Maritime Fur Trade
Encyclopedia
The Maritime Fur Trade was a ship-based fur trade
system that focused on acquiring furs of sea otter
s and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast
and natives of Alaska
. The furs were mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain, and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States. The maritime fur trade was pioneered by Russians, working east from Kamchatka along the Aleutian Islands to the southern coast of Alaska. British and Americans entered during the 1780s, focusing on what is now the coast of British Columbia
. The trade boomed around the turn of the 19th century. A long period of decline began in the 1810s. As the sea otter population was depleted, the maritime fur trade diversified and transformed, tapping new markets and commodities while continuing to focus on the Northwest Coast and China. It lasted until the middle to late 19th century. Russians controlled most of the coast of what is now Alaska during the entire era. The coast south of Alaska saw fierce competition between, and among, British and American trading vessels. The British were the first to operate in the southern sector, but were unable to compete against the Americans who dominated from the 1790s to the 1830s. The British Hudson's Bay Company
entered the coast trade in the 1820s with the intention of driving the Americans away. This was accomplished by about 1840. In its late period the maritime fur trade was largely conducted by the British Hudson's Bay Company
and the Russian-American Company
.
The term "maritime fur trade" was coined by historians to distinguish the coastal, ship-based fur trade from the continental, land-based fur trade of, for example, the North West Company
and American Fur Company
. Historically, the maritime fur trade was not known by that name, rather it was usually called the "North West Coast trade" or "North West Trade". The term "North West" was rarely spelled as the single word "Northwest", as is common today.
The maritime fur trade brought the Pacific Northwest
coast into a vast, new international trade
network, centered on the north Pacific Ocean, global in scope, and based on capitalism
but not, for the most part, on colonialism
. A triangular trade
network emerged linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China, the Hawaiian Islands
(only recently discovered by the Western world
), Britain, and the United States (especially New England
). The trade had a major effect on the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest coast, especially the Aleut, Tlingit, Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Chinook peoples. There was a rapid increase of wealth among the Northwest Coast natives, along with increased warfare, potlatch
ing, slaving, and depopulation due to epidemic
disease. However, the indigenous culture was not overwhelmed by rapid change, but actually flourished. For instance, the importance of totem
s and traditional nobility crests increased, and the Chinook Jargon
, which remains a distinctive aspect of Pacific Northwest culture, was developed during this era. Native Hawaiian society was similarly affected by the sudden influx of Western wealth and technology, as well as epidemic diseases. The trade's effect on China and Europe was minimal, but for New England, the maritime fur trade and the significant profits it made helped revitalize the region, contributing to its transformation from an agrarian to an industrial society. The wealth generated by the maritime fur trade was invested in industrial development, especially textile manufacturing
. The New England textile industry in turn had a large effect on slavery in the United States, increasing the demand for cotton and helping make possible the rapid expansion of the cotton plantation system across the Deep South
.
The most profitable furs were those of sea otter
s, especially the northern sea otter, Enhydra lutris kenyoni, which inhabited the coastal waters between the Columbia River
in the south to the Aleutian Islands in the north. The fur of the Californian southern sea otter, E. l. nereis, was less highly prized and thus less profitable. After the northern sea otter was hunted to local extinction
, maritime fur traders shifted to California until the southern sea otter was likewise nearly extinct. The British and American maritime fur traders took their furs to the Chinese port of Guangzhou
(Canton), where they worked within the established Canton System
. Furs from Russian America were mostly sold to China via the Mongolia
n trading town of Kyakhta
, which had been opened to Russian trade by the 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta.
was one of the last significant non-polar regions in the world to be explored by Europeans. Centuries of reconnaissance and conquest had brought the rest of North America within the claims of imperial powers. During the late 18th and early 19th century a number of empires and commercial systems converged upon the Northwest Coast, by sea as well as by land across the continent. The Russian and Spanish empires were extended into the region simultaneously, from opposite directions. Russian fur companies expanded into North America along the Aleutian Islands, reaching the Fox Islands
and the Alaska Peninsula
in the early 1760s. Kodiak Island
was discovered in 1763 by Stepan Gavrilovich Glotov. In 1768, an expedition was carried out by the Russian Navy, under Pyotr Krenitsyn
and Mikhail Levashev
. Two ships sailed from Kamchatka to the Alaska Peninsula for the purpose of assessing the existing Russian activity and the possibilities of future development. Reports about the voyage, meant to be kept secret, spread through Europe and caused alarm in Spain. The Spanish government, already concerned about Russian activity in Alaska, decided to colonize Alta California
and sent exploratory voyages to Alaska to assess the threat and strengthen Spanish claims of sovereignty on coast north of Mexico.
The province of Alta California was established by José de Gálvez
in 1769, just as the Krenitsyn-Levashev expedition was concluding. Five separate expeditions were dispatched to Alta California in 1769. By 1782, presidio
s had been established at San Diego
, Monterey
, San Francisco
and Santa Barbara
, linked by a series of mission stations
along the coast. Spanish exploration voyages to the far north were launched in 1774, 1775, and 1779. In 1784, the center of Russian activity shifted east to Kodiak Island and hunting operations were extended into Cook Inlet
. The two empires seemed destined to clash, but before direct Russian-Spanish contact was made new powers appeared on the Northwest Coast—Britain and the United States. When the clash came, at Nootka Sound in 1789, it was not between Spain and Russia but between Spain and Britain. The British first reached the region by sea in 1778, during James Cook
's third voyage, and by land in 1793, when Alexander Mackenzie's transcontinental explorations reached the Pacific. The first British maritime fur trader, James Hanna
, arrived on the Northwest Coast in 1785. The first American traders, Robert Gray and John Kendrick
, arrived by sea in 1788. The Lewis and Clark Expedition
arrived overland in 1805.
The early maritime fur traders were explorers as well as traders. The Northwest Coast is very complex—a "labyrinth of waters", according to George Simpson
— with thousands of islands, numerous straits and fjords, and a mountainous, rocky, often very steep shoreline. Navigational hazards included persistent rain, high winds, thick fogs, strong currents and tides, and hidden rocks. Wind patterns were often contrary, variable, and baffling, especially within the coastal straits and archipelagoes, making sailing dangerous and frustrating. Early explorations before the maritime fur trade era—by Juan Pérez
, Bruno de Heceta
, Bogeda y Quadra
, and James Cook
—produced only rough surveys of the coast's general features. Detailed surveys were undertaken in only a few relatively small areas, such as Nootka Sound
, Bucareli Bay
, and Cook Inlet
. Russian exploration before 1785 had produced mainly rough surveys, largely restricted to the Aleutian Islands and mainland Alaska west of Cape Saint Elias
. British and American maritime fur traders began visiting the Northwest Coast in 1785, at which time it was mostly unexplored. Although non-commercial exploration voyages continued, especially by the Spanish Navy, the maritime fur traders made a number of significant discoveries. Notable examples include the Strait of Juan de Fuca
, Clayoquot Sound
, and Barkley Sound
, all found by Charles William Barkley
, Queen Charlotte Strait
by James Strange, Fitz Hugh Sound
by James Hanna
, Grays Harbor and the Columbia River
by Robert Gray. George Dixon explored the Dixon Entrance
and was the first to realize that the Queen Charlotte Islands
were not part of the mainland.
and Aleksei Chirikov
in 1741 and 1742. Their voyages demonstrated that Asia and North America were not connected but that sea voyages were feasible, and that the region was rich in furs. Private fur traders, mostly promyshlenniki
, launched fur trading expeditions from Kamchatka
, at first focusing on nearby islands such as the Commander Islands. Unlike fur trading ventures in Siberia, these maritime expeditions required more capital than most promyshlenniki could obtain. Merchants from cities such as Irkutsk
, Tobolsk
, and others in European Russia
, became the principal investors.
An early trader was Emilian Basov, who traded at Bering Island
in 1743, collecting a large number of sea otter
, fur seal
, and blue arctic fox
furs. Basov made four trips to Bering Island and nearby Medny Island
and made a fortune, inspiring many other traders. From 1743 to the founding of the Russian-American Company in 1799, over one hundred private fur trading and hunting voyages sailed from Kamchatka to North America. In total these voyages garnered over eight million silver rubles
. During the early part of this era the ships would typically stop at the Commander Islands in order to slaughter and preserve the meat of Steller's Sea Cow
s, a defenseless sea mammal whose range was limited to those islands. They were hunted not only for food, but for their skins, used to make boats, and their subcutaneous fat, used for oil lamps. By 1768 Steller's Sea Cow was extinct. As furs were depleted on nearby islands, Russian traders sailed farther east along the Aleutian chain. By the 1760s they were regularly sailing to Kodiak Island. Notable Russian traders in the early years of the trade include Nikifor Trapeznikov (who financed and participated in ten voyages between 1743 and 1768), Maksimovich Solov'ev, Stepan Glotov, and Grigory Shelikhov
(also spelled Gregory Shelikov).
As traders sailed farther east the voyages became longer and more expensive. Smaller enterprises were merged into larger ones. During the 1780s Grigory Shelikhov
began to stand out as one of the most important traders. In 1784, Shelikhov founded the first permanent Russian settlement in North America, at Three Saints Bay
on Kodiak Island. Shelikhov envisioned a continual extension of the Russian maritime fur trade, with trading posts being set up farther and farther along the coast all the way to California. He sought exclusive control of the trade, and in 1788 Empress Catherine II
decided to grant his company a monopoly only over the area it already occupied. Other traders were free to compete elsewhere. Catherine's decision was issued as the imperial ukase
(proclamation) of September 28, 1788.
By the time of Catherine's ukase of 1788, just as other nations were entering the maritime fur trade, the Russians had spent over forty years establishing and expanding their maritime operations in North America. A number of colonies were being established over a large region stretching from the Aleutian Islands to Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound
. Many ships sailed from Kamchatka to Alaska each year. The Russians not only had an early start, but they controlled the habitats of the most valuable sea otters. The Kurilian, Kamchatkan, and Aleutian sea otters had fur that was thicker, glossier, and blacker than those on the Northwest Coast and California. There were four grades of fur based on color, texture, and thickness. The most prized furs were those of Kurilian and Kamchatkan sea otters, Aleutian furs were second grade, those of the Northwest Coast third, and the poorest grade was that of Californian sea otters. Russia also controlled the sources of sable
furs, the most valuable fur bearing land mammal.
The Russian system differed from the British and American systems in its relationship with indigenous peoples. Using the same method they had used in Siberia the Russians employed or enserfed Aleut and Alutiiq
people, the latter being a subgroup of the Yupik Eskimo
people. The Aleut and Alutiiq people were expert sea otter hunters, noted for their use of kayak
s and baidarka
s. Russian ships were mainly used for transporting and assisting native hunting parties. This differed from the British and American system, where the natives hunted sea otters and prepared the furs on their own, and were essentially independent agents of the fur trade. The Russians did not trade freely with the native Alaskans, rather they imposed a fur tribute known as yasak
. The yasak system, which was widely used in Siberia, essentially enslaved the natives. In 1788 it was banned in Russian America, only to be replaced by compulsory labor
.
The British entry into the maritime fur trade dates to 1778 and the third voyage of Captain James Cook. While sailing north to search for the fabled Northwest Passage
, Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands
. On the Northwest Coast he spent a month in Nootka Sound
, during which he and his crew traded with the Nuu-chah-nulth from the village of Yuquot
. They ended up with over 300 furs, mostly sea otter, but thought them of no great value. Later, after Cook had been killed in Hawaii, the expedition visited Canton and were surprised by how much money the Chinese were willing to pay for the furs. A profit of 1,800 percent was made. James King, one of the commanders after Cook's death, wrote that "the advantages that might be derived from a voyage to that part of the American coast, undertaken with commercial views, appear to me of a degree of importance sufficient to call for the attention of the public." The crews of the two ships were so eager to return to Nootka Sound and acquire more furs they were "not far short of mutiny". Nevertheless, they sailed for England, arriving there in October 1780. Accounts of Cook's voyage and the sea otter trade were published in the 1780s, triggering a rush of entrepreneurial voyages to the Northwest Coast.
British interest in the maritime fur trade peaked between 1785 and 1794, then declined as the French Revolutionary Wars
diminished Britain's available manpower and investment capital. The country also concentrated its foreign trade activities in India. British maritime fur traders were hindered by the East India Company
(EIC) and South Sea Company (SSC). Although the SSC was moribund by the late 18th century, it had been granted the exclusive right to British trade on the entire western coast of the Americas from Cape Horn to Bering Strait and for three hundred leagues
(approximately 900 miles (1,448.4 km)) out into the Pacific Ocean. This, coupled with the EIC monopoly on British trade in China meant that sea otter skins were procurable only in the preserve of one monopoly and disposable only in that of the other. In order to operate legally British maritime fur traders had to obtain licenses from both companies, which was difficult and expensive. Some traders obtained a license from the EIC only, figuring that the SSC was unable to enforce its monopoly. Others obtained only the SSC license and took their furs to England, where they were trans-shipped to China. Some traders tried to evade the licenses by sailing their ships under foreign flags. The EIC's primary focus in China was the tea trade. There was never much interest within the company for the maritime fur trade. The EIC usually allowed British vessels to import furs into Canton, but required the furs to be sold via EIC agents, and the company took a percentage of the returns. Worse, the EIC did not allow the British fur traders to export Chinese goods to Great Britain. Thus the last and most profitable leg of the maritime fur trade system—carrying Chinese goods to Europe and America—was denied to British traders.
The first trading vessel dispatched solely for the purpose of the fur trade was the British Sea Otter commanded by James Hanna
in 1785. In his brief visit to the coast he obtained 560 pelts which fetched a profit of $20,000 in Canton. The promise of such profits encouraged other traders. George Dixon and Nathaniel Portlock, former members of Cook's crew, became partners in the King George's Sound Company
, formed in 1785 for the purpose of developing the maritime fur trade. They sailed from England on the King George and Queen Charlotte and spent 1786 and 1787 exploring and trading on the North West Coast. They spent the winters in Hawaii, where they were among the first visitors after Cook. Charles William Barkley
was another early British trader. He sailed the Imperial Eagle
from England to the North West Coast via Hawaii, 1786–1788. He was accompanied by his wife, Frances Barkley, who became the first European woman to visit the Hawaiian Islands and the first woman to sail around the world without deception. Only two women are known to have sailed around the world before Frances: Jeanne Baré
, disguised as a man, and Rose de Freycinet, wife of Louis de Freycinet
, as a stowaway. Barkley chose to sail under the flag of Austria in order to evade paying for EIC and SSC licences. During their stop in Hawaii the Barkleys hired a Native Hawaiian named Winée as a maidservant. Winée was the first Native Hawaiian to visit the Pacific Northwest—the first of many Kanakas
. Barkley explored the coast south of Nootka Sound, discovering the Strait of Juan de Fuca
in the process. He was the first trader to visit Neah Bay
, a Makah settlement that later became an important port of call for maritime fur traders.
John Meares
, who had also served under Cook, sailed to the North West Coast in 1786. He spent the winter in Prince William Sound, his ship trapped by ice and his men dying of scurvy
. He was rescued by the timely arrival of Dixon and Portlock. Meares organized a second expedition of two ships, the Felice Adventurero and Iphigenia Nubiana. Meares decided not to license his ships with the EIC, instead trying to conceal the illegal activity by using the flag of Portugal. They arrived at Nootka Sound in May 1788. Meares later claimed that Chief Maquinna
sold him some land and on it Meares had a building erected. These claims later became a point of dispute during the Nootka Crisis
. Spain, which sought control of Nootka Sound, rejected both claims; the true facts of the matter have never been fully established. There is no doubt, however, that Meares had the sloop North West America built in Nootka Sound, the first non-indigenous vessel built in the Pacific Northwest.
Meares and others organized another expedition the following year. A number of vessels sailed to Nootka Sound including the Argonaut under James Colnett
, the Princess Royal
, under Thomas Hudson, as well as the Iphigenia Nubiana and North West America. Colnett intended to establish a permanent fur trading post at Nootka Sound. However, Spain had also decided to permanently occupy Nootka Sound and assert sovereignty on the North West Coast. The decision was mostly due to Russian activity in Alaska and Russia's threat to occupy Nootka Sound themselves. The Spanish naval officer Esteban José Martínez
arrived at Nootka in May 1789 and built Fort San Miguel
. When the Argonaut arrived a dispute arose between Colnett and Martínez, leading to the seizure of several British ships and the arrest of their crews. This incident led to the Nootka Crisis, an international crisis
between Britain and Spain. War was averted with the first Nootka Convention
of 1790.
in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1783. By the 1790s American traders were out-competing the British and soon came to dominate the maritime fur trade south of Russian America. The opening of the trade came at a good time for New England's merchants. It provided a way to escape the depression that had followed the American Revolutionary War
. It presented new trading opportunities that more than made up for the closure of British home and colonial ports to US imports.
