Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Roles as Trappers, Hunters, and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay, 1660-1870 - Hardcover

Ray, Arthur

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802041337 ISBN 13: 9780802041333

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 1998

Synopsis

First published in 1974, this best-selling book was lauded by Choice as 'an important, ground-breaking study of the Assiniboine and western Cree Indians who inhabited southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan' and 'essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Canadian west before 1870.'

Indians in the Fur Trade makes extensive use of previously unpublished Hudson's Bay Company archival materials and other available data to reconstruct the cultural geography of the West at the time of early contact, illustrating many of the rapid cultural transformations with maps and diagrams. Now with a new introduction and an update on sources, it will continue to be of great use to students and scholars of Native and Canadian history.

About this title

About the Author:

Arthur J. Ray is a professor in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia, and author of Indians in the Fur Trade and I Have Lived Here Since the World Began: An Illustrated History of Canada's Native People.

Review:

'A model study of the fur trade in all its economic aspects. ... Illuminating inferences from scattered statements in primary sources demonstrate the author's mastery of his subject.'

(Harvey L. Carter American Historical Review)

'Ray handles his material with clarity and conciseness, providing a significant study not only of the fur trade, but of the history of cultural changes brought about by the extension of white influence over a red continent.'

(Gary C. Stein American Indian Quarterly)

'A rather remarkable historical picture of the varying, and interactive roles played by these Indians (especially the Assiniboine and Cree) in the Northwest fur trade economy, but has also analyzed the ramifications of their respective, changing roles for their migrations, seasonal movements, ecological adaptations, interethnic relations, population figures, and material culture. The reader is presented with an eagles eye view of the dynamic, overlapping demographic (both macro- and micro-) patterns of all ethnic groups in the area, together with a multiplicity of complexly interrelated causal factors which arose directly or indirectly from the Indians' participation in the fur trade.'

(Susan R. Sharrock Ethnohistory)

'Ray's study underscores the essential insights which multi-disciplinary approaches can bring to fur trade history.'

(Sylvia Van Kirk Canadian Historical Review)

'An important, ground-breaking study of the Assiniboine and Western Cree Indians ... essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Canadian West before 1870.'

(Choice)

'One of the most significant contributions that this work makes to the literature of the fur trade is a clear and factual delineation of the relationships between the traders and the Indians. The reader becomes acutely aware of the fact that they were primarily peaceful relationships based upon interdependence and cooperation of both parties.'

(Charles E. Hanson Jr. Plains Anthropologist)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0802041337
• ISBN 13: 9780802041333
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 284