The Fur Trades Impact on Native Life.

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The Fur Trades Impact on Native Life

Much has been written about the Fur trade.  It is often agreed by historians that its development resulted in a major commercial activity that sustained the colonies in North America.  It helped advance North American exploration, as rival European powers looked to take advantage of newly found suppliers.  Not only did traders acquire furs from the natives, they acquired valuable knowledge and skills for survival in the wilderness, and extreme whether conditions, all of which helped to sustain the development of the colonies.  Ray and Van Kirk offer a different approach in the study of the fur trade.  Most historians have studied the development of the fur trade with a European perspective, that being, focusing on an egocentrism point of view (Ray, 2002, p52).  Both Ray and Van Kirk explore the fur trade with an emphasis on its affect on native life.  They utilize the availability of the vast amount of first hand documentation of the fur trade to further their point   The focus of this essay will look to explore the similarities between Ray and Van Kirk and the development of the fur trade as it pertains to native life.  

Ray in his explanation attempts to expose common stereotypes and inaccurate images of natives during the pre-confederation period in Canada.  Ray claims that the image painted by historians portrays natives as being; inferior, dependent, “ruthlessly exploited and cheated in all areas and periods by white traders”.   This view is supported by some who argue that “Indians were lazy and had no conception of how to buy wisely or spend money”.  Ray is quick to point out that while Native exploitation did occur, focusing only on these negative aspects contributes to the inaccurate image of natives as being a people of lower moral and intellectual standards (Ray, 2002, p53).  Instead Ray argues that “the Indians were sophisticated traders, who had their own clearly defined sets of objectives and conventions for carrying on exchange with the Europeans”.  

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With this established, Ray offers what he believes to be the impact of the fur trade on native life.  Ray argues that increased European competition between the years 1763 and 1821 for furs lead to over trapping of native lands which resulted in negative consequences for their economic survival (Ray, 2002, p58).  The over trapping and hunting by natives was particularly devastating for the natives, as they lacked a surplus to carry them through difficult times.  Ray contends that “the Indians seem to have engaged in trade primarily to satisfy their own immediate requirements for goods”.  As a result, ...

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