The fur trade was, to some extent, a “Native ground” between Indigenous and European cultures. Although the Europeans often held the most power in these interactions and were prone to shift trade towards exploitation, Native people still had some power and sway over their trading relationships.
In the Great Lakes region, it seems that in the early days, Indigenous people were able to maintain the status of the Native ground they had lived off of and cared for for centuries. They had control over what and with whom they traded, and some cultural exchange occurred as French traders married women and had to respect Indigenous cultures to maintain trading relationships. The artifacts that we viewed prior to Monday’s class showed how these trade relationships could be peaceful and mutually beneficial. However, they also showed how Europeans had begun to encroach on the values and practices of Indigenous peoples. For example, the bandolier bag we looked at was made to emulate a European style, as the bags were sometimes made without the pocket typically used to store ammunition cartridges, rendering the bag entirely aesthetic and not functional for its original purpose. I wonder what drew them to this particular design, and whether the meaning of the design changed once that same ammunition was used on Indigenous communities themselves.
In the Upper Missouri region, Indigenous communities held control over Native ground for longer than communities in the Great Lakes after the War of 1812 caused a huge wave of settlement into the Great Lakes area. However, this meant that trading posts also pushed even further west into areas where resources weren’t as depleted and trade relations were relatively unharmed. A similar pattern occurred, this time with white American fur traders marrying Native women as trading posts popped up in the Upper Missouri and new trading competition and practices were established. I find it really interesting how the emphasis on matriarchy and matrilineal practices gave Indigenous wives to white American men more power in the relationship, especially compared to white American women at the time. I also find it interesting how fur trading posts (such as Fort Union) and treaties were sometimes initially requested by Indigenous people to promote their interests and make their lives easier, but then became tools for the US government to surveil and eventually exploit Native people. This ties into historical record and the ethics of certain historical documents (such as data collected in order to track and control Native populations) and how they were simultaneously a tool of destruction and now a tool of creation for modern historians.