The deerskin trade between Colonial America

Colonial America

The colonial history of the United States covers the history from the start of European settlement and especially the history of the thirteen colonies of Britain until they declared independence in 1776. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain and the Netherlands launched major...

 and the Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

s was one of the most important trading relationships between Europeans and Native Americans, especially in the southeast. It was a form of the fur trade

Fur trade

The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of world market for in the early modern period furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued...

, but less known, since deer skins were not as valuable as furs from the north (such as beaver

Beaver

The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver and Eurasian Beaver . Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges . They are the second-largest rodent in the world...

). Colonial deerskin exports were an important source of raw material for the European markets. The Cherokee

Cherokee

The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...

 mainly traded their deer-skins to the French and Spanish, and the Shawnee

Shawnee

The Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, are an Algonquian-speaking people native to North America. Historically they inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, and Pennsylvania...

 traded deer skins with the English colonies to the north and east.

By 1750, deer were becoming harder to find in Cherokee territory. So large was the scale of the trade that in time deer became nearly extinct

Extinction

In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...

 in the southeast. It also radically altered the social make-up

Social

The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...

 of the Cherokee because the men were increasingly absent from towns (for long periods to hunt deer). Concurrently, Cherokee society was undergoing a growing dependence on European trade goods. These events contributed to growing tensions and conflict between the Indian tribes themselves, as well as with the Europeans.

Deerskin were used to produce buckskin

Buckskin

Buckskin may refer to:*Buckskin , leather made of buck hide*Buckskins, an outfit of buckskin leather*Buckskin , a color of horses similar to buckskin leather...

, as well as a chamois like leather, used for the making of gloves, bookbinding, and many other things.

External links

• English Trade in Deerskins and Indian Slaves, New Georgia Encyclopedia