While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Commerce. Evidences of widespread commerce and rude
media of exchange in North America are found in ancient shell-heaps, mounds, and
graves, the objects having passed from hand to hand often many times. Overland,
this trade was done on foot, the only domestic animal for long-distance
transportation being the dog, used as a pack beast and for the travois and the
sled. In this respect the north temperate zone of America was in marvelous
contrast with the same latitudes of the Old World, where most of the commercial
animals originated.
The deficiency in the means of land commerce was made up by the waters. Natural
conditions in the section of the New World along the Arctic circle and on Hudson
bay, continuously inhabited by the homogeneous Eskimo, in the inlets of the
Atlantic coast, in the neighboring Caribbean area, and in the archipelagoes of
British Columbia and s. E. Alaska, encouraged and developed excellent water
craft for commerce. Better still by far for the trader were the fresh- water
rivers, navigable for canoes, of the Yukon-Mackenzie, St Lawrence, Atlantic,
Mississippi, and Columbia systems, in which neigh boring waters are connected
for traffic by easy portages, a condition contrasting with that of Siberia,
whose great rivers all end in frozen tundras and arctic wastes.
The North American continent is divided into culture areas in a way conducive to
primitive commerce. Certain resources of particular areas were in universal
demand, such as copper, jade, soapstone, obsidian, mica, paint stones, and
shells for decoration and money, as dentalium, abalone, conus, olivella, and
clam shells.
The Eskimo, to whom the Arctic area belonged, carried on extensive commerce
among themselves and with the western
Athapascan tribes and the
Algonquian
tribes to the E. They knew where soap-stone for lamps, jade for blades, and
drift wood for sleds and harpoons could be found, and used them for traffic.
They lived beyond the timber line; hence the Athapascans brought vessels of wood
and baskets to trade with them for oil and other arctic products.
The Mackenzie-Yukon tribes were in the lands of the reindeer and of soft
fur-bearing animals. These they traded in every direction for supplies to
satisfy their needs (see Fur trade}. The Russians in Alaska and the Hudson's Bay
Co. stimulated them to the utmost and taught them new means of capture,
including the use of firearms. Remnants of Iroquois bands that were employed in
the fur trade have been found on Rainy lake, on Red and Saskatchewan rs., even
as far N. as the Polar sea and as far w. as the Siksika of the plains and the
Takulli of British Columbia (Havard in Smithson. Rep., 318, 1879;
Chamberlain in Am. Anthrop., vi,459, 1904; Morice, N. Int. Brit. Col.,
1904.) See Caughnawaga.
The Atlantic slope from Labrador to Georgia was the special home of Algonquian
and Iroquoian tribes. Inland were found deer, bears, foxes, and turkeys. The
salt-water bays and inlets not only supplied mollusks, crustaceans, fish, and
aquatic birds in vast numbers, but stimulated easy transportation and commerce.
The great lakes and the St Lawrence, moreover, placed the tribes about them in
touch with the copper mines of L. Superior. Through this enlarging influence the
Iroquois were ennobled and became the leading family of this area. A medium of
exchange was invented in the shape of wampum, made from clam shells. The mounds
of the s. portion of this slope reveal artifacts of copper, obsidian, and shell,
which must have been trans ported commercially from afar along the water
highways in birch-bark canoes and dugouts.
The Mississippi area was a vast receiving depot of commerce, having easy touch
with other areas about it by means of portages between the headwaters of in
numerable streams; with the Chesapeake bay, the great lakes, and the Mackenzie
basins through the Ohio and the main stream; with the E. Rockies and Columbia r.
through the Missouri and other great branches of the Mississippi in the w.
Buffalo skins and horns were demanded by the Pueblos, while pemmican and beads
enlivened trade. The mounds reveal dentalium shells from the Pacific, obsidian
from the Rockies, copper from L. Superior, pipes of catlinite, and black
steatite from Minnesota and Canada, and objects from the Atlantic.
The Gulf area includes the ancient home of the
Muskhogean, the
Caddoan, and a
few smaller families. Commerce here was inland. Their coast was almost without
islands and came in commercial touch with an outside world only through Mexico.
The discoveries of Cushing in s. Florida reveal a colony in the southern Mexican
or West Indian culture status. The shorter rivers of this area put its N. border
in trade touch with Tennessee and the Carolinas, and its w. with Arkansas and
Texas. The Mississippi lured its traders almost to the Canadian border. The Rio
Grande was the commercial artery connecting the E. areas with the interior
basin. The Rio Grande Pueblos still trade their paper-bread with the
Kiowa and
Comanche of Oklahoma. Coronado speaks of
Pawnee and
Wichita visitors among the
Pueblos of the Rio Grande in 1540 (Winship in 14th Rep. B. A. E., 1896).
