Partners in Furs
A History of the Fur Trade in Eastern James Bay, 1600-1870
Description
The patterns and course of contact between traders from Europe and the Indian populations are described and both English and French sources are used to reveal the competition between the two groups of traders and its impact on the native people. As the Hudson's Bay Company was the one permanent European presence during the period, this ethnohistorical study makes extensive use of unpublished HBC papers. The authors also examine such issues as the rise of a homeguard population at the trading posts, the trading captain system, the development of hamily hunting territories, and the issue of dependence and interdependence. Partners in Furs provides new insight and makes a significant contribution to current scholarly inquiry into the impact of the fur trade on the native populations.
Reviews
"...a book whose overall excellence cannot be exaggerated. Rarely does one encounter a solidly based and carefully researched ethno-historical study which is at the same time entertaining and interesting. Partners in Fur can be recommended both to the informed specialist as well as to the general reader. "For anyone interested in the background to the current plight of the native peoples of Northern Quebec, faced with the tremendous changes being wrought in their lives by Hydro-Quebec's James Bay Project in this last decade, Partners in Furs is essential. Francis and Morantz have done an admirable job of telling the story of the native-white relations in this area from the time of first contact to a point about a century ago." William C. James, Kingston Whig-Standard.