One of the first and most notable American maritime fur traders was Robert Gray. Gray made two trading voyages, the first from 1787 to 1790 and the second from 1790 to 1793. The first voyage was conducted with John Kendrick
and the vessels Columbia Rediviva
and Lady Washington
. After the 1789 fur trading season was over, Gray sailed the Columbia to China via Hawaii, then to Boston via the Cape of Good Hope
. The arrival of the Columbia at Boston was celebrated for being the first American circumnavigation
of the world. However, the venture was not a commercial success. The ship's owners financed a second attempt and Gray sailed the Columbia from Boston only six weeks after arriving. Gray's second voyage was notable in several ways. After spending the summer trading on the Northwest Coast Gray wintered on the coast. In Clayoquot Sound
Gray's crew built a house, dubbed Fort Defiance
, and had the sloop Adventure
built, the first American vessel built on the Northwest Coast. It was launched in March 1792 under the command of Robert Haswell
. During the 1792 trading season Gray concentrated on the southern part of the North West Coast, including the Columbia River
. Although the mouth of the river had been spotted by the Spanish explorer Bruno de Heceta
in 1775, no other explorer or fur trader had been able to find it. Gray was the first to do so. He named the river after his ship. The event was later used by the United States in support of their claims to the Pacific Northwest.
Other notable American maritime fur traders include William F. Sturgis
, Joseph Ingraham
, Simon Metcalfe
, and Daniel Cross, among others. One of the most successful American firms involved in the Northwest Trade was Perkins and Company
.
The trade's boom years ended around 1810, after which there was a long decline marked by increasing economic diversification. By 1810, the supply of sea otter pelts had fallen due to overhunting. American trade declined during the War of 1812
, but after 1815 Americans were able to resume and expand the maritime fur trade, and continued to dominate.
was reached in 1794 and the settlement of Slavorossiya, originally intended to be the colonial capital, was built there in 1795. Reconnaissance of the coast as far as the Queen Charlotte Islands was carried out by James Shields, a British employee of the Golikov-Shelikhov Company. In 1795, Alexandr Baranov
sailed into Sitka Sound
, claiming it for Russia. Hunting parties arrived in the following years. By 1800, three-quarters of the Russian-American Company's sea otter skins came from the Sitka Sound area, amounting to several thousand per year. Sitka Sound was also where serious competition between the Russians, British, and Americans first arose.
In July 1799, Baranov returned to Sitka Sound on the brig Oryol and established the settlement of Arkhangelsk, also known as Fort Archangel Gabriel. In June 1802, Tlingit warriors attacked the settlement and killed or captured most of the 150 Russians and Aleuts living there. Baranov led an armed expedition to retake Sitka by force in June 1804. The Russian warship Neva
joined Baranov at Sitka. A new Russian fort was established while the Tlingit prepared to defend themselves with a well-armed fort of their own. Tension rapidly escalated into skirmishes and negotiations broke down. In early October the Russians attacked the Tlingit fort with cannon from the Neva and from a land party. The Tlingit responded with powerful gun and cannon fire of their own. The Battle of Sitka
continued for several days until the Tlingit abandoned their fort and left the area. Tlingit accounts of the battle refuse to admit defeat or give the Russians credit for taking the Tlingit fort. The Russians destroyed the abandoned Tlingit fort and named the new Russian fort Novo-Arkhangelsk (New Archangel), also known as Fort Archangel Michael and Fort Saint Michael. The confrontations at Sitka in 1802 and 1804 played a significant role in subsequent Tlingit-Russian relations for generations.
Novo-Arkhangelsk soon become the primary settlement and colonial capital of Russian America. After the Alaska Purchase
, it was renamed Sitka, and became the first capital of Alaska Territory
.
The Russian-American Company
(RAC) was incorporated in 1799, putting an end to the promyshlenniki period and beginning an era of centralized monopoly. Its charter was laid out in a 1799 ukase
by the new Tsar Paul
, which granted the company monopolistic control over trade in the Aleutian Islands and the North America mainland, south to 55° north latitude
(approximating the present border on coast between British Columbia and Alaska). The RAC was modeled on Britain's East India Company (EIC) and Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Russian officials intended the company to operate both as a business enterprise and a state organization for extending imperial influence, similar to the EIC and HBC. It was also hoped that the company would be able to conduct maritime trade with China and Japan, although this goal was not realized. In 1818 the Russian government took control of the RAC from the merchants who held the charter. The explorer and naval officer Ferdinand Petrovich von Wrangel was the first president of the company during the government period. In 1867, the Alaska Purchase
transferred control of Alaska to the United States and the commercial interests of the Russian American Company were sold to Hutchinson, Kohl & Company of San Francisco, who then merged with several other groups to form the Alaska Commercial Company
.
The Russian population in America never surpassed 1,000—the peak was 823 in 1839. However, the RAC employed and fed thousands of natives. According to official census counts by the Russians, the population of Russian America peaked at 10,313 in 1838. An additional 12,500 people were known local residents not included in the colonial register. An estimated 17,000 more local residents were present but unknown to the Russians. Thus, the total population of Russian America was approximately 40,000.
Colony Ross, known as Fort Ross today, was built in California just north of San Francisco Bay
. It was the RAC's southernmost outpost and operated from 1812 to 1841, and was established as an agricultural base for supplying the northern settlements with food as well as for conducting trade with Alta California
. The Ross Colony included a number of settlements spread out over an area stretching from Point Arena
to Tomales Bay
. The administrative center was Port Rumianstev at Bodega Harbor
, off Bodega Bay
. An artel
hunting camp was located on the Farallon Islands
. Three ranches were established: the Kostromitinov Ranch on the Russian River
near the mouth of Willow Creek, the Khlebnikov Ranch in the Salmon Creek
valley about a mile (1.6 km) north of the present day Bodega
, and the Chernykh Ranch near present day Graton
. Fort Ross employed native Alaskans to hunt seals and sea otters on the California coast. By 1840 California's sea otter population had been severely depleted.
In 1821, the Russian Emperor
Paul I
issued a ukase which announced that Russia was taking control of the Northwest Coast north of the 51st parallel north
, which lies just north of Vancouver Island
. Britain and the United States protested and negotiations ultimately resulted in the Russo-American Treaty of 1824 and the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825
. These treaties established 54°40′ as the southern boundary of Russian territory, with the exception of Fort Ross which had been established in California earlier. The Anglo-Russian treaty delineated the boundary of Russian America fully. The border began on the coast at 54°40′, then ran north along the mountains near the coast until it reached 141° west longitude
, after which the boundary ran north along that line of longitude to the Arctic Ocean. Aside from boundary adjustments to the Alaska Panhandle
, stemming from the Alaska boundary dispute
of the late 19th century, this is the current boundary of the state of Alaska. In 1839 the Hudson's Bay Company was granted a lease of the southeastern sector of what is now the Alaska Panhandle, as far north as 56° 30' north latitude. The only Russian attempt to enforce the ukase of 1821 was the seizure of the US brig Pearl by the Russian sloop Apollon, in 1822. The Pearl, a maritime fur trading vessel, was sailing from Boston to Sitka. On a protest from the US government, the vessel was released and compensation paid.
, then to the North West Coast, arriving in the spring or early summer. They would spent the summer and early autumn fur trading on the coast, mainly between Sitka and the Columbia River. In late autumn they sailed to the Hawaiian Islands, where they typically spent the winter, then from Hawaii to Macau
on the Pearl River Delta
, arriving in autumn. Trading in Canton did not begin until November, when tea shipments were ready. The Americans had to hire pilots to take their ships up the Pearl River
to Canton's "outport" of Whampoa
. Foreign ships were not allowed in Canton itself. Trading took weeks or months, after which the ships were loaded with Chinese goods such as teas, silks, porcelains, sugar, cassia
, and curios
. They left in the winter and used the northeasterly monsoon
winds of the South China Sea
to reach the Sunda Strait
, then used the southeasterly trade wind
s to cross the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope. From there the ships sailed to Boston, where they traditionally docked at the India Wharf
. Frederic William Howay described this as the "golden round", writing: The Americans had a perfect golden round of profits: first, the profit on the original cargo of trading goods when exchanged for furs; second, the profit when the furs were transmuted into Chinese goods; and, third, the profit on those goods when they reached America. In the later years of the North West Trade the pattern became more complex as additional markets and side voyages were incorporated.
As the North West trade developed it became riskier to depend solely upon acquiring sea otter furs through trade with the indigenous people of the coast. Diversification began in the first decade of the 19th century if not earlier, and increased over time. Maritime fur trading voyages were no longer solely about taking sea otter furs from the North West Coast to Canton. Other commodities and markets throughout the Pacific were added to the system. Sandalwood
, mainly from Hawaii, became an important item of the China trade. Just as the sea otter trade was waning the sandalwood trade boomed, peaking in 1821, then declined. Hawaiian sandalwood was depleted by 1830. Fiji
and the Marquesas Islands
were the other principal sources of sandalwood. Most had been cut by 1820. Fiji was also a source of bêche-de-mer
, a gourmet delicacy in China. American traders began acquiring Fijian bêche-de-mer in 1804 and trepanging
boomed there. Bêche-de-mer became Fiji's leading export by 1830. Depletion led to a decline and the end of the trade by 1850. Trepanging was also done from 1812 in Hawaii and from 1814 in the Marquesas. Other side trades included Chile
an copper from Valparaíso
, scrimshaw
(whale teeth), tortoise
shells and meat from the Galápagos Islands
, sugar from Manila
, and, from Java
, areca nuts (so-called betel nuts) and coffee bean
s. Sealing
boomed in the Juan Fernández Islands
and the Juan Fernández Fur Seal
was rapidly exploited to near-extinction. The Northern Fur Seal
rookeries
were controlled by Russia, so Americans acquired northern fur seal skins through trade rather than sealing.
Another side trade was smuggling along the Pacific coast of the Spanish Empire
, where foreign trade was prohibited by Spanish law. This trade peaked in the 1810s, then faded in the 1820s. Traders concentrated on Alta California
, which produced a surplus of grain, beef, tallow
, and hides
, but was chronically short of manufactured goods. American ships brought goods to the missions of Alta California
in exchange for grain, beef, and Californian sea otter skins. The grain, beef, and other provisions were taken to Sitka, which was perennially short of foods supplies. After Mexico
gained independence in 1821 the American trade with Alta California continued in a slightly modified form. American traders brought mostly clothing, cottons, silks, lace, cutlery, alcohol, and sugar, which were traded for hides and tallow at a profit generally between 200% and 300%. The California Hide Trade became a major industry in its own right. By the 1830s, however, the missions of Alta California had been secularized by Mexican authorities and deserted by Indian labourers. The trade dwindled into unprofitability. The decline of the American trade with Alta California left just one significant alternative to the ever-dwindling sea otter trade—the provisioning of the settlements of Russian America, which lasted until the Americans abandoned the North West Coast altogether in the early 1840s. From the first decade of the 19th century until 1841 American ships visited Sitka regularly, trading provisions, textiles, and liquor for fur seal skins, timber, and fish. This trade was usually highly profitable for the Americans and the Russian settlements depended on it. Thus when Tsar Nicholas I
issued the ukase of 1821, banning foreign trade north of the 51st parallel
, the Russian colonies in America were forced to ignore the ban and engage in smuggling.
On the Northwest Coast itself the fur trade was supplemented with slave trading. The pre-existing indigenous slave trade was enlarged and expanded upon by fur traders, especially the American traders. While working the coast for furs, traders would purchase slaves around the mouth of the Columbia River
and in the Strait of Juan de Fuca
, then sell or trade them on the northern coast. Few traders admitted to slaving, although some wrote about it in detail. Further information comes from sources such as reports by HBC officers. Aemelius Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company
wrote in 1828 that American traders on coast trafficked in slaves, "purchasing them at a cheap rate from one tribe and disposing of them to others at a very high profit." He concluded that the American traders made more money from selling slaves, rum, and gunpowder than they did from fur trading.
to China. The situation reversed in the early 19th century for a variety of reasons. Western demand for Chinese goods declined relative to new options (for example, coffee from the West Indies began to replace tea in the United States), while Chinese demand for Western items increased, such as for English manufactures, American cotton goods, and opium which was outlawed but smuggled into China on a large and increasing scale. Before long, China was being drained of specie and saturated with Western goods. At the same time, there was intense speculation in the China trade by American and British merchant companies. By the 1820s, too many firms were competing for an overstocked market, resulting in bankruptcies and consolidation. The inevitable commercial crisis struck in 1826–27, after the Panic of 1825
. Tea prices plummeted and the China trade's volume collapsed by about a third. By this time, the old maritime fur trade on the Northwest Coast and the Old China Trade
itself were dying. The final blow came with the depression of 1841–43, following the Panic of 1837
.
Over time the maritime fur traders concentrated on different parts of the North West Coast. In the 1790s, the west coast of Vancouver Island, especially Nootka Sound, was frequently visited. By the 1810s, the locus had shifted to the Queen Charlotte Islands and Alexander Archipelago
, and in the 1820s, farther north to areas near Sitka Sound
. After about 1830, it shifted south to the area from Dixon Entrance
to Queen Charlotte Sound. During the early years, ships tended to cruise the coast, seeking trading opportunities whenever they arose. Later, ships spent more time in specific harbors. As fur resources dwindled and prices rose, ship captains increasingly concentrated on a few key ports of call and stayed longer. Eventually it was not possible to acquire enough furs for the China trade in a single year. Some traders wintered in Hawaii, returning to the coast in the spring, but many wintered on the North West Coast, usually in one of the key trading harbors. These harbors included "Clemencitty" on Tongass Island
, today called Port Tongass; the several "Kaigani" harbors on south Dall Island
north of Cape Muzon
; "Newhitty" on northern Vancouver Island
; and "Tongass" in Clarence Strait
, today called Tamgas Harbor, which was said to be the most popular wintering place for American ships in the 1830s. Many significant trading sites were on the Queen Charlotte Islands, including Cloak Bay, Masset
, Skidegate, Cumshewa
, Skedans
, and Houston Stewart Channel
, known as "Coyah's Harbor", after Chief Koyah
.
As marine furs became depleted in the early 19th century, American ship captains began to accept increasing numbers of land furs such as beaver
, which were brought from the interior to the coast via indigenous trade networks from New Caledonia—today the Omineca
and Nechako
districts of the Central Interior of British Columbia
. During the 1820s, the British Hudson's Bay Company
(HBC), which considered the interior fur trade to be its domain, began to experience significant losses as a result of this diversion of furs to the coast. To protect its interests, the HBC entered the coast trade in order to drive away the American traders. This goal was achieved during the 1830s. By 1841, the American traders had abandoned the North West Coast. For a time, the North West Coast trade was controlled by the HBC and the RAC. Following the 1846 resolution of the Oregon Territory controversy between the United States and England, and the American purchase of Alaska in 1867, American hunters returned to hunting sea otters in the region, both from land and sea. Hunting throughout the Aleutian and Kuril Islands by American commercial outfits also contributed to the near-extinction of the species by the late 1800s.
, was mostly over control of Rupert's Land, east of the Continental Divide. Around the turn of the 19th century the NWC expanded its operations westward, across the Rocky Mountains into the mostly unexplored Pacific Northwest. By the 1810s the NWC had established new fur trading operations west of the Rockies, in New Caledonia
and the Columbia District
. Starting in 1811 the American Pacific Fur Company (PFC) challenged the NWC in the Pacific Northwest, but during the War of 1812 the PFC, at risk of being captured by the British Navy, sold its entire operation to the NWC. The PFC had build Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River. Under the NWC it was renamed Fort George, and became the Columbia District's Pacific seaport. The NWC sought to establish a profitable beaver fur trade with China. Due to the East India Company's (EIC) control over British trading in Canton the NWC turned to American shipping companies. Starting in 1792 the NWC had beaver furs shipped to China by American firms. After the acquisition of Fort George (Astoria) in 1815 the NWC began to supply the Columbia District by sea through the Boston-based firm of Perkins and Company. After arriving at Fort George the American ship took a cargo of NWC beaver furs to Canton, exchanged them for China goods and conveyed them to Boston for sale. Even though Perkins and Company took 25% of the proceeds the arrangement was still about 50% more profitable than using British ships and selling furs in Canton through the EIC for bills payable
on London and returning from China with no cargo.
