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Southeastern Fur Trade

Background

            Starting in the mid-16^th century, Europeans traded weapons and household goods in exchange for furs with Native Americans in southeast America. The trade originally tried to mimic the fur trade in the north, with large quantities of wildcats, bears, beavers, and other fur bearing animals being traded. The trade in fur coat animals decreased in the early 18^th century, curtailed by the rising popularity of trade in deerskins. The deerskin trade went onto dominate the relationships between the Native Americans of the southeast and the European settlers there. Deerskin was a high commodity due to the deer shortage in Europe, and the British leather industry needed deerskins to produce goods. The bulk of deerskins were exported to Great Britain during the peak of the deerskin trade.

16^th & 17^th Century Post European Contact

Spanish exploratory parties in the 1500’s had violent encounters with the powerful chiefdoms, which led to the decentralization of the indigenous people in the southeast. Time passed between the original Spanish exploration and the next wave of European immigration, which allowed the survivors of the European diseases to organize into new tribes, which exist to this day Most Spanish trade was limited with Indians on the coast until expeditions inland in the beginning of the 17^th century. By 1639, substantial trade between the Spanish in Florida and the Native Americans for deerskins developed, with more interior tribes incorporated into the system by 1647.  Many tribes throughout the southeast began to send trading parties to meet with the Spanish in Florida, or used other tribes as middlemen to obtain manufactured goods. The Apalachees used the Apalachiola people to collect deerskins, and in return the Apalachees would give them silver, guns, or horses.

As the English and French colonizers ventured into the southeast, the deerskin trade experienced a boom going into the 18^th century. Many of the English colonists who settled in the Carolinas in the late 1600’s came from Virginia, where trading patterns of European goods in exchange for beaver furs already had started. The white-tailed deer herds that roamed south of Virginia were a more profitable resource. The French and the English struggled for control over Southern Appalachia and the Mississippi Valley, and needed alliances with the Indians there to maintain dominance. The European colonizers used the trade of deerskins for manufactured goods to secure friendships, and therefore power.

Beginning of the 18^th Century

            The beginning of the 18^th century was marred by violence between the Native Americans involved in the deerskin trade and white settlers, most famously the Yamasee War. The uprising of Indians against fur traders almost wiped out the European colonists in the southeast. The Yamasees had collected extensive debt in the first decade of the 1700’s due to buying manufactured goods on credit from traders, and then not being able to produce enough deerskins to pay the debt later on in the year. Indians who were not able to pay their debt were often enslaved. This process frustrated the Yamasees and other tribes, who lodged complaints against the deceitful credit-loaning scheme traders had enforced, along with methods of cheating or trade. The Yamasees were a coastal tribe in South Carolina, and most of the white-tailed deer herds had moved inland for the better environment. The Yamasees rose up against the English in South Carolina, and soon other tribes joined them, creating combatants from almost every nation in the South. The British were able to defeat the Indian coalition with help from the Cherokees, cementing a pre-existing trade partnership.

            After the uprisings, the Native Americans returned to making alliances with the European powers, using political savvy to get the best deals by playing the three nations off each other. The Creek were particularly good at manipulation – they had begun trading with South Carolina in the last years of the 17^th century and became a trusted deerskin provider. The Creeks were already a wealthy tribe due to their control over the most valuable hunting lands, especially when compared to the impoverished Cherokees. Due to allying with the British during the Yamasee War, the Cherokees lacked Indian trading partners and could not break their ties with England to negotiate with France or Spain.

Mid 18^th Century

            Deerskin trade was at its most profitable in the mid-18^th century. The Creeks rose up as the largest deerskin supplier, which only intensified European demand for deerskins. Native Americans continued to negotiate the most lucrative trade deals by forcing the England, France, and Spain to compete for their supply of deerskins. In the 1740-50’s, the Seven Years War disrupted France’s ability to provide manufactures goods to its allies, the Choctaws and Chickasaw. The French and Indian War further disrupted trade, as the British blockaded French goods. The Cherokees allied themselves with France, who were driven out from the southeast in accordance with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The British were now the dominant trading power in the southeast.  

Post-Revolutionary War

The Revolutionary War disrupted the deerskin trade, as the import of British manufactured goods with cut off (7). The deerskin trade had already begun to decline due to over-hunting of deer (Haan?). The lack of trade caused the Native Americans to run out of items, such as guns, they had become dependent on (7). Some Indians, such as the Creeks, tried to reestablish trade with the Spanish in Florida, where some loyalists were hiding as well (11) (7). When the war ended with the British retreating, many tribes who had fought on their side were now left unprotected and now had to make peace and new trading deals with the new country (11). Many Native Americans were subject to violence from the new Americans who sought to settle their territory (12). The new American government negotiated treaties the recognized prewar borders, such as those with the Choctaw and Chickasaw, and allowed open trade (12).

In the two decades following the Revolutionary War, the United States’ government established new treaties with the Native Americans the provided hunting grounds and terms of trade (7). However, the value of deerskins dropped as domesticated cattle took over the market, and many tribes soon found themselves in debt (9) (7). The Creeks began to sell their land to the government to try and pay their debts, and infighting among the Indians made it easy for white settles to encroach upon their lands (7). The government also sought to encourage Native Americans to give up their old ways of subsistence hunting, and turn to farming and domesticated cattle for trade (9).

Effects of Deerskin Trade

Native American beliefs revolved around respecting the environment. The Creek specifically believed they had a unique relationship with the animals they hunted (7). The Creek had several rules surround how a hunt could occur, particularly prohibiting needless killing of deer (7). There were specific taboos against taking the skins of unhealthy deer (7). However, the deerskin prompted hunters to act past the point of restraint they had operated under before. The hunting economy collapsed due to the scarcity of deer as they were over-hunted and lost their lands to white settlers (7). Due to the decline of deer populations, and the governmental pressure to switch to the colonists’ way of life, animal husbandry replaced deer hunting both as an income and in the diet (9).

            Rum was first introduced in the early 1700’s as a trading item, and quickly became an inelastic good (2). While Native Americans were for the most part acted conservatively in trading deals, they consumed a surplus of alcohol (7). Traders used rum to help form partnerships (2.) Rum had a significant effect on the social behavior of Native Americans. Under the influence of rum, the younger generation did not obey the elders of the tribe, and became involved with more skirmishes with other tribes and white settlers (7). Rum also disrupted the amount of time the younger generation of males spent on labor (2.) Alcohol was one of the goods provided on credit, and led to a debt trap for many Native Americans (2). Native Americans did not know how to distill alcohol, and thus were driven to trade for it (7).

            Native Americans had become dependent on manufactures goods such as guns and domesticated animals, and experienced a loss of traditional practices. With the new cattle herds roaming the hunting lands, and a greater emphasis on farming due to the invention of the Cotton Gin, Native Americans struggled to maintain their place in the economy (9). An inequality gap had appeared in the tribes, as some hunters were more successful than others (7). Still, the creditors treated and individual’s debt as debt of the whole tribe, and used several strategies to keep the Native Americans in debt (2). Traders would rig the weighing system that determined the value of the deerskins in their favor, cut measurement tools to devalue the deerskin, and would tamper with the manufactured goods to decrease their worth, such as watering down the alcohol they traded (2). To satisfy the need for deerskins, many males of the tribes abandoned their traditional seasonal roles and became full time traders (2). When the deerskin trade collapsed, Native Americans found themselves dependent on manufactured goods, and could not return to the old ways due to lost knowledge.