Individual Native Americans had the right to exclude others from taking furs or meat from their territories for purposes of sale, but they did not have the right to exclude others from killing animals for consumption.

Much of the seventeenth century forest warfare was caused by the beaver's extermination within a given tribes hunting area, leading that tribe to encroach upon another' s preserves. Native American beaver hunting methods contributed much to early depletion. The Native Americans killed all of each animal type when found, and few if any beaver in one house were saved. Beavers were most easily hunted in winter, when ice proved easier to deal with than water, and the beaver's fur was in its prime. Groups of hunters demolished lodges and cut dams with stone axes, in a war waged against these animals not alone for food, but increasingly for profit.

Native American Hostilities Renewed Over The Fur Trade

Such was the situation in which the Mohawk found themselves some ten years after defeating the Mahican, and they now felt obliged to fight distant tribes to maintain wide beaver hunting grounds, and also to keep their position as middlemen between the Dutch and other Indians. Consequently, the tenuous peace the Mohawk had made with northern Algonquin’s about 1634 was weakened, and the desultory hostilities resumed.

While the French should have welcomed the Iroquois as partners, the Mohawk did not want to cooperate, for the Mohawk realized furs taken from other tribes could be sold at profit at other trading forts. Despite the fact that peace was believed to be a prime requisite for profitable trade by both the Dutch and Indians, the Mohawk launched attacks.

At the same time, the Mohawk were not completely happy with the Dutch. In September, 1659, they complained that: The Dutch say we are brothers, and joined together with chains, but that lasts only as long as we have beavers; after that no attention is paid to us.

The Mohawk strongly wished that the Dutch would act as the French did toward their Indian allies, and "help us in repairing our castles". The relationship between the Dutch and Native Americans was tenuous. Depletion of beaver in Native American hunting grounds and resulted in intertribal warfare.

Impact Of The Dutch

Alcohol and The Fur Trade

There were other problems associated with the fur trade. While there were honest traders who dealt fairly with the Native Americans, too many greedy, unscrupulous men in the trade cheated and exploited them. Alcohol was an important and permanent part of the trade. It had devastating effects on many Native American tribes. Numerous witnesses have written of the violence and tragedy the liquor trade brought to the Native American  villages.

The Dutch, French and English, used brandy and rum as an article of trade, the effects of which were generally and continually devastating. The Dutch were the first to mentioned beer and brandy as trade articles for furs in 1634.

The Native Americans knew the danger of liquor, but they were unable to resist it.  While liquor changed the lives of the Native American , firearms altered their lives  as well, and brought fundamental changes in their ways of hunting and methods of warfare.

Impact of Dutch Weapons

The Native American trading gun, made for the Native American by the English, was exchanged by the Dutch for furs, contributing as early as 1640 to an ecological catastrophe. Now the Iroquois scoured the woods for more furs, in order to obtain more guns, hatchets, and rum from the Dutch. This quest, as we have noted, resulted in a serious depletion of fur-bearing animals, particularly the beaver. It resulted as well in great changes in the Native American ecosystems: an unrestrained slaughter of certain game ensued, and systematic overkill became the rule.

The Native American, now equipped with European technology, and urged on by the Dutch traders, became deprived of a sense of responsibility for the land. At the same time, the Native American depended less and less on the resources of his local ecosystem; improved hunting equipment--muskets, axes, knives, iron-tipped arrows and spears--brought a heavy depletion of local food resources and increased dependence on the availability of European foodstuffs. An additional result, less obvious perhaps, came from combining firearms with liquor, which often caused a debauched and violent Indian to carry his senseless violence into the Dutch community Most importantly, the fur trade and accompanying technology altered the relationship of the Native American to his land, and the Native American was transformed from conservator to exploiter within his ecosystem. The intense exploitation of some game animals and the virtual extermination of others was the result. This was true of the Iroquois during the Dutch regime; it was also a pattern to be repeated many times along the Native American -White frontier.

As might be surmised, guns and other weapons as trade goods also revolutionized Native American warfare in the early seventeenth century. Free traders and colonists were selling firearms to the Mohawk for furs. The Mohawk were regarded as friends of the Dutch. Because these arms were refused to other tribes, both Dutch and Mohawk were hated by the other tribes. The Mohawk were also paying the English 20 beavers for a musket.

It is not surprising then that the Mohawk, armed with European weapons, reached a peak in their military activities about this time, and embarked on the subjugation of other tribes. Native American hostilities interfered with fur gathering, and deprived the Dutch of the furs for which they had so freely traded muskets

The Role Of Beaver In The Fur Trade

Prized for their warmth, luxurious texture, and  the  longevity of fur as a material, furs have played a large role  in clothing people since the beginning of  human  history.  For everyday use or costume and decoration, furs  have been used for the  production of outerwear such as  coats and cape, garment and shoe lining, a variety of head  coverings, and ornamental trim and trappings.

From fur pelts three primary materials used in clothing production can be derived:  the full pelt (fur and skin), leather or suede (the skin with all fur removed, and felts (removing the fur  from the pelt, and processing it with heat and pressure to  form a piece of pliable material).  Due to the strength and  malleable quality of felts, they were used extensively in hat making.  The physical structure of beaver fur predisposes it to the felting process, making it a highly desirable fur for felt production

In North America, French, Dutch, and English, all found ways of working with Native Americans to expand their access to beaver sources.  Both the superior ecological familiarity, and well-developed hunting and trapping skill sets of native hunters were essential to providing a steady supply of beaver from North America. Within the colony itself, trade functioned as both an economic exchange and a means of establishing alliances between Europeans and their Native American neighbors.