In 1821, after tensions between the NWC and HBC had erupted into violence the NWC was forced to merge into the HBC. As a result the HBC acquired the Columbia District and its trade with China. At first the system of shipping furs via the American Perkins and Company was continued, but in 1822 the United States Customs Service
imposed a heavy ad valorem
duty on the proceeds. The HBC stopped using American middlemen and instead tried selling furs through the EIC. In 1824 and 1825 the HBC sold 20,000 beaver and 7,000 land-otter skins in China through the EIC, but the arrangement did not prove advantageous for either firm.
In the wake of the NWC's forced merger into the HBC, George Simpson
reorganized operations in New Caledonia and the Columbia Department
. His efforts and keen fiscal sense, combined with a resurgence of American traders on the coast after the Russo-American Treaty of 1824, resulted in the HBC's decision to enter the coast maritime fur trade and drive out the Americans. By the early 1820s American traders were taking 3,000 to 5,000 beaver skins, mostly from New Caledonia, to Canton every year. By the early 1830s the number had reached 10,000 annually, which was as many as the HBC itself was acquiring from New Caledonia and half of the total output of the entire Columbia Department. In addition, the Americans were paying higher prices for the furs, which forced the HBC to do the same. The HBC effort to gain control of the coastal fur trade began in the late 1820s. It took some time for the HBC to acquire the necessary ships, skilled seamen, trade goods, and intelligence about the coast trade. Simpson decided that the "London ships", which brought goods to Fort Vancouver
and returned to England with furs, should arrive early enough to make a coasting voyage before departing. The first London ship to do this was the schooner Cadboro
, in 1827. However, its voyage did not get beyond the Strait of Georgia
and only 2 sea otter and 28 land otter and beaver skins were acquired. In 1828 the HBC decided to deploy three ships for the coast trade, but setbacks caused delays. The William and Ann was lost in 1829, and the Isabella in 1830, both at the Columbia Bar
. The HBC's shipping was inadequate for the coast trade until the middle 1830s. In 1835 two ships were added to the HBC's coast fleet. One of them, the Beaver
, was a steamship, and it proved extremely useful in the variable winds, strong currents, and long narrow inlets.
To strengthen its coast trade the Hudson's Bay Company built a series of fortified trading posts, the first of which was Fort Langley
, established in 1827 on the Fraser River
about 50 km (31.1 mi) from the river's mouth. The next was Fort Simpson
, founded in 1831 at the mouth of the Nass River
, and moved in 1834 several miles to the present Port Simpson. In 1833 Fort McLoughlin
was established on an island in Milbanke Sound
and Fort Nisqually
was built at the southern end of Puget Sound
. An overland trail linked Fort Nisqually and Fort Vancouver, so HBC vessels trading along the northern coast could unload furs and take on trade goods without having to navigate the Columbia River and its hazardous bar. Later coastal posts included Fort Stikine
(1940), Fort Durham
(1840), and Fort Victoria
(1843).
The main advantage the HBC had over the Americans was that it could take such losses. As a vast corporation with a large amount of capital, the company was able to undersell the Americans, taking a loss, for years on end. By the middle to late 1830s the HBC policy on the coast was to pay whatever price necessary to ensure that furs fell into their hands and not the Americans. American traders soon found the coast fur trade unprofitable—the HBC had captured the trade. But Americans still traded with the Russians at Sitka and, once on the coast were wont to seek a few furs. As long as this continued, the HBC continued to have to pay high prices for furs and take losses. Eventually the Sitka trade became financially risky. The American-Russian agreement of 1824, which allowed Americans to trade in the Alaska Panhandle, expired in 1834 and was not renewed. In 1839, the HBC made an agreement with the Russian American Company (RAC), under which the HBC would supply the RAC with provisions and manufactures in exchange for a ten-year lease of the Alaska Panhandle
. This proved to be the final blow for the American traders, who were finally driven out of the North West Coast maritime fur trade altogether.
The HBC drastically reduced the price paid for furs, by 50% in many cases. By this time, however, the fur trade was in decline, both on the coast and the continent, due to a general depletion of fur-bearing animals, along with a reduction in the demand for beaver pelts. A financial panic in 1837 resulted in a general slump in the fur and China trade, bringing an end to a half-century boom. During the 1840s, the HBC closed most of their coastal trading posts, leaving the coast trade to just Fort Simpson and the Beaver, with the new depot at Fort Victoria anchoring the southern coast.
The maritime fur trade brought the natives of the North West Coast material prosperity, wealth, and technology. It enlarged and transformed inter-tribal relations, trade, and war, including the "coastalization" of inland natives. Many inland natives adopted potlatch
ing and coastal descent systems. At first the trade caused a rise in the power of a few key chiefs such as Maquinna, Wickaninish, Tatoosh, Concomly (Madsaw), Kotlean (Sitka Tlingit), Kow (Kaigani Haidas), Cunneah (Coyac; Kuista Haida), and Cumshewa (Haida). This was followed by a proliferation of chiefs and a general debasement of chieftainship, in part due to widespread wealth, giving individual hunters the means to challenge the traditional chiefs. There was an increase in the frequency of potlatching, which was used by the nouveau riche in challenging the traditional chiefs. In response the hereditary clan chiefs defended their traditional powers through an increased use of noble ancestry names, totems, and crests, all validated by potlatches.
Negative effects of the coast trade on the North West natives included waves of epidemic disease, smallpox worst of all. Other health problems included the spread of alcoholism
, tuberculosis
, venereal diseases including syphilis
, and sterility. The coast trade also promoted and enhanced the pre-existing system of native slavery and native slave trading. The overall number of slaves increased, as did their distribution and exploitation. Despite these negative effects, the North West Coast natives were largely spared the additional effects that would have come had there been more permanent posts, political administration, missionizing, and colonization. The early traders were mostly seasonal visitors and the later HBC posts were few and small. Missionization and direct colonial rule over the coastal natives did not begin in earnest until the late 19th century. During the early 19th century, native culture not only survived but flourished.
The maritime trade also brought changes to the natives' traditional seasonal migration patterns and settlement locations. The coastal people were "cosmopolitanized", that is, they were incorporated into a global market economy. At first their main export was furs, later supplemented and replaced by salmon, lumber, and artwork. By the late 19th century the North West Coast was famous for its arts and crafts, especially large works like totem poles, causing a flourishing of indigenous art. The natives imported many western goods and soon became dependent on many, such as firearms and metal tools. Textiles became a vital trade item during the early maritime fur trade era. The value of furs caused a shift in native dress from furs to textiles, which was reinforced by the general depletion of fur animals. Firearms had both positive and negative effects. They made hunting much more efficient but also made warfare much more deadly.
. Russian missionaries
founded a number of churches for the natives, such as the Church of the Holy Ascension
in Unalaska. A notable Russian missionary was Saint Innocent of Alaska
. For his work as a missionary, bishop, and later archbishop in Alaska and the Russian Far East he was canonized
. One of the earliest Christian martyrs in North America was Saint Peter the Aleut
. Other important Russian missionaries include Herman of Alaska
and Joasaph Bolotov.
relatively strong, in political and economic terms. Many non-native foodstuffs were introduced to the Hawaiian Islands during the early trading era, including plants such as beans, cabbage, onions, squash, pumpkins, melons, and oranges, as well as cash crops like tobacco, cotton, and sugar. Animals introduced included cattle, horses, sheep, and goats. Due to its high fertility Oahu
became the most important of the islands. By the 1820s the population of Honolulu was over 10,000. The native Hawaiian population suffered waves of epidemic disease, including cholera
. The availability of alcohol, especially grog
and gin
, led to widespread boozing and an increased use of traditional kava
intoxication. These health issues, plus warfare related to the unification of the islands, droughts, and sandalwooding taking precedence over farming all contributed to an increase in famines and a general population decline. By 1850 the native population had dropped by perhaps 50%.
, the silk producers of Nanjing
, the craftsmen of Canton, and various middlemen, and merchants. The ruling Manchu
s kept foreign trade by ship at bay. It was restricted to Canton, and even there was allowed only outside the city walls. China was generally self-sufficient. The main effect of the Old China Trade
was an increased import of opium and related outflow of specie, which resulted in China being incorporated into the capitalist world system after 1830. However, the maritime fur trade played a minor role in this process.
, Boston
, Providence
, New York City
, Philadelphia, and Baltimore
. The trade focused on Asian ports such as Canton, Kolkata
(Calcutta), Chennai
(Madras), Manila
, Jakarta
(Batavia), and the islands of Mauritius
and Sumatra
. Goods exported included furs, rum, ammunition, ginseng
, lumber, ice, salt, Spanish silver dollars
, iron, tobacco, opium, and tar. Goods brought back from Asia included muslin
s, silks, nankeen
s, spices, cassia
, chinaware (porcelain
), tea, sugar, and drugs. The maritime fur trade was just one part of the overall system. As a whole the Asian trade had a significant effect on the early United States, especially New England
. The accumulation of large amounts of capital in short time contributed to American industrial and manufacturing development, which was compounded by rapid population growth and technological advancements. In New England the textile industry
rose to dominance in early to middle 19th century. In light of the decline of the fur trade and a post-Napoleonic depression
in commerce, capital shifted "from wharf to waterfall", that is, from shipping ventures to textile mills (which were originally located where waterpower was available). The textile industry in turn had large effect on slavery in the United States, increasing the demand for cotton and helping make possible the rapid expansion of the cotton plantation system across the Deep South
.
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...
system that focused on acquiring furs of sea otter
Sea Otter
The sea otter is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between 14 and 45 kg , making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smallest marine mammals...
s and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast
Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast
The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those historical peoples. They are now situated within the Canadian Province of British Columbia and the U.S...
and natives of Alaska
Alaska Natives
Alaska Natives are the indigenous peoples of Alaska. They include: Aleut, Inuit, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Eyak, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures.-History:In 1912 the Alaska Native Brotherhood was founded...
. The furs were mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain, and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States. The maritime fur trade was pioneered by Russians, working east from Kamchatka along the Aleutian Islands to the southern coast of Alaska. British and Americans entered during the 1780s, focusing on what is now the coast of British Columbia
British Columbia Coast
The British Columbia Coast or BC Coast is Canada's western continental coastline on the Pacific Ocean. The usage is synonymous with the term West Coast of Canada....
. The trade boomed around the turn of the 19th century. A long period of decline began in the 1810s. As the sea otter population was depleted, the maritime fur trade diversified and transformed, tapping new markets and commodities while continuing to focus on the Northwest Coast and China. It lasted until the middle to late 19th century. Russians controlled most of the coast of what is now Alaska during the entire era. The coast south of Alaska saw fierce competition between, and among, British and American trading vessels. The British were the first to operate in the southern sector, but were unable to compete against the Americans who dominated from the 1790s to the 1830s. The British Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
entered the coast trade in the 1820s with the intention of driving the Americans away. This was accomplished by about 1840. In its late period the maritime fur trade was largely conducted by the British Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
and the Russian-American Company
Russian-American Company
The Russian-American Company was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the so-called Shelekhov-Golikov Company of Grigory Shelekhov and Ivan Larionovich Golikov The Russian-American Company (officially: Under His Imperial Majesty's Highest Protection (patronage)...
.
The term "maritime fur trade" was coined by historians to distinguish the coastal, ship-based fur trade from the continental, land-based fur trade of, for example, the North West Company
North West Company
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what was to become Western Canada...
and American Fur Company
American Fur Company
The American Fur Company was founded by John Jacob Astor in 1808. The company grew to monopolize the fur trade in the United States by 1830, and became one of the largest businesses in the country. The company was one the first great trusts in American business...
. Historically, the maritime fur trade was not known by that name, rather it was usually called the "North West Coast trade" or "North West Trade". The term "North West" was rarely spelled as the single word "Northwest", as is common today.
The maritime fur trade brought the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
coast into a vast, new international trade
International trade
International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories. In most countries, such trade represents a significant share of gross domestic product...
network, centered on the north Pacific Ocean, global in scope, and based on capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
but not, for the most part, on colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
. A triangular trade
Triangular trade
Triangular trade, or triangle trade, is a historical term indicating among three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come...
network emerged linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China, the Hawaiian Islands
Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...
(only recently discovered by the Western world
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
), Britain, and the United States (especially New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
). The trade had a major effect on the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest coast, especially the Aleut, Tlingit, Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Chinook peoples. There was a rapid increase of wealth among the Northwest Coast natives, along with increased warfare, potlatch
Potlatch
A potlatch is a gift-giving festival and primary economic system practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and United States. This includes Heiltsuk Nation, Haida, Nuxalk, Tlingit, Makah, Tsimshian, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Coast Salish cultures...
ing, slaving, and depopulation due to epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
disease. However, the indigenous culture was not overwhelmed by rapid change, but actually flourished. For instance, the importance of totem
Totem
A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe.Totems support larger groups than the individual person. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem...
s and traditional nobility crests increased, and the Chinook Jargon
Chinook Jargon
Chinook Jargon originated as a pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest, and spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then British Columbia and as far as Alaska, sometimes taking on characteristics of a creole language...
, which remains a distinctive aspect of Pacific Northwest culture, was developed during this era. Native Hawaiian society was similarly affected by the sudden influx of Western wealth and technology, as well as epidemic diseases. The trade's effect on China and Europe was minimal, but for New England, the maritime fur trade and the significant profits it made helped revitalize the region, contributing to its transformation from an agrarian to an industrial society. The wealth generated by the maritime fur trade was invested in industrial development, especially textile manufacturing
Textile manufacturing
Textile manufacturing is a major industry. It is based in the conversion of three types of fibre into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. These are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. Cotton remains the most important natural fibre, so is treated in depth...
. The New England textile industry in turn had a large effect on slavery in the United States, increasing the demand for cotton and helping make possible the rapid expansion of the cotton plantation system across the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
.
Sea Otter
The sea otter is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between 14 and 45 kg , making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smallest marine mammals...
s, especially the northern sea otter, Enhydra lutris kenyoni, which inhabited the coastal waters between the Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
in the south to the Aleutian Islands in the north. The fur of the Californian southern sea otter, E. l. nereis, was less highly prized and thus less profitable. After the northern sea otter was hunted to local extinction
Local extinction
Local extinction, also known as extirpation, is the condition of a species which ceases to exist in the chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere...
, maritime fur traders shifted to California until the southern sea otter was likewise nearly extinct. The British and American maritime fur traders took their furs to the Chinese port of Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
(Canton), where they worked within the established Canton System
Canton System
The Canton System served as a means for China to control trade with the west within its own country. Seen from the European view, it was a complement to the Old China Trade.-History:...
. Furs from Russian America were mostly sold to China via the Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
n trading town of Kyakhta
Kyakhta
Kyakhta is a town in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia, located on the Kyakhta River near the Russian-Mongolian border. Population: The town stands directly opposite the Mongolian border town of Altanbulag.-History:...
, which had been opened to Russian trade by the 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta.
Origins
The Pacific NorthwestPacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
was one of the last significant non-polar regions in the world to be explored by Europeans. Centuries of reconnaissance and conquest had brought the rest of North America within the claims of imperial powers. During the late 18th and early 19th century a number of empires and commercial systems converged upon the Northwest Coast, by sea as well as by land across the continent. The Russian and Spanish empires were extended into the region simultaneously, from opposite directions. Russian fur companies expanded into North America along the Aleutian Islands, reaching the Fox Islands
Fox Islands (Alaska)
The Fox Islands are a group of islands in the eastern Aleutian Islands of the U.S. state of Alaska. The Fox Islands are the closest to mainland North America in the Aleutian chain, and just east of Samalga Pass and the Islands of Four Mountains group....
and the Alaska Peninsula
Alaska Peninsula
The Alaska Peninsula is a peninsula extending about to the southwest from the mainland of Alaska and ending in the Aleutian Islands. The peninsula separates the Pacific Ocean from Bristol Bay, an arm of the Bering Sea....
in the early 1760s. Kodiak Island
Kodiak Island
Kodiak Island is a large island on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, separated from the Alaska mainland by the Shelikof Strait. The largest island in the Kodiak Archipelago, Kodiak Island is the second largest island in the United States and the 80th largest island in the world, with an...
was discovered in 1763 by Stepan Gavrilovich Glotov. In 1768, an expedition was carried out by the Russian Navy, under Pyotr Krenitsyn
Pyotr Krenitsyn
Pyotr Kuzmich Krenitsyn , spelt "Krenitzin" in the United States, was a Russian explorer and Captain/Lieutenant of the Imperial Russian Navy. Following Vitus Bering's 1741 tragic venture he was the first to conduct an expedition to Alaska and the Aleutians...
and Mikhail Levashev
Mikhail Levashev
Mikhail D. Levashev was a Russian explorer and Lieutenant of the Imperial Russian Navy...
