of the number one trade items because women recognized the ease of just hanging this over a fire, that you could cook with it. I mean, there's different shapes, this one is one that I found at an antique store, which I love. But it is something that was used every day because it was vital. And the women, actually, were the ones that, well, asked or were required, or wanted it. [LAUGH] And so they got it. Like that saying goes, if your women are happy, everyone else is happy. [LAUGH] But yes, that's the copper pot. I love it. Mm-hm. [MUSIC]
