Video
Trapping and Trading on the Columbia Plateau
Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] The Columbia Plateau stretches wide from the Cascade Mountains in the West to the Bitterroot Mountains in the East. The vast area bisected by the Columbia River and its many tributaries was a vibrant crossroads for trade, not just for the many Indian tribes who lived here, but for Indians from regions beyond the plateaus natural boundaries.
A wide variety of goods changed hands. Dried fish from the local rivers, bison robes from the Great Plains, whale oil from the West Coast. At the dawn of the 19th century, American and European trappers and traders made their way into the Columbia River Basin and launched a new era of commerce.
The trappers and traders relationship with our people was economic. We understood economy. We understood trading.
The North West Company, the Pacific Fur Company, and the Hudson's Bay Company were the first foreigners to establish posts in the early 1800s.
To the Cayuse, the fur traders were an opportunity. They were an opportunity for white goods. They were also a window into white society. The Cayuse were well aware from their connections with other Indians along trade networks, from their own travel of American civilization out on their periphery, and that American civilization was advancing westward. The fur trading posts gave the Cayuse the opportunity to examine white civilization up close and white spiritual beliefs.
The relationship between the Indians and these outsiders is mutually beneficial.
They brought new things in-- thimbles and thread and scissors, the brass bells. They brought in candles, brought in weapons, brought in blankets.
It's hard to understand the value of some of these trade goods. A copper kettle was the microwave oven of its day. Steel tools for killing an animal or for processing a hide are enormous time savers. The Cayuse Indians, other Plateau Indians were delighted to have fur traders and to be able to get those goods from them.
In return, the plateau Indians provide fur pelts. They also offer another valuable commodity.
The traders need horses, and the Cayuse have swarms of horses. They're In the best horse country along the Columbia River.
The horses were our economy back then. That was what the Cayuse people were noted for, was out horse herds. You were considered poor if you had less than 100 head of horses. And there's documentation where we had people that owned thousands, 2000 head of horses.
The traders used the horses not only for travel and transportation but for food. Horse flesh is a frequent item on the menu at the Hudson's Bay Company posts on the Columbia Plateau.
The trappers and traders integrate more easily into Indian society.
The trappers and traders didn't need us to turn into somebody else to do business with them. They married our people. Many of them lived according to our customs.
The fur traders understood Indians better than almost any other white people of the time. The fur traders were not without their prejudices, as well.
The opening of the Oregon Trail would break the trade monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Columbia Plateau.
The number of Americans increases and increases. And at the same time this is happening, at the same time, there's this American tide of immigration, the price of beaver fur is collapsing, and the whole fur trade is becoming much less valuable than it was.
The US gained full control of the region in the Oregon Treaty of 1848. As the Hudson's Bay Company withdrew, agriculture and settlement replaced trapping and trading as the primary economy of the Northwest.
Description
This short video talks about the interactions of Cayuse and other Columbia Plateau tribes with fur trappers and traders during the early to mid 1800s.
Duration
4 minutes, 19 seconds
Credit
NPS Video
Date Created
03/03/2023
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