. Two ships sailed from Kamchatka to the Alaska Peninsula for the purpose of assessing the existing Russian activity and the possibilities of future development. Reports about the voyage, meant to be kept secret, spread through Europe and caused alarm in Spain. The Spanish government, already concerned about Russian activity in Alaska, decided to colonize Alta California
Alta California
Alta California was a province and territory in the Viceroyalty of New Spain and later a territory and department in independent Mexico. The territory was created in 1769 out of the northern part of the former province of Las Californias, and consisted of the modern American states of California,...
and sent exploratory voyages to Alaska to assess the threat and strengthen Spanish claims of sovereignty on coast north of Mexico.
The province of Alta California was established by José de Gálvez
José de Gálvez
José de Gálvez y Gallardo, marqués de Sonora was a Spanish lawyer, a colonial official in New Spain and ultimately Minister of the Indies . He was one of the prime figures behind the Bourbon Reforms...
in 1769, just as the Krenitsyn-Levashev expedition was concluding. Five separate expeditions were dispatched to Alta California in 1769. By 1782, presidio
Presidio
A presidio is a fortified base established by the Spanish in North America between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fortresses were built to protect against pirates, hostile native Americans and enemy colonists. Other presidios were held by Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth...
s had been established at San Diego
Presidio of San Diego
El Presidio Reál de San Diego is an historical fort established on May 14, 1769, by Commandant Pedro Fages for Spain. It was the first permanent European settlement on the Pacific Coast of the United States. As the first of the presidios and Spanish missions in California, it was the base of...
, Monterey
Presidio of Monterey, California
The Presidio of Monterey, located in Monterey, California, is an active US Army installation with historic ties to the Spanish colonial era. Currently it is the home of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center .-Spanish fort:...
, San Francisco
Presidio of San Francisco
The Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...
and Santa Barbara
Presidio of Santa Barbara
The El Presidio Real de Santa Bárbara, also known as the Royal Presidio of Santa Barbara, was a military installation in Santa Barbara, California. It was built by Spain in 1782, with the mission of defending the Second Military District in California...
, linked by a series of mission stations
Spanish missions in California
The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of religious and military outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to...
along the coast. Spanish exploration voyages to the far north were launched in 1774, 1775, and 1779. In 1784, the center of Russian activity shifted east to Kodiak Island and hunting operations were extended into Cook Inlet
Cook Inlet
Cook Inlet stretches from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage in south-central Alaska. Cook Inlet branches into the Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm at its northern end, almost surrounding Anchorage....
. The two empires seemed destined to clash, but before direct Russian-Spanish contact was made new powers appeared on the Northwest Coast—Britain and the United States. When the clash came, at Nootka Sound in 1789, it was not between Spain and Russia but between Spain and Britain. The British first reached the region by sea in 1778, during James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
's third voyage, and by land in 1793, when Alexander Mackenzie's transcontinental explorations reached the Pacific. The first British maritime fur trader, James Hanna
James Hanna
James Hanna was the first European to sail to the Pacific northwest to trade in furs. This Maritime fur trade was an important factor in the early history of the Pacific Northwest and the westward expansion of the United States and Canada....
, arrived on the Northwest Coast in 1785. The first American traders, Robert Gray and John Kendrick
John Kendrick (American sea captain)
John Kendrick was an American sea captain, both during the American Revolutionary War and the exploration and maritime fur trading of the Pacific Northwest alongside his partner Robert Gray.-Early life:...
, arrived by sea in 1788. The Lewis and Clark Expedition
Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Lewis and Clark Expedition, or ″Corps of Discovery Expedition" was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast by the United States. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and led by two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley, Meriwether Lewis and William...
arrived overland in 1805.
The early maritime fur traders were explorers as well as traders. The Northwest Coast is very complex—a "labyrinth of waters", according to George Simpson
George Simpson (administrator)
Sir George Simpson was a Scots-Quebecer and employee of the Hudson's Bay Company . His title was Governor-in-Chief of Rupert's Land and administrator over the Northwest Territories and Columbia Department in British North America from 1821 to 1860.-Early years:George Simpson was born in Dingwall,...
— with thousands of islands, numerous straits and fjords, and a mountainous, rocky, often very steep shoreline. Navigational hazards included persistent rain, high winds, thick fogs, strong currents and tides, and hidden rocks. Wind patterns were often contrary, variable, and baffling, especially within the coastal straits and archipelagoes, making sailing dangerous and frustrating. Early explorations before the maritime fur trade era—by Juan Pérez
Juan José Pérez Hernández
Juan José Pérez Hernández , often simply Juan Pérez, was an 18th century Spanish explorer. He was the first European to sight, examine, name, and record the islands near present-day British Columbia, Canada...
, Bruno de Heceta
Bruno de Heceta
Bruno de Heceta y Dudagoitia was a Spanish Basque explorer of the Pacific Northwest. Born in Bilbao of an old Basque family, he was sent by the Viceroy of New Spain, Antonio María Bucareli y Ursúa, to explore the area north of Alta California in response to information that there were colonial...
, Bogeda y Quadra
Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra
Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra was a Spanish naval officer born in Lima, Peru. Assigned to the Pacific coast Spanish Naval Department base at San Blas, in the Viceroyalty of New Spain , this navigator explored the Northwest Coast of North America as far north as present day Alaska.Juan...
, and James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
—produced only rough surveys of the coast's general features. Detailed surveys were undertaken in only a few relatively small areas, such as Nootka Sound
Nootka Sound
Nootka Sound is a complex inlet or sound of the Pacific Ocean on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Historically also known as King George's Sound, as a strait it separates Vancouver Island and Nootka Island.-History:The inlet is part of the...
, Bucareli Bay
Bucareli Bay
Bucareli Bay is a bay in the Alexander Archipelago, in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located off the western coast of Prince of Wales Island, between Baker Island and Suemez Island. To the east it connects to various waterways, such as San Alberto Bay. To the west it...
, and Cook Inlet
Cook Inlet
Cook Inlet stretches from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage in south-central Alaska. Cook Inlet branches into the Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm at its northern end, almost surrounding Anchorage....
. Russian exploration before 1785 had produced mainly rough surveys, largely restricted to the Aleutian Islands and mainland Alaska west of Cape Saint Elias
Cape Saint Elias
Cape Saint Elias is a cape in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located at the southwest end of Kayak Island, 104 km southeast of Cordova, at . It is commonly believed that Mount Saint Elias, the second highest mountain in the United States and Canada, is named for this landform.The cape was...
. British and American maritime fur traders began visiting the Northwest Coast in 1785, at which time it was mostly unexplored. Although non-commercial exploration voyages continued, especially by the Spanish Navy, the maritime fur traders made a number of significant discoveries. Notable examples include the Strait of Juan de Fuca
Strait of Juan de Fuca
The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a large body of water about long that is the Salish Sea outlet to the Pacific Ocean...
, Clayoquot Sound
Clayoquot Sound
Clayoquot Sound is located on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is bordered by the Esowista Peninsula to the south, and the Hesquiaht Peninsula to the North. It is a body of water with many inlets and islands. Major inlets include Sydney Inlet,...
, and Barkley Sound
Barkley Sound
Barkley Sound, also known historically as Barclay Sound, is south of Ucluelet and north of Bamfield on the west coast of Vancouver Island and forms the entrance to the Alberni Inlet...
, all found by Charles William Barkley
Charles William Barkley
Charles William Barkley was a ship captain and maritime fur trader. He was born in Hertford, England, son of Charles Barkley....
, Queen Charlotte Strait
Queen Charlotte Strait
Queen Charlotte Strait is a strait between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It connects Queen Charlotte Sound with Johnstone Strait, Discovery Passage and then to the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound...
by James Strange, Fitz Hugh Sound
Fitz Hugh Sound
Fitz Hugh Sound, sometimes spelled Fitzhugh Sound, is a sound on the British Columbia Coast of Canada, located between Calvert Island and the mainland. Fitz Hugh Sound is part of a group of named bodies of water around the opening of Dean Channel, one of the coast's main fjords, where it...
by James Hanna
James Hanna
James Hanna was the first European to sail to the Pacific northwest to trade in furs. This Maritime fur trade was an important factor in the early history of the Pacific Northwest and the westward expansion of the United States and Canada....
, Grays Harbor and the Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
by Robert Gray. George Dixon explored the Dixon Entrance
Dixon Entrance
The Dixon Entrance is a strait about long and wide in the Pacific Ocean at the International Boundary between the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia in Canada. It was named by Joseph Banks for Captain George Dixon, a Royal Navy officer, fur trader, and explorer, who...
and was the first to realize that the Queen Charlotte Islands
Queen Charlotte Islands
Haida Gwaii , formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Haida Gwaii consists of two main islands: Graham Island in the north, and Moresby Island in the south, along with approximately 150 smaller islands with a total landmass of...
were not part of the mainland.
Russia
Russian maritime fur trading in the northern Pacific began after the exploration voyages of Vitus BeringVitus Bering
Vitus Jonassen Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering (also, less correNavy]], a captain-komandor known among the Russian sailors as Ivan Ivanovich. He is noted for being the first European to discover Alaska and its Aleutian Islands...
and Aleksei Chirikov
Aleksei Chirikov
Aleksei Ilyich Chirikov was a Russian navigator and captain who along with Bering was the first Russian to reach North-West coast of North America. He discovered and charted some of the Aleutian Islands while he was deputy to Vitus Bering during the Great Northern Expedition.- Life and work :In...
in 1741 and 1742. Their voyages demonstrated that Asia and North America were not connected but that sea voyages were feasible, and that the region was rich in furs. Private fur traders, mostly promyshlenniki
Promyshlenniki
The Promyshlenniki were a group of Russian and native Siberian contract workers drawn largely from the State serf and townsman class engaged primarily in the fur trade in Siberia and Alaska in the 1790s...
, launched fur trading expeditions from Kamchatka
Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
, at first focusing on nearby islands such as the Commander Islands. Unlike fur trading ventures in Siberia, these maritime expeditions required more capital than most promyshlenniki could obtain. Merchants from cities such as Irkutsk
Irkutsk
Irkutsk is a city and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, one of the largest cities in Siberia. Population: .-History:In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovye near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading and for the collection of fur taxes from the Buryats. In 1661, Yakov Pokhabov...
, Tobolsk
Tobolsk
Tobolsk is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh Rivers. It is a historic capital of Siberia. Population: -History:...
, and others in European Russia
European Russia
European Russia refers to the western areas of Russia that lie within Europe, comprising roughly 3,960,000 square kilometres , larger in area than India, and spanning across 40% of Europe. Its eastern border is defined by the Ural Mountains and in the south it is defined by the border with...
, became the principal investors.
An early trader was Emilian Basov, who traded at Bering Island
Bering Island
Bering Island is located off the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Bering Sea. At long by wide, it is the largest of the Commander Islands with the area of ....
in 1743, collecting a large number of sea otter
Sea Otter
The sea otter is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between 14 and 45 kg , making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smallest marine mammals...
, fur seal
Fur seal
Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds in the Otariidae family. One species, the northern fur seal inhabits the North Pacific, while seven species in the Arctocephalus genus are found primarily in the Southern hemisphere...
, and blue arctic fox
Arctic fox
The arctic fox , also known as the white fox, polar fox or snow fox, is a small fox native to Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and is common throughout the Arctic tundra biome. The Greek word alopex, means a fox and Vulpes is the Latin version...
furs. Basov made four trips to Bering Island and nearby Medny Island
Medny Island
Medny Island , is the second largest island in the Komandorski Islands east of Russia...
and made a fortune, inspiring many other traders. From 1743 to the founding of the Russian-American Company in 1799, over one hundred private fur trading and hunting voyages sailed from Kamchatka to North America. In total these voyages garnered over eight million silver rubles
Russian ruble
The ruble or rouble is the currency of the Russian Federation and the two partially recognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Formerly, the ruble was also the currency of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union prior to their breakups. Belarus and Transnistria also use currencies with...
. During the early part of this era the ships would typically stop at the Commander Islands in order to slaughter and preserve the meat of Steller's Sea Cow
Steller's Sea Cow
Steller's sea cow was a large herbivorous marine mammal. In historical times, it was the largest member of the order Sirenia, which includes its closest living relative, the dugong , and the manatees...
s, a defenseless sea mammal whose range was limited to those islands. They were hunted not only for food, but for their skins, used to make boats, and their subcutaneous fat, used for oil lamps. By 1768 Steller's Sea Cow was extinct. As furs were depleted on nearby islands, Russian traders sailed farther east along the Aleutian chain. By the 1760s they were regularly sailing to Kodiak Island. Notable Russian traders in the early years of the trade include Nikifor Trapeznikov (who financed and participated in ten voyages between 1743 and 1768), Maksimovich Solov'ev, Stepan Glotov, and Grigory Shelikhov
Grigory Shelikhov
Grigory Ivanovich Shelekhov Grigory Ivanovich Shelekhov Grigory Ivanovich Shelekhov (Григорий Иванович Шелехов in Russian; (1747–July 20, 1795 (July 31, 1795 N.S.)) was a Russian seafarer and merchant born in Rylsk....
(also spelled Gregory Shelikov).
Grigory Shelikhov
Grigory Ivanovich Shelekhov Grigory Ivanovich Shelekhov Grigory Ivanovich Shelekhov (Григорий Иванович Шелехов in Russian; (1747–July 20, 1795 (July 31, 1795 N.S.)) was a Russian seafarer and merchant born in Rylsk....
began to stand out as one of the most important traders. In 1784, Shelikhov founded the first permanent Russian settlement in North America, at Three Saints Bay
Three Saints Bay, Alaska
Three Saints Bay is a -long inlet on the southeast side of Kodiak Island in southern Alaska, North of Sitkalidak Strait. It is southwest of Kodiak....
on Kodiak Island. Shelikhov envisioned a continual extension of the Russian maritime fur trade, with trading posts being set up farther and farther along the coast all the way to California. He sought exclusive control of the trade, and in 1788 Empress Catherine II
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...
decided to grant his company a monopoly only over the area it already occupied. Other traders were free to compete elsewhere. Catherine's decision was issued as the imperial ukase
Ukase
A ukase , in Imperial Russia, was a proclamation of the tsar, government, or a religious leader that had the force of law...
(proclamation) of September 28, 1788.
By the time of Catherine's ukase of 1788, just as other nations were entering the maritime fur trade, the Russians had spent over forty years establishing and expanding their maritime operations in North America. A number of colonies were being established over a large region stretching from the Aleutian Islands to Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound
Prince William Sound
Prince William Sound is a sound off the Gulf of Alaska on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located on the east side of the Kenai Peninsula. Its largest port is Valdez, at the southern terminus of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System...
. Many ships sailed from Kamchatka to Alaska each year. The Russians not only had an early start, but they controlled the habitats of the most valuable sea otters. The Kurilian, Kamchatkan, and Aleutian sea otters had fur that was thicker, glossier, and blacker than those on the Northwest Coast and California. There were four grades of fur based on color, texture, and thickness. The most prized furs were those of Kurilian and Kamchatkan sea otters, Aleutian furs were second grade, those of the Northwest Coast third, and the poorest grade was that of Californian sea otters. Russia also controlled the sources of sable
Sable
The sable is a species of marten which inhabits forest environments, primarily in Russia from the Ural Mountains throughout Siberia, in northern Mongolia and China and on Hokkaidō in Japan. Its range in the wild originally extended through European Russia to Poland and Scandinavia...
furs, the most valuable fur bearing land mammal.
The Russian system differed from the British and American systems in its relationship with indigenous peoples. Using the same method they had used in Siberia the Russians employed or enserfed Aleut and Alutiiq
Alutiiq
The Alutiiq , also called Pacific Yupik or Sugpiaq, are a southern coastal people of the Native peoples of Alaska. Their language is called Sugstun, and it is one of Eskimo languages, belonging to the Yup’ik branch of these languages. They are not to be confused with the Aleuts, who live further...
people, the latter being a subgroup of the Yupik Eskimo
Eskimo
Eskimos or Inuit–Yupik peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia , across Alaska , Canada, and Greenland....
people. The Aleut and Alutiiq people were expert sea otter hunters, noted for their use of kayak
Kayak
A kayak is a small, relatively narrow, human-powered boat primarily designed to be manually propelled by means of a double blade paddle.The traditional kayak has a covered deck and one or more cockpits, each seating one paddler...
s and baidarka
Baidarka
Baidarka is the Russian name used for Aleutian style sea kayak. The ancient Unangan name is Iqyax. The word has its origins from early Russian settlers in Alaska. Iqya-x builders who kept the tradition of building skin-on-skeleton boats alive in the 20th century include Sergie Sovoroff.A prominent...
s. Russian ships were mainly used for transporting and assisting native hunting parties. This differed from the British and American system, where the natives hunted sea otters and prepared the furs on their own, and were essentially independent agents of the fur trade. The Russians did not trade freely with the native Alaskans, rather they imposed a fur tribute known as yasak
Yasak
Yasak or yasaq, sometimes iasak, is a Turkic word for "tribute" that was used in Imperial Russia to designate fur tribute exacted from the indigenous peoples of Siberia.- Origin :...
