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Fur Traders Chapter 6

Fur Traders

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Fur Traders. Chapter 6. Fur Trade Era 1811-1846. Fur traders and missionaries were the first permanent white settlers to live in the area that is now Washington British and American fur companies sent trappers and traders to Oregon country to obtain the valuable pelts of beavers and otters. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: Fur Traders

Fur Traders

Chapter 6

Page 2: Fur Traders

Fur traders and missionaries were the first

permanent white settlers to live in the area that is now Washington

British and American fur companies sent trappers and traders to Oregon country to obtain the valuable pelts of beavers and otters

Fur Trade Era 1811-1846

Page 3: Fur Traders

Business

Relationships

•Native Americans hired by traders

Trading posts

•Native Americans traded fur pelts for other goods at trading posts

Global demand for

fur

•Trading posts shipped the furs to markets around the world

Companies Make A Significant Profit

Page 4: Fur Traders
Page 5: Fur Traders

Native American Trappers Didn’t overhunt Trapped what they needed

for warmth and protection Familiar with the land,

excellent trappers

White trappers

took more than they needed

Learned what they could from Native Americans

Used barter system Worked for Pacific, Rocky

Mountain (American), Hudon’s Bay, or Northwest fur company (British)

Trappers

Page 6: Fur Traders

1. Geography• Forests and waterways

2. River system• Easy access to the Pacific

OceanAsia

The Boom

Page 7: Fur Traders

3. Native Americans• Skilled, cheap labor

4. Limited competition• 4 companies controlled the

industry, isolated environment

The Boom

Page 8: Fur Traders

The mountain men of the Rocky

Mountain fur company were independent and hardy

Lived a life more like the Native Americans

Survived for months without trading posts

Had summer trading gatherings called rendezvous

Life of a fur trapper and trader

Page 9: Fur Traders

“There is … a great variety of personages amongst us, most of them calling themselves white men, French-Canadians, half-breeds, &c., their color nearly as dark, and their manners wholly as wild, as the Indians with whom they constantly associate. These people, with their obstreperous mirth, their whooping and howling, and quarrelling, added to the mounted Indians, who are constantly dashing into and through our camp, yelling like fiends, the barking and baying of savage wolf-dogs, and the incessant cracking of rifles and carbines, render our camp a perfect bedlam. I . . . am compelled all day to listen to the hiccoughing jargon of drunken traders, the sacré and foutre [French swear words; many more of the traders and trappers spoke French than English] of Frenchmen run wild, and the swearing and screaming of our own men, who are scarcely less savage than the rest, being heated by the detestable liquor which circulates freely among them.” [Townsend, 83-84.]

Rendezvous

Page 10: Fur Traders

Trappers began finding that on

stream after stream, the beaver were no longer repairing their dams, and beaver ponds were drying up. They were disappearing.

Trappers had been killing them too fast.

In Europe, stylish men were starting to like silk hats—demand decreased as fur went out of style

The Bust

Page 11: Fur Traders

Lack of planning quickly minimized

the region’s advantages in the trading industry

Established permanent settlements in Oregon Country

Rocky Mountain Fur Company discovered a wagon route through the Rocky Mountains

Results

Page 12: Fur Traders