The Pacific coast tribes occupied two areas that present quite opposite
conditions in regard to commercial activity. From Mt St Elias s. to California
trade was active, transportation being effected in excellent dugout canoes; the
waters and the lands offered natural products easy of access that stimulated
barter. Copper, horn for spoons, eulachon, and Chilkat blankets were exchanged
for abalone and dentalium shells, and baskets were bartered for other baskets
and the teeth of a large southern shark, also for the furs of the interior
Indians. The Haida regularly visited their Tsimshian neighbors to exchange
canoes for eulachon oil, wood suitable for boxes, and mountain-goat horn, while
the Tlingit were intermediaries in diffusing the cop per that came from the N.
On the Columbia r. camass and moose were articles of commerce. Farther's., in
Oregon and California, whether from the islandless coast or the genius of the
peoples, the spirit of commerce was less prominent. Among the N. w. California
tribes, the Hupa and others, dentalia served for local money. In central
California (Yuki, Pomo", Sacramento, and San Joaquin valleys, etc. ) wampum of
pierced disks al most exclusively served as a medium of exchange and standard of
value. In s. California the inhabitants of the islands carried on a commerce in
basketry, feathered wearing apparel, nets, vessels of steatite and serpentine,
various implements of stone and bone, wampum, sea-shells and shell ornaments,
and cured fish, which they bartered with the tribes of the mainland for basket
materials, skins, nuts, prepared meats, and other articles which they did not
have on the islands. The Indians of the mountains and the interior valleys of
California constantly traveled to " and fro for the purpose of barter, and the
trails over the range to the coast are yet plainly visible, especially from the
lower Tulare valley (A. L. Kroeber and C. P. Wilcomb, inf'n, 1905;
Stearns in Nat. Mus. Rep., 297, 1887) . From the early mariners we learn
that the island Indians had canoes made of skins, some being very large and
holding 20 persons. Vizcaino, the Spanish navigator, who made his voyage in
1602-3, mentions large boats of planks at Santa Catalina, Cal., and states that
its natives engaged in trade, though not extensive, with those on the mainland
(Hittell, Hist, Cal., i, 139, 1885). Hittell does not think that there
were any voyages between the Santa Barbara ids. and Puget sd. , though canoes
may have drifted or have been carried by stress of weather over considerable
distances.
The Interior basin, especially in the Pueblo country, had a lively home and
distant commerce, the duration and extent of which are witnessed by the trails
measuring in all many hundreds of miles in length. Pacific coast shells and
copper bells of Mexican origin are encountered in the ancient ruins. The inland
commerce was fostered by the two kinds of social life, pueblo and castral. After
the advent of the Spaniards, this traffic was greatly quickened. The
Hopi traded
in cotton of their own cultivation with out side tribes, and are still the chief
weavers and traders of ceremonial cotton blankets, sashes, and kilts in the S.
W. The Zuñi and some of the Rio Grande pueblos use shell beads and turquoise,
trading largely with the Navaho. The latter have a wide and varied commerce,
trafficking with the Havasupai, Hopi, and Walapai for baskets and using their
blankets and silver work as an exchange medium with neighboring tribes and with
the whites.
Commerce was greatly stimulated through the coming of the whites by the
introduction of domestic animals, especially horses, mules, donkeys, cattle,
sheep, goats, poultry; by the vastly enlarged demand for skins of animals,
ivory, fish, and native manufactures; by offering in exchange iron tools and
implements, woven goods, and other European products desired by the Indians. The
effects of this stimulated trade were profound, both for good and evil. Indians
were drawn far from home. The Iroquois, for example, traveled with the fur
traders into N. w. Canada.
Many kinds of Indian handiwork have entered into world commerce. Money is
lavished on fine basketry, beadwork, wampum belts, ivory carvings, horn spoons,
wooden dishes, silver work, costumes, feather and quill work, and especially
Navaho blankets and Hopi and Zuni textiles. In ancient times there were
intertribal laws of commerce, and to its agents were guaranteed freedom and
safety. See Boats, Fur trade, Exchange, Horse, Trails and Trade-routes, Travel,
Travois, and the bibliographies there under; consult also Ran in Smithson.
Rep., 271, 1872. (O. T. M.)
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Frederick Webb Hodge, 1906