. The yasak system, which was widely used in Siberia, essentially enslaved the natives. In 1788 it was banned in Russian America, only to be replaced by compulsory labor
Unfree labour
Unfree labour includes all forms of slavery as well as all other related institutions .-Payment for unfree labour:If payment occurs, it may be in one or more of the following forms:...
.
Britain
Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage is a sea route through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways amidst the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans...
, Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands
Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...
. On the Northwest Coast he spent a month in Nootka Sound
Nootka Sound
Nootka Sound is a complex inlet or sound of the Pacific Ocean on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Historically also known as King George's Sound, as a strait it separates Vancouver Island and Nootka Island.-History:The inlet is part of the...
, during which he and his crew traded with the Nuu-chah-nulth from the village of Yuquot
Yuquot, British Columbia
Yuquot or Friendly Cove is a small settlement of less than 25 on Nootka Island in Nootka Sound, just west of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada...
. They ended up with over 300 furs, mostly sea otter, but thought them of no great value. Later, after Cook had been killed in Hawaii, the expedition visited Canton and were surprised by how much money the Chinese were willing to pay for the furs. A profit of 1,800 percent was made. James King, one of the commanders after Cook's death, wrote that "the advantages that might be derived from a voyage to that part of the American coast, undertaken with commercial views, appear to me of a degree of importance sufficient to call for the attention of the public." The crews of the two ships were so eager to return to Nootka Sound and acquire more furs they were "not far short of mutiny". Nevertheless, they sailed for England, arriving there in October 1780. Accounts of Cook's voyage and the sea otter trade were published in the 1780s, triggering a rush of entrepreneurial voyages to the Northwest Coast.
British interest in the maritime fur trade peaked between 1785 and 1794, then declined as the French Revolutionary Wars
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
diminished Britain's available manpower and investment capital. The country also concentrated its foreign trade activities in India. British maritime fur traders were hindered by the East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
(EIC) and South Sea Company (SSC). Although the SSC was moribund by the late 18th century, it had been granted the exclusive right to British trade on the entire western coast of the Americas from Cape Horn to Bering Strait and for three hundred leagues
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length . It was long common in Europe and Latin America, but it is no longer an official unit in any nation. The league originally referred to the distance a person or a horse could walk in an hour...
(approximately 900 miles (1,448.4 km)) out into the Pacific Ocean. This, coupled with the EIC monopoly on British trade in China meant that sea otter skins were procurable only in the preserve of one monopoly and disposable only in that of the other. In order to operate legally British maritime fur traders had to obtain licenses from both companies, which was difficult and expensive. Some traders obtained a license from the EIC only, figuring that the SSC was unable to enforce its monopoly. Others obtained only the SSC license and took their furs to England, where they were trans-shipped to China. Some traders tried to evade the licenses by sailing their ships under foreign flags. The EIC's primary focus in China was the tea trade. There was never much interest within the company for the maritime fur trade. The EIC usually allowed British vessels to import furs into Canton, but required the furs to be sold via EIC agents, and the company took a percentage of the returns. Worse, the EIC did not allow the British fur traders to export Chinese goods to Great Britain. Thus the last and most profitable leg of the maritime fur trade system—carrying Chinese goods to Europe and America—was denied to British traders.
The first trading vessel dispatched solely for the purpose of the fur trade was the British Sea Otter commanded by James Hanna
James Hanna
James Hanna was the first European to sail to the Pacific northwest to trade in furs. This Maritime fur trade was an important factor in the early history of the Pacific Northwest and the westward expansion of the United States and Canada....
in 1785. In his brief visit to the coast he obtained 560 pelts which fetched a profit of $20,000 in Canton. The promise of such profits encouraged other traders. George Dixon and Nathaniel Portlock, former members of Cook's crew, became partners in the King George's Sound Company
King George's Sound Company
The King George's Sound Company, also known as Richard Cadman Etches and Company after its "prime mover and principal investor", was an English company formed in 1785 for the Maritime Fur Trade on the northwest coast of North America...
, formed in 1785 for the purpose of developing the maritime fur trade. They sailed from England on the King George and Queen Charlotte and spent 1786 and 1787 exploring and trading on the North West Coast. They spent the winters in Hawaii, where they were among the first visitors after Cook. Charles William Barkley
Charles William Barkley
Charles William Barkley was a ship captain and maritime fur trader. He was born in Hertford, England, son of Charles Barkley....
was another early British trader. He sailed the Imperial Eagle
Imperial Eagle (ship)
The Imperial Eagle was a 400 ton burthen British merchant ship that sailed on maritime fur trading ventures in the late 1780s. It was under the command of Captain Charles William Barkley until confiscated in India. The ship, Loudoun, was a decommissioned East Indiaman...
from England to the North West Coast via Hawaii, 1786–1788. He was accompanied by his wife, Frances Barkley, who became the first European woman to visit the Hawaiian Islands and the first woman to sail around the world without deception. Only two women are known to have sailed around the world before Frances: Jeanne Baré
Jeanne Baré
Jeanne Baret was a member of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition on the ships La Boudeuse and Étoile in 1766–1769. Baret is recognized as the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation.Jeanne Baret joined the expedition disguised as a man, calling herself Jean Baret...
, disguised as a man, and Rose de Freycinet, wife of Louis de Freycinet
Louis de Freycinet
Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet was a French navigator. He circumnavigated the earth, and was one of the first to produce a comprehensive map of the coastline of Australia.-Biography:...
, as a stowaway. Barkley chose to sail under the flag of Austria in order to evade paying for EIC and SSC licences. During their stop in Hawaii the Barkleys hired a Native Hawaiian named Winée as a maidservant. Winée was the first Native Hawaiian to visit the Pacific Northwest—the first of many Kanakas
Kanakas
Kanaka was the term for a worker from various Pacific Islands employed in British colonies, such as British Columbia , Fiji and Queensland in the 19th and early 20th centuries...
. Barkley explored the coast south of Nootka Sound, discovering the Strait of Juan de Fuca
Strait of Juan de Fuca
The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a large body of water about long that is the Salish Sea outlet to the Pacific Ocean...
in the process. He was the first trader to visit Neah Bay
Neah Bay, Washington
Neah Bay is a census-designated place on the Makah Indian reservation in Clallam County, Washington, United States. The population was 794 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Neah Bay is located at ....
, a Makah settlement that later became an important port of call for maritime fur traders.
John Meares
John Meares was a navigator, explorer, and maritime fur trader, best known for his role in the Nootka Crisis, which brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war.- Career :...
, who had also served under Cook, sailed to the North West Coast in 1786. He spent the winter in Prince William Sound, his ship trapped by ice and his men dying of scurvy
Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...
. He was rescued by the timely arrival of Dixon and Portlock. Meares organized a second expedition of two ships, the Felice Adventurero and Iphigenia Nubiana. Meares decided not to license his ships with the EIC, instead trying to conceal the illegal activity by using the flag of Portugal. They arrived at Nootka Sound in May 1788. Meares later claimed that Chief Maquinna
Maquinna
Maquinna was the chief of the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Nootka Sound, during the heyday of the maritime fur trade in the 1780s and 1790s on the Pacific Northwest Coast...
sold him some land and on it Meares had a building erected. These claims later became a point of dispute during the Nootka Crisis
Nootka Crisis
The Nootka Crisis was an international incident and political dispute between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Spain, triggered by a series of events that took place during the summer of 1789 at Nootka Sound...
. Spain, which sought control of Nootka Sound, rejected both claims; the true facts of the matter have never been fully established. There is no doubt, however, that Meares had the sloop North West America built in Nootka Sound, the first non-indigenous vessel built in the Pacific Northwest.
Meares and others organized another expedition the following year. A number of vessels sailed to Nootka Sound including the Argonaut under James Colnett
James Colnett
James Colnett was an officer of the British Royal Navy, an explorer, and a maritime fur trader. He served under James Cook during Cook's second voyage of exploration...
, the Princess Royal
Princess Royal (sloop)
Princess Royal was a British merchant ship that sailed on fur trading ventures in the late 1780s, and was captured at Nootka Sound by Esteban José Martínez of Spain during the Nootka Crisis of 1789...
, under Thomas Hudson, as well as the Iphigenia Nubiana and North West America. Colnett intended to establish a permanent fur trading post at Nootka Sound. However, Spain had also decided to permanently occupy Nootka Sound and assert sovereignty on the North West Coast. The decision was mostly due to Russian activity in Alaska and Russia's threat to occupy Nootka Sound themselves. The Spanish naval officer Esteban José Martínez
Esteban José Martínez Fernández y Martínez de la Sierra
Esteban José Martínez Fernández y Martínez de la Sierra, or simply Esteban José Martínez was a Spanish navigator and explorer, native of Seville...
arrived at Nootka in May 1789 and built Fort San Miguel
Fort San Miguel
For Angola fort, see Fortaleza de São MiguelFort San Miguel was a Spanish fortification at Friendly Cove in Nootka Sound , Vancouver Island....
. When the Argonaut arrived a dispute arose between Colnett and Martínez, leading to the seizure of several British ships and the arrest of their crews. This incident led to the Nootka Crisis, an international crisis
International crisis
An international crisis is a crisis between states. There are many definitions of an international crisis. Snyder "...a sequence of interactions between the governments of two or more sovereign states in severe conflict, short of actual war, but involving the perception of a dangerously high...
between Britain and Spain. War was averted with the first Nootka Convention
Nootka Convention
The Nootka Conventions were a series of three agreements between the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain, signed in the 1790s which averted a war between the two empires over overlapping claims to portions of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America.The claims of Spain dated back...
of 1790.
United States
American traders were largely influenced by an unauthorized report published by John LedyardJohn Ledyard
John Ledyard was an American explorer and adventurer.-Early life:Ledyard was born in Groton, Connecticut, the oldest son of John and Abigail Ledyard and the nephew of Continental Army Colonel William Ledyard...
in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1783. By the 1790s American traders were out-competing the British and soon came to dominate the maritime fur trade south of Russian America. The opening of the trade came at a good time for New England's merchants. It provided a way to escape the depression that had followed the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
. It presented new trading opportunities that more than made up for the closure of British home and colonial ports to US imports.
One of the first and most notable American maritime fur traders was Robert Gray. Gray made two trading voyages, the first from 1787 to 1790 and the second from 1790 to 1793. The first voyage was conducted with John Kendrick
John Kendrick (American sea captain)
John Kendrick was an American sea captain, both during the American Revolutionary War and the exploration and maritime fur trading of the Pacific Northwest alongside his partner Robert Gray.-Early life:...
and the vessels Columbia Rediviva
Columbia Rediviva
Columbia Rediviva was a privately owned ship under the command of John Kendrick, along with Captain Robert Gray, best known for going to the Pacific Northwest for the maritime fur trade. The "Rediviva" was added to her name upon a rebuilding in 1787...
and Lady Washington
Lady Washington
Lady Washington is a ship name that is shared by at least 4 different small wooden merchant sailing vessels during two different time periods. They should not be confused with USS Lady Washington. The original sailed for about 10 years in the 18th century. A somewhat updated modern replica was...
. After the 1789 fur trading season was over, Gray sailed the Columbia to China via Hawaii, then to Boston via the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
. The arrival of the Columbia at Boston was celebrated for being the first American circumnavigation
Circumnavigation
Circumnavigation – literally, "navigation of a circumference" – refers to travelling all the way around an island, a continent, or the entire planet Earth.- Global circumnavigation :...
of the world. However, the venture was not a commercial success. The ship's owners financed a second attempt and Gray sailed the Columbia from Boston only six weeks after arriving. Gray's second voyage was notable in several ways. After spending the summer trading on the Northwest Coast Gray wintered on the coast. In Clayoquot Sound
Clayoquot Sound
Clayoquot Sound is located on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is bordered by the Esowista Peninsula to the south, and the Hesquiaht Peninsula to the North. It is a body of water with many inlets and islands. Major inlets include Sydney Inlet,...
Gray's crew built a house, dubbed Fort Defiance
Fort Defiance (British Columbia)
Fort Defiance was a small outpost built by the crew of the Columbia Rediviva during the winter of 1791-1792. The crew under the command of American merchant and maritime fur trader Captain Robert Gray built the establishment on Meares Island in present day British Columbia, Canada.-History:In early...
, and had the sloop Adventure
Adventure (ship)
The Adventure was a sloop maritime fur trade ship built by the crew of Captain Robert Gray on his second voyage to the Northwest Coast of North America. The 45-ton sloop was built to allow the trading venture to access smaller inlets the Columbia could not reach. At the end of his second voyage...
built, the first American vessel built on the Northwest Coast. It was launched in March 1792 under the command of Robert Haswell
Robert Haswell
Robert Haswell was an early American maritime fur trader to the Pacific Northwest of North America. His journals of these voyages are the main records of Captain Robert Gray's circumnavigation of the globe...
. During the 1792 trading season Gray concentrated on the southern part of the North West Coast, including the Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
. Although the mouth of the river had been spotted by the Spanish explorer Bruno de Heceta
Bruno de Heceta
Bruno de Heceta y Dudagoitia was a Spanish Basque explorer of the Pacific Northwest. Born in Bilbao of an old Basque family, he was sent by the Viceroy of New Spain, Antonio María Bucareli y Ursúa, to explore the area north of Alta California in response to information that there were colonial...
in 1775, no other explorer or fur trader had been able to find it. Gray was the first to do so. He named the river after his ship. The event was later used by the United States in support of their claims to the Pacific Northwest.
Other notable American maritime fur traders include William F. Sturgis
William F. Sturgis
William F. Sturgis was a Boston merchant in the China trade and the Maritime Fur Trade.-Biography:...
, Joseph Ingraham
Joseph Ingraham
Joseph Ingraham was an American sailor and Maritime Fur Trader who discovered several islands of the Marquesas Islands while on his way to trade along the West Coast of North America...
, Simon Metcalfe
Simon Metcalfe
Simon Metcalfe was a British American surveyor and one of the first American maritime fur traders to visit the Pacific Northwest coast...
, and Daniel Cross, among others. One of the most successful American firms involved in the Northwest Trade was Perkins and Company
Thomas Handasyd Perkins
Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins, or T. H. Perkins was a wealthy Boston merchant and an archetypical Boston Brahmin. Starting with bequests from his grandfather and father-in-law, he amassed a huge fortune...
.
American ascendancy
The maritime fur trade was dominated by American traders from the 1790s to the 1820s. Between 1788 and 1826, American merchant ships made at least 127 voyages between the United States and China, via the Northwest Coast. The lucrative returns were large. During the late 1810s, the return on investment ranged from about 300% to 500%. Even higher profits were common in the first decade of the 19th century. Returns of 2,200% or higher were common, although when taking into account the cost of buying and outfitting vessels, the 2,200% return would be closer to 525%.The trade's boom years ended around 1810, after which there was a long decline marked by increasing economic diversification. By 1810, the supply of sea otter pelts had fallen due to overhunting. American trade declined during the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, but after 1815 Americans were able to resume and expand the maritime fur trade, and continued to dominate.
Russian expansion
The Russian entry to the Northwest Coast, beyond Prince William Sound, was slow because of a shortage of ships and sailors. Yakutat BayYakutat Bay
Yakutat Bay is a 29-km-wide bay in the U.S. state of Alaska, extending southwest from Disenchantment Bay to the Gulf of Alaska. "Yakutat" is a Tlingit name reported as "Jacootat" and "Yacootat" by Yuri Lisianski in 1805....
was reached in 1794 and the settlement of Slavorossiya, originally intended to be the colonial capital, was built there in 1795. Reconnaissance of the coast as far as the Queen Charlotte Islands was carried out by James Shields, a British employee of the Golikov-Shelikhov Company. In 1795, Alexandr Baranov
Alexandr Baranov
Alexander Andreyevich Baranov , sometimes spelled Aleksander or Alexandr and Baranof, was born in 1746 in Kargopol, in St. Petersburg Governorate of the Russian Empire....
sailed into Sitka Sound
Sitka Sound
Sitka Sound is a body of water near the city of Sitka, Alaska. It is bordered by Baranof Island to the south and the northeast, by Kruzof Island to the northwest and by the Pacific Ocean to the southwest...
