The French explorer, Robert La Salle, navigated the Great Lakes regions and the Mississippi River in the late 1600's, including the waterways of Indiana in 1679. He saw vast tracks of unused land, Native American goods, and new plants and animals as something that could be profitable for his home country. He quickly claimed the entire area for France, including what would become Indiana.
Trading posts were established around Native American populations and along major rivers in Indiana. In days before railroads and automobiles, rivers were used for transporting goods. Therefore, riverbanks became places of commerce, mission work, and settlement. Military posts were built to protect these areas from rival European powers. Three major posts of the 18th century are Indiana cities today: Post Vincennes, established in 1732, is presently Vincennes; Fort Quiatonon (1717) is near present day Lafayette; and Fort Miami (1721) is now Fort Wayne.
Benefits of Trade
The story of the fur trade is usually one of genocide, the death of millions of Native Americans because of disease and war, but there was also considerable amount of peace between Europeans and Indigenous people of Indiana through trade. Bartering is a win/win situation, because people only trade when they are expecting to gain something. In addition, the voluntary nature of trade between two people creates peaceful relations and cultural awareness. There is evidence of these peaceful relations in Indiana between Europeans and Native Americans.
Native Americans initially embraced French settlers and traders, because of the benefits of trade and because there were too few Frenchmen to threaten their way of life. As trade expanded, more interaction between the two people created peaceful relations. Alliances were built by trading goods and friendships were developed by exchanging gifts. It was important to learn languages and customs of the other side to determine what trading goods were desired. For example, European traders made iron arrowheads, something that was not part of their culture, because they knew this was a marketable item with Native Americans. Cultural awareness also lead to integrated wardrobes, and Europeans sometimes chose to live among Indian tribes, some even married and raised families.
Native Americans bartered for items such as firearms, cloth, metal tools, jewelry, and alcohol. They were interested in obtaining items that had practical use in their daily lives. For example, arrowheads and cooking utensils made of metal simply replaced existing tools made of stone. Furthermore, because trade allowed European goods to arrive in places long before Europeans themselves, Native Americans often tried to position themselves as middlemen in larger trading networks with other Indian tribes to improve their trading power and social prestige.
The French were interested in trading for animal furs and skins from Native Americans. Companies entrusted goods to traders who transported them by canoe to exchange for deerskin, and beaver, muskrat, and raccoon pelts. The furs were then sent to Paris to satisfy fashion demands in Europe. A beaver pelt hat, for example, was popular among the aristocracy; it was a symbol of wealth and prestige.
Costs of Trade
The benefits of trade, however, came at a cost. European tools often made daily life easier for Native Americas, but trade creates a problem of dependency. For example, using metal arrowheads may have made daily life easier, however over time ancient skills of making stone arrowheads by hand were lost. This made Native Americans dependent on trade with Europeans to obtain more iron arrowheads. Another example of dependency involves firearms. Once an individual relies on the use of a gun, he or she becomes dependent on trade to maintain it; one must obtain shot, powder, spare parts, and anything else to keep the gun working.
Though Native Americans traded for European tools, they did not trade beliefs and values. They resisted ideas about property rights, year-round farming, and religious beliefs. Therefore, as more and more settlers arrived, the culture difference between the two people intensified. Another cost of trade included the exchange of diseases. Europeans spread diseases, such as smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, and influenza, to indigenous people of the New World, who had no immunities against them. Disease, along with war and genocide as a result of culture differences and racism, led to the death of millions of people and nearly a complete annihilation of an entire race of people.
One Land, Two Peoples
Competition between Native American tribes for European goods, along with competition between France and Britain, reached a turning point in the 1760's during the French and Indian War. Native Americans generally chose to fight alongside the French, because they were more dependent on French trading goods and because the British were more interested in settling large tracks of land. Great Britain won the war in 1763, giving them dominance over trade relations with Native Americans for a short period of time. The British traded items that reflected an empire–tobacco, guns, and rum. This lasted until the Revolutionary War and the birth of America. Eventually, in the 1800's, more and more Americans moved west of the Appalachian Mountains because of cheap land and resources. As more settlers arrived to places like Indiana, conflict with Native Americans intensified. This conflict, along with fashion changes in Europe, helped bring an end to the fur trade around the 1850's.
