This essay is part of a new Westborough History Connections series called, “A Meeting of Two Cultures: Native Americans and Early European Settlers in Westborough.” Click here to start at the beginning of the series.
Trade and the Global Economy, Part II: New Economic Relations and the Case of the Beaver
As the arrival of Europeans in North America began to increase at the beginning of the seventeenth century, so did the number of European-made goods. The appearance of these objects created a new system of intercultural commerce that changed everyday life for Native Americans, which had already been profoundly altered from the devasting effects of disease.
In the early years of this cross-cultural trade, Native Americans adapted many of the European goods that they acquired to fit their own lifestyles, mainly by treating these goods as raw materials. Copper kettles were likely to be cut up into smaller pieces to make jewelry, tools, or weapons. Axe heads and knives were used to make needles, awls, and other sharp tools. (Native Americans had already developed an efficient system of using fire to down trees, so axes, which required a great deal of physical labor to use, were of limited value to them for this purpose.)
Trade is meant to benefit both parties engaged in it, and that was the case for Native Americans here. Flint and steel made lighting fires much easier, and metal ladles and kettles opened up new cooking possibilities. European goods also made life aesthetically richer for Native Americans. The influx of glass, needles, thread, and cloth led to creations of elaborate beadwork, and anything carved from wood, antler, or stone could now become much more complex with iron knives and similar tools. As woolen and linen textiles entered into circulation, Indian dress became showier and more stylish. Despite stories of incompetence by Native Americans when it came to trade—we already noted in an early newsletter the oft-told story of how they “sold” Manhattan to the Dutch for a few baubles—they were actually shrewd negotiators, and their tastes and lifestyles often ended up driving the design of European goods that were created for them.
As with most new technologies, the influx of new European goods also resulted in unintended consequences. Traditional death practices were altered by becoming more elaborate as the dead became interred with more beautiful creations made possible by European tools. Muskets, gun flints, ammunition, and other weapons altered balances of power among Native American tribes—and also created a dependency on these weapons to maintain a tribe’s power. In this way, an influx of prestige goods from Europe upended Native American society and politics, where status was no longer measured symbolically with a handful of objects, such as wampum, but by possession of desirable European goods. Over time, Native American life became dependent on economic and trade ties with Europe as imported tools and weapons became critical to them for agriculture, hunting, and building construction. This dependence also eroded what had been considered traditional craft skills, such as the making of flint arrowheads, stone tools, and ceramic pots. From now on, all of these objects had to be purchased.
Of course, trade requires that one party gives back to the other something that is considered to be of equal value. Early on, fur became one of the most valuable commodities that Native Americans could provide to Europeans. Ultimately, the fur trade led to steep declines in New England’s furbearing mammals, which severely altered the ecosystem on which Native Americans depended and consequently led them to abandon many of the ecological practices that had guided their existence for thousands of years. No animal suffered as much in this regard as the beaver.
Beavers entered the global marketplace of spices, silk, and cotton as broad-brimmed felt hats made from their pelts became fashionable signifiers for wealthy, upper-class merchants in Europe. Who better to satisfy such a high demand for beaver skin than Native Americans, who knew intimate, working details about much of the environment around them? Beavers were particularly vulnerable to the concentrated hunting that now targeted them, mainly because they had low reproductive rates and their sedentary habits made it easy to find and trap them. The means by which Native Americans captured beavers could be brutal. I am not going to recount any of their methods here for both space and decency, but if you are curious, you can find a description of their hunting practices by a French Jesuit in 1634 here.
European demand for beaver pelts led to overhunting, so beavers were eliminated from large areas of New England as early as the 1640s. Given the profound role that beavers play in shaping the ecosystem around them by building dams, their removal as a species led to widespread transformations in the environment. The formation of ponds by beavers slows water flow and keeps organic material from washing away. These waters create feeding grounds for fish and waterfowl, and the organic material kept in the ecosystem increases vegetation that provides forage for larger forest animals. But as the beaver dens emptied and their dams collapsed, the exposed, rich soils became thriving meadows, which created an entirely new ecosystem. Unfortunately, these changes all cut into the number of food resources that crucially fed Native people.
As the land became altered and increasingly uninhabitable by Native Americans, the Bay Colony found that more permanent wealth beyond the fur trade could be had by acquiring land. As beaver traps were now set further and further afield, the land where the beavers used to live was no longer economically viable for Native Americans and so they were more willing to sell it to the English to help pay debts for the European goods they now relied upon.
The case of the beaver illustrates how intertwined economics and the North American ecosystem were and how this intertwining had profound ramifications for Native American and European relations in New England. Colonists who first entered North America saw an abundance of resources and assumed that this cornucopia could supply unlimited wealth by continually harvesting from it and sending the bounty back to Europe as commodities. They did not realize that this economic and ecological practice was self-destructive, that there is a limit to how much the land can be exploited in this way. Once this limit was reached, it forced both the ecosystem and the economy into new relationships. As William Cronon notes in Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, “By integrating New England ecosystems into an ultimately global capitalist economy, colonists and Indians together began a dynamic and unstable process of ecological change which had in no way ended by 1800. We live with their legacy today.”
—Anthony Vaver, Local History Librarian
Works Consulted:
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Nature Notes
“The closer we can get to the natural world, the sooner we start to realize we are not separate. And that when we create, we are not just expressing our unique individuality, but our seamless connection to an infinite oneness.”
—Rick Rubin, executive record producer, from his book, The Creative Act (p. 52)
Get closer to the natural world and unleash your creativity by reading Annie Reid’s Nature Notes for July.
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The Farmer’s Market is Up and Running!
The Westborough Farmer’s Market has returned and is open every Thursday afternoon from 2:00- 6:00 p.m. in front of the Congregation B’nai Shalom on 117 East Main Street. Stop by to purchase your favorite veggies, enjoy a light snack, and listen to some music.
If you enjoy the Farmer’s Market, why not volunteer? You can sign up to help make this popular summer event a success!
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