, claiming it for Russia. Hunting parties arrived in the following years. By 1800, three-quarters of the Russian-American Company's sea otter skins came from the Sitka Sound area, amounting to several thousand per year. Sitka Sound was also where serious competition between the Russians, British, and Americans first arose.
In July 1799, Baranov returned to Sitka Sound on the brig Oryol and established the settlement of Arkhangelsk, also known as Fort Archangel Gabriel. In June 1802, Tlingit warriors attacked the settlement and killed or captured most of the 150 Russians and Aleuts living there. Baranov led an armed expedition to retake Sitka by force in June 1804. The Russian warship Neva
Russian warship Neva
Neva was a Russian sloop-of-war, bought in Britain. It was named after the Neva River.It was the first Russian ship to circumnavigate the globe in 1804 under the command of Lieutenant Commander Yuri Lisyansky...
joined Baranov at Sitka. A new Russian fort was established while the Tlingit prepared to defend themselves with a well-armed fort of their own. Tension rapidly escalated into skirmishes and negotiations broke down. In early October the Russians attacked the Tlingit fort with cannon from the Neva and from a land party. The Tlingit responded with powerful gun and cannon fire of their own. The Battle of Sitka
Battle of Sitka
The Battle of Sitka was the last major armed conflict between Europeans and Alaska Natives, and was initiated in response to the destruction of a Russian trading post two years prior...
continued for several days until the Tlingit abandoned their fort and left the area. Tlingit accounts of the battle refuse to admit defeat or give the Russians credit for taking the Tlingit fort. The Russians destroyed the abandoned Tlingit fort and named the new Russian fort Novo-Arkhangelsk (New Archangel), also known as Fort Archangel Michael and Fort Saint Michael. The confrontations at Sitka in 1802 and 1804 played a significant role in subsequent Tlingit-Russian relations for generations.
Novo-Arkhangelsk soon become the primary settlement and colonial capital of Russian America. After the Alaska Purchase
Alaska purchase
The Alaska Purchase was the acquisition of the Alaska territory by the United States from Russia in 1867 by a treaty ratified by the Senate. The purchase, made at the initiative of United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, gained of new United States territory...
, it was renamed Sitka, and became the first capital of Alaska Territory
Alaska Territory
The Territory of Alaska was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 24, 1912, until January 3, 1959, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Alaska...
.
The Russian-American Company
Russian-American Company
The Russian-American Company was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the so-called Shelekhov-Golikov Company of Grigory Shelekhov and Ivan Larionovich Golikov The Russian-American Company (officially: Under His Imperial Majesty's Highest Protection (patronage)...
(RAC) was incorporated in 1799, putting an end to the promyshlenniki period and beginning an era of centralized monopoly. Its charter was laid out in a 1799 ukase
Ukase
A ukase , in Imperial Russia, was a proclamation of the tsar, government, or a religious leader that had the force of law...
by the new Tsar Paul
Paul I of Russia
Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...
, which granted the company monopolistic control over trade in the Aleutian Islands and the North America mainland, south to 55° north latitude
55th parallel north
The 55th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 55 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean....
(approximating the present border on coast between British Columbia and Alaska). The RAC was modeled on Britain's East India Company (EIC) and Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Russian officials intended the company to operate both as a business enterprise and a state organization for extending imperial influence, similar to the EIC and HBC. It was also hoped that the company would be able to conduct maritime trade with China and Japan, although this goal was not realized. In 1818 the Russian government took control of the RAC from the merchants who held the charter. The explorer and naval officer Ferdinand Petrovich von Wrangel was the first president of the company during the government period. In 1867, the Alaska Purchase
Alaska purchase
The Alaska Purchase was the acquisition of the Alaska territory by the United States from Russia in 1867 by a treaty ratified by the Senate. The purchase, made at the initiative of United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, gained of new United States territory...
transferred control of Alaska to the United States and the commercial interests of the Russian American Company were sold to Hutchinson, Kohl & Company of San Francisco, who then merged with several other groups to form the Alaska Commercial Company
Alaska Commercial Company
The Alaska Commercial Company is a company that operated retail stores in Alaska during the early period of Alaska's ownership by the United States. From 1901 to 1992, it was known as the Northern Commercial Company . In 1992, it resumed business as the Alaska Commercial Company under the...
.
The Russian population in America never surpassed 1,000—the peak was 823 in 1839. However, the RAC employed and fed thousands of natives. According to official census counts by the Russians, the population of Russian America peaked at 10,313 in 1838. An additional 12,500 people were known local residents not included in the colonial register. An estimated 17,000 more local residents were present but unknown to the Russians. Thus, the total population of Russian America was approximately 40,000.
Russian-American Company
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
. It was the RAC's southernmost outpost and operated from 1812 to 1841, and was established as an agricultural base for supplying the northern settlements with food as well as for conducting trade with Alta California
Alta California
Alta California was a province and territory in the Viceroyalty of New Spain and later a territory and department in independent Mexico. The territory was created in 1769 out of the northern part of the former province of Las Californias, and consisted of the modern American states of California,...
. The Ross Colony included a number of settlements spread out over an area stretching from Point Arena
Point Arena, California
Point Arena is a small coastal city in Mendocino County, California, United States. Point Arena is located west of Hopland, at an elevation of 118 feet . The population was 449 at the 2010 census, down from 474 at the 2000 census, making it one of the smallest incorporated cities in the state...
to Tomales Bay
Tomales Bay
Tomales Bay is a long narrow inlet of the Pacific Ocean in Marin County in northern California in the United States. It is approximately 15 miles long and averages nearly 1.0 miles wide, effectively separating the Point Reyes Peninsula from the mainland of Marin County. It is located...
. The administrative center was Port Rumianstev at Bodega Harbor
Bodega Harbor
Bodega Harbor is a small shallow natural harbor on the Pacific coast of northern California in the United States, approximately 40 mi northwest of San Francisco...
, off Bodega Bay
Bodega Bay
Bodega Bay is a shallow, rocky inlet of the Pacific Ocean on the coast of northern California in the United States. It is approximately across and is located approximately northwest of San Francisco and west of Santa Rosa...
. An artel
Artel
Artel is a general term for various cooperative associations in Russia and Ukraine, historical and modern.Historically, artels were semi-formal associations for various enterprises: fishing, mining, commerce, of loaders, loggers, thieves, beggars, etc. Often artels worked far from home and lived...
hunting camp was located on the Farallon Islands
Farallon Islands
The Farallon Islands, or Farallones , are a group of islands and sea stacks in the Gulf of the Farallones, off the coast of San Francisco, California, USA. They lie outside the Golden Gate and south of Point Reyes, and are visible from the mainland on clear days...
. Three ranches were established: the Kostromitinov Ranch on the Russian River
Russian River (California)
The Russian River, a southward-flowing river, drains of Sonoma and Mendocino counties in Northern California. With an annual average discharge of approximately , it is the second largest river flowing through the nine county Greater San Francisco Bay Area with a mainstem 110 miles ...
near the mouth of Willow Creek, the Khlebnikov Ranch in the Salmon Creek
Salmon Creek (Sonoma County, California)
Salmon Creek is an stream in western Sonoma County, California that springs from coastal hills west of the town of Occidental and empties into the Pacific Ocean north of Bodega Head.-Course:...
valley about a mile (1.6 km) north of the present day Bodega
Bodega, California
Bodega is an unincorporated town and census-designated place in Sonoma County in the U.S. state of California. The town had a population of 220 as of the 2010 Census.Bodega is located on Bodega Highway, about west of Freestone, California...
, and the Chernykh Ranch near present day Graton
Graton, California
Graton is an unincorporated town and census-designated place in west Sonoma County, California, United States. The population was 1,707 at the 2010 census. Graton's ZIP code is 95444.-Geography:...
. Fort Ross employed native Alaskans to hunt seals and sea otters on the California coast. By 1840 California's sea otter population had been severely depleted.
In 1821, the Russian Emperor
Emperor
An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife or a woman who rules in her own right...
Paul I
Paul I of Russia
Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...
issued a ukase which announced that Russia was taking control of the Northwest Coast north of the 51st parallel north
51st parallel north
The 51st parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 51 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean....
, which lies just north of Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...
. Britain and the United States protested and negotiations ultimately resulted in the Russo-American Treaty of 1824 and the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825
Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1825)
The Treaty of Saint Petersburg of 1825, also known as the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825, defined the boundaries between Russian America and British claims and possessions in the Pacific Northwest of North America at 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, which had the year before been established...
. These treaties established 54°40′ as the southern boundary of Russian territory, with the exception of Fort Ross which had been established in California earlier. The Anglo-Russian treaty delineated the boundary of Russian America fully. The border began on the coast at 54°40′, then ran north along the mountains near the coast until it reached 141° west longitude
141st meridian west
The meridian 141° west of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, North America, the Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole....
, after which the boundary ran north along that line of longitude to the Arctic Ocean. Aside from boundary adjustments to the Alaska Panhandle
Alaska Panhandle
Southeast Alaska, sometimes referred to as the Alaska Panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, which lies west of the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The majority of Southeast Alaska's area is part of the Tongass National Forest, the United...
, stemming from the Alaska boundary dispute
Alaska Boundary Dispute
The Alaska boundary dispute was a territorial dispute between the United States and Canada . It was resolved by arbitration in 1903. The dispute had been going on between the Russian and British Empires since 1821, and was inherited by the United States as a consequence of the Alaska Purchase in...
of the late 19th century, this is the current boundary of the state of Alaska. In 1839 the Hudson's Bay Company was granted a lease of the southeastern sector of what is now the Alaska Panhandle, as far north as 56° 30' north latitude. The only Russian attempt to enforce the ukase of 1821 was the seizure of the US brig Pearl by the Russian sloop Apollon, in 1822. The Pearl, a maritime fur trading vessel, was sailing from Boston to Sitka. On a protest from the US government, the vessel was released and compensation paid.
American methods and strategies
American traders developed the "Golden Round" trade route around the world. Ships sailed from Boston to the Pacific via Cape HornCape Horn
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
, then to the North West Coast, arriving in the spring or early summer. They would spent the summer and early autumn fur trading on the coast, mainly between Sitka and the Columbia River. In late autumn they sailed to the Hawaiian Islands, where they typically spent the winter, then from Hawaii to Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
on the Pearl River Delta
Pearl River Delta
The Pearl River Delta , Zhujiang Delta or Zhusanjiao in Guangdong province, People's Republic of China is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea...
, arriving in autumn. Trading in Canton did not begin until November, when tea shipments were ready. The Americans had to hire pilots to take their ships up the Pearl River
Pearl River (China)
The Pearl River or less commonly, the "Guangdong River" or "Canton River" etc., , is an extensive river system in southern China. The name Pearl River is usually used as a catchment term to refer to the watersheds of the Xi Jiang , the Bei Jiang , and the Dong Jiang...
to Canton's "outport" of Whampoa
Huangpu District, Guangzhou
Huangpu District is one of the ten districts in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, People's Republic of China.-History:...
. Foreign ships were not allowed in Canton itself. Trading took weeks or months, after which the ships were loaded with Chinese goods such as teas, silks, porcelains, sugar, cassia
Cinnamomum
Cinnamomum is a genus of evergreen aromatic trees and shrubs belonging to the Laurel family, Lauraceae. The species of Cinnamomum have aromatic oils in their leaves and bark. The genus contains over 300 species, distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of North America, Central America,...
, and curios
Bric-a-brac
Bric-à-brac , first used in the Victorian era, refers to collections of curios such as elaborately decorated teacups and small vases, feathers, wax flowers under glass domes, eggshells, statuettes, painted miniatures or photographs, and so on...
. They left in the winter and used the northeasterly monsoon
East Asian monsoon
The East Asian monsoon is a monsoonal flow that carries moist air from the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean to East Asia. It affects approximately one-third of the global population, influencing the climate of Japan , the Koreas, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and much of mainland China...
winds of the South China Sea
South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around...
to reach the Sunda Strait
Sunda Strait
The Sunda Strait is the strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. It connects the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean...
, then used the southeasterly trade wind
Trade wind
The trade winds are the prevailing pattern of easterly surface winds found in the tropics, within the lower portion of the Earth's atmosphere, in the lower section of the troposphere near the Earth's equator...
s to cross the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope. From there the ships sailed to Boston, where they traditionally docked at the India Wharf
India Wharf
India Wharf was one of the largest commercial wharves in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by Charles Bulfinch, it was built in 1804 to accommodate international trade...
. Frederic William Howay described this as the "golden round", writing: The Americans had a perfect golden round of profits: first, the profit on the original cargo of trading goods when exchanged for furs; second, the profit when the furs were transmuted into Chinese goods; and, third, the profit on those goods when they reached America. In the later years of the North West Trade the pattern became more complex as additional markets and side voyages were incorporated.
Sandalwood
Sandalwood is the name of a class of fragrant woods from trees in the genus Santalum. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and unlike many other aromatic woods they retain their fragrance for decades. As well as using the harvested and cut wood in-situ, essential oils are also extracted...
, mainly from Hawaii, became an important item of the China trade. Just as the sea otter trade was waning the sandalwood trade boomed, peaking in 1821, then declined. Hawaiian sandalwood was depleted by 1830. Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
and the Marquesas Islands
Marquesas Islands
The Marquesas Islands enana and Te Fenua `Enata , both meaning "The Land of Men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the southern Pacific Ocean. The Marquesas are located at 9° 00S, 139° 30W...
were the other principal sources of sandalwood. Most had been cut by 1820. Fiji was also a source of bêche-de-mer
Sea cucumber (food)
Sea cucumbers are marine animals of the class Holothuroidea used in fresh or dried form in various cuisines.The creature and the food product is commonly known as bêche-de-mer in French, trepang in Indonesian, namako in Japanese and in the Philippines it is called balatan...
, a gourmet delicacy in China. American traders began acquiring Fijian bêche-de-mer in 1804 and trepanging
Trepanging
Trepanging is the Anglicisation of the act of collection or harvesting of sea cucumbers, known in Indonesian, as "trepang".The collector or fisher of trepang is coined a trepanger....
boomed there. Bêche-de-mer became Fiji's leading export by 1830. Depletion led to a decline and the end of the trade by 1850. Trepanging was also done from 1812 in Hawaii and from 1814 in the Marquesas. Other side trades included Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an copper from Valparaíso
Valparaíso
Valparaíso is a city and commune of Chile, center of its third largest conurbation and one of the country's most important seaports and an increasing cultural center in the Southwest Pacific hemisphere. The city is the capital of the Valparaíso Province and the Valparaíso Region...
, scrimshaw
Scrimshaw
Scrimshaw is the name given to handiwork created by whalers made from the byproducts of harvesting marine mammals. It is most commonly made out of the bones and teeth of sperm whales, the baleen of other whales, and the tusks of walruses...
(whale teeth), tortoise
Tortoise
Tortoises are a family of land-dwelling reptiles of the order of turtles . Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise...
shells and meat from the Galápagos Islands
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
, sugar from Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
, and, from Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
, areca nuts (so-called betel nuts) and coffee bean
Coffee bean
A coffee bean is a seed of a coffee plant. It is the pit inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a cherry. Even though they are seeds, they are referred to as 'beans' because of their resemblance to true beans. The fruits - coffee cherries or coffee berries - most commonly contain two...
s. Sealing
Seal hunting
Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. The hunt is currently practiced in five countries: Canada, where most of the world's seal hunting takes place, Namibia, the Danish region of Greenland, Norway and Russia...
boomed in the Juan Fernández Islands
Juan Fernández Islands
The Juan Fernández Islands are a sparsely inhabited island group reliant on tourism and fishing in the South Pacific Ocean, situated about off the coast of Chile, and is composed of three main volcanic islands; Robinson Crusoe Island, Alejandro Selkirk Island and Santa Clara Island, the first...
and the Juan Fernández Fur Seal
Juan Fernandez Fur Seal
The Juan Fernández Fur Seal is a fur seal that breeds on the Juan Fernández Islands off the coast of Chile. It is the second smallest of the otariid seal . Discovered by navigator Juan Fernández in the sixteenth century, the seals became a target for sealers in the Maritime Fur Trade era...
was rapidly exploited to near-extinction. The Northern Fur Seal
Northern Fur Seal
The Northern fur seal is an eared seal found along the north Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk. It is the largest member of the fur seal subfamily and the only species in the genus Callorhinus.-Physical description:Northern fur seals have extreme sexual dimorphism, with males...
rookeries
Rookery
A rookery is a colony of breeding animals, generally birds. A rook is a Northern European and Central Asian member of the crow family, which nest in prominent colonies at the tops of trees. The term is applied to the nesting place of birds, such as crows and rooks, the source of the term...
were controlled by Russia, so Americans acquired northern fur seal skins through trade rather than sealing.
