Fur Trade
The fur trade was as detrimental to the survival of native people as it was imperative to the success of settlers due the high European demand. Trappers employed natives because of their knowledge of the terrain and wildlife, putting natives with no immunity to European diseases into close contact with Europeans.
The fur trade also upset the ecological balance of North America. "Restraint wasn't a hallmark of the fur trade. In 1822, in the north western regions of the country alone, the Hudson's Bay Company stockpiled 1500 fox skins, a paltry number compared with the 106,000 beaver skins, but too many none the less. The fur traders had miscalculated. As predators, they had failed to adapt to their prey, and their prey, in turn, retaliated with denial. Of course, the red fox didn't render himself extinct. His numbers merely shrank.".
Read more about this topic: Ecological Imperialism
Famous quotes containing the words fur and/or trade:
“You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does—but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you’ll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it’s the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it’s the sickening grammar they use.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art.”
—W.R. (William Ralph)