The exchange of goods inhabited a realm that tied two cultures together economically, symbolically and politically.  An open market for European goods in the colonies, and the supply of raw material from the colonies to Europe, helped drive the colonial economy.  The introduction of steel tools and gun powder weaponry transformed indigenous American society.  The Europeans, on the other hand, heavily relied upon their Native American neighbors for access to American resources, such as the beaver.  Along with textiles, cooking pots, and guns, the European item that proved to be most influential on indigenous populations was the spread of their diseases.  Bacterial isolation from the Eur-Asian continent rendered Native Americans' immune systems defenseless to common Europeans diseases such as small pox and chicken pox, the bubonic plague, influenza, malaria, diphtheria, as well as venereal diseases. The spread of disease precipitated the Great Dying and decimated indigenous populations across North and South America.

The political alliances and economic forces that resulted from this trade proved to have lasting environmental and social impacts on the land and peoples of North America.  Competition for access to beaver lead to warfare between nations, such as in the case of the Iroquois defeat of the Huron in 1649.  Similarly, indigenous-European alliances entangled native American populations in a number European affairs and conflicts, including Leisler's Rebellion, the Seven Years War (French and Indian War), and the American Revolution

The North American Furs in Europe

In Europe, North American beaver pelts flooded the European market.  Pelts were generally imported into either England or France, where some pelts were sold in the domestic market, and some pelts were exported to other parts of Europe for sale.  As a buyer of English and French pelts, Russia played a large role in this regard.  Imported pelts were sorted into three categories: castor gras, castor sec, and bandeau.  Castor gras pelts had been worn by Native American trappers for the hunting season and as a result of the sweat and body oil, were more pliable and easier to felt.  They were also the most expensive pelts.  Castor sec referred to pelts that had been scraped clean, but never worn, and required some extra work to prepare them for felting.  Bandeau pelts were scraped, but not necessarily clean, and could be partially rotted or decayed upon arrival in Europe.  Although known in Europe by the end of the seventeenth century, the combing technique developed by the Russians helped prepare the castor sec pelts by separating the desired beaver wool from the outer guard hairs, making them more easily feltable.   In general, the Russian market served as an outlet for pelts not sold on the French or English domestic markets.   Until the combing process was known in Western Europe, the French and English were able to export substantial quantities of castor sec to be combed in Russia, and then re-import the combed pelts.  Even after the knowledge of combing became more wide spread in Western Europe, meaning that the less expensive castor sec could be combed locally, the Russian market was able to purchase excess numbers of the more expensive castor gras, that had been passed up domestically in favor of the castor sec.  Beaver felts, made from beaver pelts, could be manufactured domestically in France or England, or imported from Russia.

Beaver felts were used to  make beaver hats.  Hats, like other forms of dress,  played a large role in reflecting one's social  identity.  The shape and style of one's hat indicated to a passerby one's profession, wealth, and social rank and position.  Color,  shape, and material all carried specific meaning.  In Ecclesiastical heraldry, for example, a red, wide-brimmed hat clearly  indicated that its wearer was a cardinal, and  interactions required a specific social protocol.  In  seventeenth century England, the shape and style of one's hat reflected political and religious affiliation.  Due  to the expense of a beaver hat, being able to purchase one made a visual statement about one's wealth and social status. 

Until the latter half of the seventeenth century, makers of beaver hats were dependent on the very last of the supply of the European beaver.  In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the influx of beaver furs from the new world increased the sheer number of beaver hats that could be made, due the increased supply of raw material.  Hats made exclusively from beaver wool, or castors, were the most expensive and of the highest quality.   What seems to have lowered the price of beaver hats was less the increased supply of pelts, than the production of demi-castor, or half-beavers.  Demi-castor hats could be mixed with wool or hare fur, to produce a hat that was lower in quality, similar in style, and less expensive in price.  The production of demi-castors was further facilitated by the development of carroting, which made hare fur felt more easily after the application of mercury nitrate.

From the Perspective of World History

When following the path of the American beaver pelt, a complex network of trans-Atlantic trade networks emerge.  In the wilds of North America, beaver trapping contributed to shifting economic and political alliances between Europeans and Native Americans.  The effects of the trade came to have profound social, demographical and environmental impacts on the various inhabitants of seventeenth and eighteenth century North America.  Closely tied into the economic prosperity and viability of the colonies, exchange of furs sustained the colonies' economic systems.  Further, the transport of furs across the Atlantic and through to foreign markets, such as Russia and Amsterdam, contributed to the enrichment of the shipping industries of the Atlantic World. 

The beaver exchange connected the North American and European markets through the supply and demand of one fortuitously (although not for its own sake) fuzzy animal.

Women in Fur Trade Society

Initially, women did not play an important role in the fur trade industry. But in time, women came to be an integral part of the work force of fur trade communities. Their activities included raising children, planting and harvesting crops, fishing, gathering and preserving food, gathering firewood, producing clothing (particularly moccasins and snowshoes), as well as a wide variety of daily, invaluable domestic tasks.

The primary method of introduction of women into the fur trade community was through marriage. Marriage "after the custom of the country" was an indigenous marriage rite, which evolved to meet the needs of fur-trade society.

The marriages of European men and Native women were encouraged by Iroquois leaders, as a way to create a social bond reinforcing the economic relationship between the two groups.