Another side trade was smuggling along the Pacific coast of the Spanish Empire
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
, where foreign trade was prohibited by Spanish law. This trade peaked in the 1810s, then faded in the 1820s. Traders concentrated on Alta California
Alta California
Alta California was a province and territory in the Viceroyalty of New Spain and later a territory and department in independent Mexico. The territory was created in 1769 out of the northern part of the former province of Las Californias, and consisted of the modern American states of California,...
, which produced a surplus of grain, beef, tallow
Tallow
Tallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton fat, processed from suet. It is solid at room temperature. Unlike suet, tallow can be stored for extended periods without the need for refrigeration to prevent decomposition, provided it is kept in an airtight container to prevent oxidation.In industry,...
, and hides
Hides
A hide is an animal skin treated for human use. Hides include leather from cattle and other livestock animals, alligator skins, snake skins for shoes and fashion accessories and furs from wild cats, mink and bears. In some areas, leather is produced on a domestic or small industrial scale, but most...
, but was chronically short of manufactured goods. American ships brought goods to the missions of Alta California
Spanish missions in California
The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of religious and military outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to...
in exchange for grain, beef, and Californian sea otter skins. The grain, beef, and other provisions were taken to Sitka, which was perennially short of foods supplies. After Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
gained independence in 1821 the American trade with Alta California continued in a slightly modified form. American traders brought mostly clothing, cottons, silks, lace, cutlery, alcohol, and sugar, which were traded for hides and tallow at a profit generally between 200% and 300%. The California Hide Trade became a major industry in its own right. By the 1830s, however, the missions of Alta California had been secularized by Mexican authorities and deserted by Indian labourers. The trade dwindled into unprofitability. The decline of the American trade with Alta California left just one significant alternative to the ever-dwindling sea otter trade—the provisioning of the settlements of Russian America, which lasted until the Americans abandoned the North West Coast altogether in the early 1840s. From the first decade of the 19th century until 1841 American ships visited Sitka regularly, trading provisions, textiles, and liquor for fur seal skins, timber, and fish. This trade was usually highly profitable for the Americans and the Russian settlements depended on it. Thus when Tsar Nicholas I
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
issued the ukase of 1821, banning foreign trade north of the 51st parallel
51st parallel north
The 51st parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 51 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean....
, the Russian colonies in America were forced to ignore the ban and engage in smuggling.
On the Northwest Coast itself the fur trade was supplemented with slave trading. The pre-existing indigenous slave trade was enlarged and expanded upon by fur traders, especially the American traders. While working the coast for furs, traders would purchase slaves around the mouth of the Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
and in the Strait of Juan de Fuca
Strait of Juan de Fuca
The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a large body of water about long that is the Salish Sea outlet to the Pacific Ocean...
, then sell or trade them on the northern coast. Few traders admitted to slaving, although some wrote about it in detail. Further information comes from sources such as reports by HBC officers. Aemelius Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
wrote in 1828 that American traders on coast trafficked in slaves, "purchasing them at a cheap rate from one tribe and disposing of them to others at a very high profit." He concluded that the American traders made more money from selling slaves, rum, and gunpowder than they did from fur trading.
Decline
Large scale economic issues played a role in the decline of the maritime fur trade and the China trade in general. Before the 19th century, there was little Chinese demand for Western raw materials or manufactured goods, but bullion (also known as specie) was accepted, resulting in a general drain of precious metals from the WestWestern world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
to China. The situation reversed in the early 19th century for a variety of reasons. Western demand for Chinese goods declined relative to new options (for example, coffee from the West Indies began to replace tea in the United States), while Chinese demand for Western items increased, such as for English manufactures, American cotton goods, and opium which was outlawed but smuggled into China on a large and increasing scale. Before long, China was being drained of specie and saturated with Western goods. At the same time, there was intense speculation in the China trade by American and British merchant companies. By the 1820s, too many firms were competing for an overstocked market, resulting in bankruptcies and consolidation. The inevitable commercial crisis struck in 1826–27, after the Panic of 1825
Panic of 1825
The Panic of 1825 was a stock market crash that started in the Bank of England arising in part out of speculative investments in Latin America, including the imaginary country of Poyais...
. Tea prices plummeted and the China trade's volume collapsed by about a third. By this time, the old maritime fur trade on the Northwest Coast and the Old China Trade
Old China Trade
The Old China Trade was the name given to the early commerce between the Qing Empire and the United States under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghsia in 1844...
itself were dying. The final blow came with the depression of 1841–43, following the Panic of 1837
Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis or market correction in the United States built on a speculative fever. The end of the Second Bank of the United States had produced a period of runaway inflation, but on May 10, 1837 in New York City, every bank began to accept payment only in specie ,...
.
Over time the maritime fur traders concentrated on different parts of the North West Coast. In the 1790s, the west coast of Vancouver Island, especially Nootka Sound, was frequently visited. By the 1810s, the locus had shifted to the Queen Charlotte Islands and Alexander Archipelago
Alexander Archipelago
The Alexander Archipelago is a long archipelago, or group of islands, of North America off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, which are the tops of the submerged coastal mountains that rise steeply from the Pacific Ocean. Deep channels and fjords separate the...
, and in the 1820s, farther north to areas near Sitka Sound
Sitka Sound
Sitka Sound is a body of water near the city of Sitka, Alaska. It is bordered by Baranof Island to the south and the northeast, by Kruzof Island to the northwest and by the Pacific Ocean to the southwest...
. After about 1830, it shifted south to the area from Dixon Entrance
Dixon Entrance
The Dixon Entrance is a strait about long and wide in the Pacific Ocean at the International Boundary between the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia in Canada. It was named by Joseph Banks for Captain George Dixon, a Royal Navy officer, fur trader, and explorer, who...
to Queen Charlotte Sound. During the early years, ships tended to cruise the coast, seeking trading opportunities whenever they arose. Later, ships spent more time in specific harbors. As fur resources dwindled and prices rose, ship captains increasingly concentrated on a few key ports of call and stayed longer. Eventually it was not possible to acquire enough furs for the China trade in a single year. Some traders wintered in Hawaii, returning to the coast in the spring, but many wintered on the North West Coast, usually in one of the key trading harbors. These harbors included "Clemencitty" on Tongass Island
Tongass Island
Tongass Island, historically also spelled Tongas Island, is an island in the southern Alaska Panhandle, near the marine boundary with Canada at 54-40 N...
, today called Port Tongass; the several "Kaigani" harbors on south Dall Island
Dall Island
Dall Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago off the southeast coast of Alaska, just west of Prince of Wales Island and north of Canadian waters. Its peak elevation is 2,443 feet above sea level. Its land area is 254.02 square miles , making it the 28th largest island in the United States...
north of Cape Muzon
Cape Muzon
Cape Muzon is a cape located in the Alexander Archipelago of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the southernmost point of Dall Island and the headland marking the northwestern extremity of the Dixon Entrance...
; "Newhitty" on northern Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...
; and "Tongass" in Clarence Strait
Clarence Strait
Clarence Strait, originally Duke of Clarence Strait, is a strait in southeastern Alaska, in the United States in the Alexander Archipelago. The strait separates Prince of Wales Island, on the west side, from Revillagigedo Island and Annette Island, on the east side...
, today called Tamgas Harbor, which was said to be the most popular wintering place for American ships in the 1830s. Many significant trading sites were on the Queen Charlotte Islands, including Cloak Bay, Masset
Masset, British Columbia
Masset , formerly Massett, is a village in Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Canada. It is located on the northern coast of Graham Island, the largest island in the archipelago, and is approximately west of mainland British Columbia. It is the western terminus of the Yellowhead Highway...
, Skidegate, Cumshewa
Cumshewa, British Columbia
Cumshewa is a former village and of the Haida people located on the north flank of Cumshewa Inlet in the Queen Charlotte Islands of the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada...
, Skedans
Skedans
Skedans, also known variously as Koona, Q'una, Koona LLnaagay, K'uuna Llnagaay, Q!o'na Inaga'-I, and Q:o'na, which are variants of its traditional name in the Haida language, is a village located at the head of Cumshewa Inlet in the Queen Charlotte Islands of the North Coast of British Columbia,...
, and Houston Stewart Channel
Houston Stewart Channel
Houston Stewart Channel is a strait in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, Canada. It separates Moresby Island and Kunghit Island....
, known as "Coyah's Harbor", after Chief Koyah
Koyah
Koyah, also Coya, Coyour, Kower, Kouyer Koyah, also Coya, Coyour, Kower, Kouyer Koyah, also Coya, Coyour, Kower, Kouyer (phonetically /xo’ya/, meaning "raven" (b.?-d. c.1795), was the chief of Ninstints or Skungwai, the main village of the Kunghit-Haida during the era of the Maritime Fur Trade in...
.
As marine furs became depleted in the early 19th century, American ship captains began to accept increasing numbers of land furs 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...
, which were brought from the interior to the coast via indigenous trade networks from New Caledonia—today the Omineca
Omineca Country
The Omineca Country, also called the Omineca District or the Omineca, is a historical geographic region of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, roughly defined by the basin of the Omineca River but including areas to the south which allowed access to the region during the Omineca Gold Rush of...
and Nechako
Nechako Country
The Nechako Country, also referred to as the Nechako District or simply "the Nechako" is one of the historical geographic regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia, located southwest of the city of Prince George and south of Hwy 16 on the inland side of the Hazelton Mountains The...
districts of the Central Interior of British Columbia
British Columbia Interior
The British Columbia Interior or BC Interior or Interior of British Columbia, usually referred to only as the Interior, is one of the three main regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia, the other two being the Lower Mainland, which comprises the overlapping areas of Greater Vancouver...
. During the 1820s, the British Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
(HBC), which considered the interior fur trade to be its domain, began to experience significant losses as a result of this diversion of furs to the coast. To protect its interests, the HBC entered the coast trade in order to drive away the American traders. This goal was achieved during the 1830s. By 1841, the American traders had abandoned the North West Coast. For a time, the North West Coast trade was controlled by the HBC and the RAC. Following the 1846 resolution of the Oregon Territory controversy between the United States and England, and the American purchase of Alaska in 1867, American hunters returned to hunting sea otters in the region, both from land and sea. Hunting throughout the Aleutian and Kuril Islands by American commercial outfits also contributed to the near-extinction of the species by the late 1800s.
Hudson's Bay Company
From 1779 to 1821 two British fur trading companies, the Montreal-based North West Company (NWC) and the London-based Hudson's Bay Company, competed for control of the fur trade of what later became Western Canada. The struggle, which eventually reached the point of armed battles such as the 1816 Battle of Seven OaksBattle of Seven Oaks (1816)
The Battle of Seven Oaks took place on June 19, 1816, during the long dispute between the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, rival fur-trading companies in western Canada.-Background:Miles Macdonell had issued the Pemmican Proclamation...
, was mostly over control of Rupert's Land, east of the Continental Divide. Around the turn of the 19th century the NWC expanded its operations westward, across the Rocky Mountains into the mostly unexplored Pacific Northwest. By the 1810s the NWC had established new fur trading operations west of the Rockies, in New Caledonia
New Caledonia (Canada)
New Caledonia was the name given to a district of the Hudson's Bay Company that comprised the territory largely coterminous with the present-day province of British Columbia, Canada. Though not a British colony, New Caledonia was part of the British claim to North America. Its administrative...
and the Columbia District
Columbia District
The Columbia District was a fur trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of British North America in the 19th century. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811, and established as an operating fur district around 1810...
. Starting in 1811 the American Pacific Fur Company (PFC) challenged the NWC in the Pacific Northwest, but during the War of 1812 the PFC, at risk of being captured by the British Navy, sold its entire operation to the NWC. The PFC had build Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River. Under the NWC it was renamed Fort George, and became the Columbia District's Pacific seaport. The NWC sought to establish a profitable beaver fur trade with China. Due to the East India Company's (EIC) control over British trading in Canton the NWC turned to American shipping companies. Starting in 1792 the NWC had beaver furs shipped to China by American firms. After the acquisition of Fort George (Astoria) in 1815 the NWC began to supply the Columbia District by sea through the Boston-based firm of Perkins and Company. After arriving at Fort George the American ship took a cargo of NWC beaver furs to Canton, exchanged them for China goods and conveyed them to Boston for sale. Even though Perkins and Company took 25% of the proceeds the arrangement was still about 50% more profitable than using British ships and selling furs in Canton through the EIC for bills payable
Promissory note
A promissory note is a negotiable instrument, wherein one party makes an unconditional promise in writing to pay a determinate sum of money to the other , either at a fixed or determinable future time or on demand of the payee, under specific terms.Referred to as a note payable in accounting, or...
on London and returning from China with no cargo.
In 1821, after tensions between the NWC and HBC had erupted into violence the NWC was forced to merge into the HBC. As a result the HBC acquired the Columbia District and its trade with China. At first the system of shipping furs via the American Perkins and Company was continued, but in 1822 the United States Customs Service
United States Customs Service
Until March 2003, the United States Customs Service was an agency of the U.S. federal government that collected import tariffs and performed other selected border security duties.Before it was rolled into form part of the U.S...
imposed a heavy ad valorem
Ad valorem tax
An ad valorem tax is a tax based on the value of real estate or personal property. It is more common than a specific duty, a tax based on the quantity of an item, such as cents per kilogram, regardless of price....
duty on the proceeds. The HBC stopped using American middlemen and instead tried selling furs through the EIC. In 1824 and 1825 the HBC sold 20,000 beaver and 7,000 land-otter skins in China through the EIC, but the arrangement did not prove advantageous for either firm.
In the wake of the NWC's forced merger into the HBC, George Simpson
George Simpson (administrator)
Sir George Simpson was a Scots-Quebecer and employee of the Hudson's Bay Company . His title was Governor-in-Chief of Rupert's Land and administrator over the Northwest Territories and Columbia Department in British North America from 1821 to 1860.-Early years:George Simpson was born in Dingwall,...
reorganized operations in New Caledonia and the Columbia Department
Columbia District
The Columbia District was a fur trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of British North America in the 19th century. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811, and established as an operating fur district around 1810...
. His efforts and keen fiscal sense, combined with a resurgence of American traders on the coast after the Russo-American Treaty of 1824, resulted in the HBC's decision to enter the coast maritime fur trade and drive out the Americans. By the early 1820s American traders were taking 3,000 to 5,000 beaver skins, mostly from New Caledonia, to Canton every year. By the early 1830s the number had reached 10,000 annually, which was as many as the HBC itself was acquiring from New Caledonia and half of the total output of the entire Columbia Department. In addition, the Americans were paying higher prices for the furs, which forced the HBC to do the same. The HBC effort to gain control of the coastal fur trade began in the late 1820s. It took some time for the HBC to acquire the necessary ships, skilled seamen, trade goods, and intelligence about the coast trade. Simpson decided that the "London ships", which brought goods to Fort Vancouver
Fort Vancouver
Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading outpost along the Columbia River that served as the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in the company's Columbia District...
and returned to England with furs, should arrive early enough to make a coasting voyage before departing. The first London ship to do this was the schooner Cadboro
Cadboro (schooner)
The Cadboro was a schooner in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company in its operations on the Pacific Northwest Coast in the early 19th century. The 71 ton vessel carried 4 guns and had a crew of 12 men...
, in 1827. However, its voyage did not get beyond the Strait of Georgia
Strait of Georgia
The Strait of Georgia or the Georgia Strait is a strait between Vancouver Island and the mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada. It is approximately long and varies in width from...
and only 2 sea otter and 28 land otter and beaver skins were acquired. In 1828 the HBC decided to deploy three ships for the coast trade, but setbacks caused delays. The William and Ann was lost in 1829, and the Isabella in 1830, both at the Columbia Bar
Columbia Bar
The Columbia Bar is a system of bars and shoals at the mouth of the Columbia River spanning the US states of Oregon and Washington. The bar is about wide and long....
. The HBC's shipping was inadequate for the coast trade until the middle 1830s. In 1835 two ships were added to the HBC's coast fleet. One of them, the Beaver
Beaver (steamship)
Beaver was the first steamship to operate in the Pacific Northwest of North America. She made remote parts of the west coast of Canada accessible for maritime fur trading and was chartered by the Royal Navy for surveying the coastline of British Columbia....
, was a steamship, and it proved extremely useful in the variable winds, strong currents, and long narrow inlets.
To strengthen its coast trade the Hudson's Bay Company built a series of fortified trading posts, the first of which was Fort Langley
Fort Langley National Historic Site
Fort Langley is a former trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company, now located in the village of Fort Langley, British Columbia. Commonly referred to as "the birthplace of British Columbia", it is designated a National Historic Site of Canada and administered by Parks Canada.-A new fort:After John...
, established in 1827 on the Fraser River
Fraser River
The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia at the city of Vancouver. It is the tenth longest river in Canada...
about 50 km (31.1 mi) from the river's mouth. The next was Fort Simpson
Fort Simpson (Columbia Department)
Fort Simpson was a fur trading post established in 1831 by the Hudson's Bay Company near the mouth of the Nass River in present-day British Columbia, Canada. In 1834 it was moved to the Tsimpsean Peninsula, about halfway between the Nass River and the Skeena River...
, founded in 1831 at the mouth of the Nass River
Nass River
The Nass River is a river in northern British Columbia, Canada. It flows from the Coast Mountains southwest to Nass Bay, a sidewater of Portland Inlet, which connects to the North Pacific Ocean via the Dixon Entrance...
, and moved in 1834 several miles to the present Port Simpson. In 1833 Fort McLoughlin
Fort McLoughlin
Fort McLoughlin was a fur trading post established in 1833 by the Hudson's Bay Company on Campbell Island in present-day British Columbia, Canada. The site is believed to have been at McLoughlin Bay on the northeast side of Campbell Island and is associated with the relocation of the Heiltsuk...
was established on an island in Milbanke Sound
Milbanke Sound
Milbanke Sound is a sound on the coast of the Canadian province of British Columbia, extending east from Queen Charlotte Sound, with Price Island on the west, Swindle Island on the north, and the Bardswell Group of islands on the south. Milbanke Sound is one of the open sea portions of the Inside...
and Fort Nisqually
Fort Nisqually
Fort Nisqually was an important fur trading and farming post of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Puget Sound area of what is now DuPont, Washington and was part of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department. Today it is a living history museum located in Tacoma, Washington, USA, within the...
was built at the southern end of Puget Sound
Puget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...
. An overland trail linked Fort Nisqually and Fort Vancouver, so HBC vessels trading along the northern coast could unload furs and take on trade goods without having to navigate the Columbia River and its hazardous bar. Later coastal posts included Fort Stikine
Fort Stikine
Fort Stikine was a fur trade post and fortification in what is now the Alaska Panhandle, at the site of the present-day of Wrangell, Alaska, United States...
(1940), Fort Durham
Fort Durham
Fort Durham, also known as Fort Taku, Taku, Taco, and Tacouw and in legal terms as AHRS Site JUN 036 is an archaeological site near Taku Harbor, Alaska, within the limits of Juneau City and Borough...
(1840), and Fort Victoria
Fort Victoria (British Columbia)
Fort Victoria was a fur trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the headquarters of HBC operations in British Columbia. The fort was the beginnings of a settlement that eventually grew into the modern Victoria, British Columbia, the capital city of British Columbia.The headquarters of HBC...
(1843).
American disadvantage
It was not easy for the HBC to drive the Americans away from the North West Coast. The Americans had decades of experience and knew the coast's complex physical and human geography. It took until 1835 for the HBC to gain this level of experience, but the Americans still had several advantages. For a number of reasons they were willing and able to pay high prices for furs—much higher than the HBC could match without taking large financial losses. The American ventures were global in scope. They tapped multiple markets of which the North West Coast was but one. By the 1820s American ships routinely spent years in the Pacific, making several voyages between various places such as California, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Canton. American ships were usually stocked with a surplus of trade goods intended for trade on the North West Coast. It was always best to get rid of any extra trade goods on the North West Coast, "dumping" them at any price, before leaving. They would use up stowage space that could be used more profitably elsewhere. The HBC therefore faced a major challenge even after they became experienced with the coast's geography and indigenous peoples. The American system not only raised the price of furs but also lowered the value of trade goods. Furthermore, the indigenous people knew that increased competition served their interests and gave them bargaining power. They had no desire to see the Americans abandon the coast trade. Therefore, the HBC had to not just match but exceed the prices paid by Americans if they hoped to drive the Americans away. Beaver fur prices on the coast could be many times what the HBC was paying in the interior. There was no hope of making a profit. In order to compete on the coast the HBC had to take large, long-term financial losses.The main advantage the HBC had over the Americans was that it could take such losses. As a vast corporation with a large amount of capital, the company was able to undersell the Americans, taking a loss, for years on end. By the middle to late 1830s the HBC policy on the coast was to pay whatever price necessary to ensure that furs fell into their hands and not the Americans. American traders soon found the coast fur trade unprofitable—the HBC had captured the trade. But Americans still traded with the Russians at Sitka and, once on the coast were wont to seek a few furs. As long as this continued, the HBC continued to have to pay high prices for furs and take losses. Eventually the Sitka trade became financially risky. The American-Russian agreement of 1824, which allowed Americans to trade in the Alaska Panhandle, expired in 1834 and was not renewed. In 1839, the HBC made an agreement with the Russian American Company (RAC), under which the HBC would supply the RAC with provisions and manufactures in exchange for a ten-year lease of the Alaska Panhandle
Alaska Panhandle
Southeast Alaska, sometimes referred to as the Alaska Panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, which lies west of the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The majority of Southeast Alaska's area is part of the Tongass National Forest, the United...
. This proved to be the final blow for the American traders, who were finally driven out of the North West Coast maritime fur trade altogether.
The HBC drastically reduced the price paid for furs, by 50% in many cases. By this time, however, the fur trade was in decline, both on the coast and the continent, due to a general depletion of fur-bearing animals, along with a reduction in the demand for beaver pelts. A financial panic in 1837 resulted in a general slump in the fur and China trade, bringing an end to a half-century boom. During the 1840s, the HBC closed most of their coastal trading posts, leaving the coast trade to just Fort Simpson and the Beaver, with the new depot at Fort Victoria anchoring the southern coast.
Significance
The half century or so of the maritime fur trade and the North West Coast trade enriched Boston shipowners, creating capital that helped New England's transformation from an agrarian to an industrial society. The trade stimulated the culture of North West Coast natives, made Hawaii famous and nearly overwhelmed the native Hawaiians with foreign influences. It played a role in increased commercial pressure on China at Canton. Fur bearing animals were devastated, especially sea otters. By 1850, sea otters were virtually extinct throughout the North West Coast and found only in the Aleutian Islands and California.North West Coast
Potlatch
A potlatch is a gift-giving festival and primary economic system practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and United States. This includes Heiltsuk Nation, Haida, Nuxalk, Tlingit, Makah, Tsimshian, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Coast Salish cultures...
ing and coastal descent systems. At first the trade caused a rise in the power of a few key chiefs such as Maquinna, Wickaninish, Tatoosh, Concomly (Madsaw), Kotlean (Sitka Tlingit), Kow (Kaigani Haidas), Cunneah (Coyac; Kuista Haida), and Cumshewa (Haida). This was followed by a proliferation of chiefs and a general debasement of chieftainship, in part due to widespread wealth, giving individual hunters the means to challenge the traditional chiefs. There was an increase in the frequency of potlatching, which was used by the nouveau riche in challenging the traditional chiefs. In response the hereditary clan chiefs defended their traditional powers through an increased use of noble ancestry names, totems, and crests, all validated by potlatches.
Negative effects of the coast trade on the North West natives included waves of epidemic disease, smallpox worst of all. Other health problems included the spread of alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, venereal diseases including syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
, and sterility. The coast trade also promoted and enhanced the pre-existing system of native slavery and native slave trading. The overall number of slaves increased, as did their distribution and exploitation. Despite these negative effects, the North West Coast natives were largely spared the additional effects that would have come had there been more permanent posts, political administration, missionizing, and colonization. The early traders were mostly seasonal visitors and the later HBC posts were few and small. Missionization and direct colonial rule over the coastal natives did not begin in earnest until the late 19th century. During the early 19th century, native culture not only survived but flourished.
The maritime trade also brought changes to the natives' traditional seasonal migration patterns and settlement locations. The coastal people were "cosmopolitanized", that is, they were incorporated into a global market economy. At first their main export was furs, later supplemented and replaced by salmon, lumber, and artwork. By the late 19th century the North West Coast was famous for its arts and crafts, especially large works like totem poles, causing a flourishing of indigenous art. The natives imported many western goods and soon became dependent on many, such as firearms and metal tools. Textiles became a vital trade item during the early maritime fur trade era. The value of furs caused a shift in native dress from furs to textiles, which was reinforced by the general depletion of fur animals. Firearms had both positive and negative effects. They made hunting much more efficient but also made warfare much more deadly.
Russian America
The Russians, unlike the British and Americans, endeavoured to convert the natives to Christianity. Many Aleuts joined the Russian Orthodox ChurchRussian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
. Russian missionaries
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
founded a number of churches for the natives, such as the Church of the Holy Ascension
Church of the Holy Ascension
The Church of the Holy Ascension was built in 1826 by the Russian American Fur Company. It played a significant role in evangelizing the indigenous people in then-Russian Alaska. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970.It was restored in 1998...
in Unalaska. A notable Russian missionary was Saint Innocent of Alaska
Innocent of Alaska
Saint Innocent of Alaska , also known as Saint Innocent of Moscow was a Russian Orthodox priest, bishop, archbishop and Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia. He is known for his missionary work, scholarship and leadership in Alaska and the Russian Far East during the 19th century...
. For his work as a missionary, bishop, and later archbishop in Alaska and the Russian Far East he was canonized
Canonization
Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
. One of the earliest Christian martyrs in North America was Saint Peter the Aleut
Peter the Aleut
Cungagnaq is venerated as a martyr and saint by some jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was allegedly a native of Kodiak Island , and is said to have received the Christian name of Peter when he was baptized into the Orthodox faith by the monks of St...
. Other important Russian missionaries include Herman of Alaska
Herman of Alaska
Saint Herman of Alaska was one of the first Eastern Orthodox missionaries to the New World, and is considered by Orthodox Christians to be the patron saint of the Americas.-Biography:Saint Herman was born in the town of Serpukhov in the Moscow Diocese around 1756...
and Joasaph Bolotov.
Hawaii
The effect of the maritime fur trade on native Hawaiians was similar to that of the North West Coast natives, but more powerfully transformative. The Hawaiians were generally receptive to Western incursion and settlement. The rise of King Kamehameha I and the unification of the islands under his rule were made possible in part by the effects of the maritime fur trade and its larger Pacific scope. The influx of wealth and technology helped make the new Kingdom of HawaiiKingdom of Hawaii
The Kingdom of Hawaii was established during the years 1795 to 1810 with the subjugation of the smaller independent chiefdoms of Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lānai, Kauai and Niihau by the chiefdom of Hawaii into one unified government...
relatively strong, in political and economic terms. Many non-native foodstuffs were introduced to the Hawaiian Islands during the early trading era, including plants such as beans, cabbage, onions, squash, pumpkins, melons, and oranges, as well as cash crops like tobacco, cotton, and sugar. Animals introduced included cattle, horses, sheep, and goats. Due to its high fertility Oahu
Oahu
Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...
became the most important of the islands. By the 1820s the population of Honolulu was over 10,000. The native Hawaiian population suffered waves of epidemic disease, including cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
. The availability of alcohol, especially grog
Grog
The word grog refers to a variety of alcoholic beverages. The word originally referred to a drink made with water or "small beer" and rum, which British Vice Admiral Edward Vernon introduced into the Royal Navy on 21 August 1740. Vernon wore a coat of grogram cloth and was nicknamed Old Grogram or...
and gin
Gin
Gin is a spirit which derives its predominant flavour from juniper berries . Although several different styles of gin have existed since its origins, it is broadly differentiated into two basic legal categories...
, led to widespread boozing and an increased use of traditional kava
Kava
Kava or kava-kava is a crop of the western Pacific....
intoxication. These health issues, plus warfare related to the unification of the islands, droughts, and sandalwooding taking precedence over farming all contributed to an increase in famines and a general population decline. By 1850 the native population had dropped by perhaps 50%.
South China
The effect of the maritime fur trade in Southern China by itself was probably not great. The Canton trade as a whole had limited effect on China, mostly limited to the tea growers of FujianFujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
, the silk producers of Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
, the craftsmen of Canton, and various middlemen, and merchants. The ruling Manchu
Manchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
s kept foreign trade by ship at bay. It was restricted to Canton, and even there was allowed only outside the city walls. China was generally self-sufficient. The main effect of the Old China Trade
Old China Trade
The Old China Trade was the name given to the early commerce between the Qing Empire and the United States under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghsia in 1844...
was an increased import of opium and related outflow of specie, which resulted in China being incorporated into the capitalist world system after 1830. However, the maritime fur trade played a minor role in this process.
New England
The maritime fur trade was, for the United States, a branch of the "East India" (Asian) trade based in SalemSalem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Providence
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Philadelphia, and Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. The trade focused on Asian ports such as Canton, Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
(Calcutta), Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
(Madras), Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
, Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
(Batavia), and the islands of Mauritius
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
and Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
. Goods exported included furs, rum, ammunition, ginseng
Ginseng
Ginseng is any one of eleven species of slow-growing perennial plants with fleshy roots, belonging to the genus Panax of the family Araliaceae....
, lumber, ice, salt, Spanish silver dollars
Spanish dollar
The Spanish dollar is a silver coin, of approximately 38 mm diameter, worth eight reales, that was minted in the Spanish Empire after a Spanish currency reform in 1497. Its purpose was to correspond to the German thaler...
, iron, tobacco, opium, and tar. Goods brought back from Asia included muslin
Muslin
Muslin |sewing patterns]], such as for clothing, curtains, or upholstery. Because air moves easily through muslin, muslin clothing is suitable for hot, dry climates.- Etymology and history :...
s, silks, nankeen
Nankeen
Nankeen, also called Nankeen cloth, is a kind of pale yellowish cloth, originally made at Nanjing from a yellow variety of cotton, but subsequently manufactured from ordinary cotton which is then dyed...
s, spices, cassia
Cinnamomum
Cinnamomum is a genus of evergreen aromatic trees and shrubs belonging to the Laurel family, Lauraceae. The species of Cinnamomum have aromatic oils in their leaves and bark. The genus contains over 300 species, distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of North America, Central America,...
, chinaware (porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
), tea, sugar, and drugs. The maritime fur trade was just one part of the overall system. As a whole the Asian trade had a significant effect on the early United States, especially New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
. The accumulation of large amounts of capital in short time contributed to American industrial and manufacturing development, which was compounded by rapid population growth and technological advancements. In New England the textile industry
Textile industry
The textile industry is primarily concerned with the production of yarn, and cloth and the subsequent design or manufacture of clothing and their distribution. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry....
rose to dominance in early to middle 19th century. In light of the decline of the fur trade and a post-Napoleonic depression
Post-Napoleonic depression
The post-Napoleonic depression refers to a post-war economic depression experienced by European countries following the end of the Napoleonic wars....
in commerce, capital shifted "from wharf to waterfall", that is, from shipping ventures to textile mills (which were originally located where waterpower was available). The textile industry in turn had large effect on slavery in the United States, increasing the demand for cotton and helping make possible the rapid expansion of the cotton plantation system across the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
.
See also
- California Fur RushCalifornia Fur RushBefore the 1849 California Gold Rush, American, English and Russian fur hunters were drawn to Spanish California in a California Fur Rush, to exploit its enormous fur resources...
- History of the west coast of North AmericaHistory of the west coast of North AmericaThe human history of the west coast of North America is believed to stretch back to the arrival of the earliest people over the Bering Strait, or alternately along a now-submerged coastal plain, through the development of significant pre-Columbian cultures and population densities, to the arrival...
- Maritime history of CaliforniaMaritime history of CaliforniaMaritime history of California is a term used to describe significant ships and uses of the Pacific Ocean near the California coast. This Maritime history includes the historical use of water craft such as: dugouts, canoes, sailing ships, steamships, fisheries, shipbuilding, Gold Rush shipping,...
- North American fur tradeNorth American Fur TradeThe North American fur trade was the industry and activities related to the acquisition, exchange, and sale of animal furs in the North American continent. Indigenous peoples of different regions traded among themselves in the Pre-Columbian Era, but Europeans participated in the trade beginning...
- Thirteen FactoriesThirteen FactoriesThe Thirteen Factories was an area of Canton , China, where the first foreign trade was allowed in the 18th century since the hai jin ban on maritime activities...
Further reading
- Dick A. Wilson, King George's Men: British Ships and Sailors in the Pacific Northwest-China Trade, 1785–1821, Ann Arbor, Mich., University Microfilms International,2004.
External links
- Contact and conflict: Indian-European relations in British Columbia, 1774–1890, by Robin Fisher; UBC Press, 1992
- Fishing for Ivory Worms: A Review of Ethnographic and Historically Recorded Dentalium Source Locations, by Andrew John Barton
- Russian Routes, Common-place