Trade route
American and British ships sailed round Cape Horn to the Northwest Coast to buy sea otter pelts from Indigenous traders, provisioned in Hawaii, sold the furs at Canton and came home with tea, silk and porcelain by the Cape of Good Hope. Boston ships led the trade from the 1790s to the 1830s.
The maritime fur trade (historically called the North West trade), a ship-based fur trade system, focused largely on acquiring furs of sea otters and other animals from the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska Natives. Entrepreneurs also exploited fur-bearing skins from the wider Pacific and the Southern Ocean. The trade mostly serviced the market in Qing China, which imported furs and exported tea, silks, porcelain, and other Chinese goods to Europe and the United States.
The trade was pioneered by the Russians. Through the Siberian fur trade, they reached the Pacific in the 17th century, then moved eastward, reaching the Alaska Peninsula by the 1760s. The Spanish began trading in 1774, the British in 1778, and the Americans in 1788. Russians controlled the Alaskan coast during this era. The coast further south saw fierce competition between British and American traders. The British were the first to operate in the southern sector, but the Americans dominated from the 1790s to the 1830s. Once the British Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) entered the trade in the 1820s, they outcompeted the Americans by about 1840. Thereafter, the HBC and the Russian-American Company (RAC) dominated operations. The trade in fur-seal skins from the Southern Ocean peaked in the 1810s and was unprofitable due to overexploitation by 1863.
The trade linked the Pacific Northwest coast to China, Hawaii, Britain, and the United States. A rapid increase of wealth occurred among the indigenous population, along with increased warfare, potlatching, slaving, and depopulation due to epidemic disease. The importance of totems and traditional nobility crests increased, and the Chinook Jargon was developed. In the Southern Hemisphere, expeditions of sealers led Europeans to settle in the previously ignored Tasmania and New Zealand. Profits from the trade helped revitalize New England through industrial development, especially textile manufacturing, which contributed to its transformation from an agrarian to an industrial society.
The most profitable furs came from sea otter pelts, which were fashionable in China, Europe and America. Aleut hunters supplied Russians sea-otter skins as tribute or ransom. Despite an estimated population of 150,000-300,000 and a range from Japan to Mexico in the pre-trade years, sea otters' slow breeding made them vulnerable to excessive hunting, which almost caused their extinction. The sea otter remains endangered today.
While Russians focused on sea otter pelts, societies from eastern North America gradually moved their largely beaver-based fur-harvesting enterprises further westward. From 1792 onwards, the beaver trade began to tap into the Chinese market in addition to their Atlantic markets. The fur trade's killing of beavers proved devastating. Populations took centuries to recover in some areas, while others never recovered. Ecosystems that relied on beavers for dams, water and other vital needs faced ecological destruction, environmental change, and drought. This affected many species living in the Pacific Northwest, including otters, fish, and bears.
The Pacific Northwest was one of the last significant nonpolar regions in the world to be explored by Europeans. Centuries of reconnaissance and conquest had brought the rest of North America within the claims of imperial powers. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a number of empires and commercial systems converged upon the Northwest Coast, by sea as well as by land across the continent. The Russian and Spanish empires were extended into the region simultaneously, from opposite directions. Russian fur companies expanded into North America along the Aleutian Islands, reaching the Fox Islands and the Alaska Peninsula in the early 1760s. Stepan Glotov encountered Kodiak Island in 1763. In 1768, an expedition was carried out by the Russian Navy, under Pyotr Krenitsyn and Mikhail Levashev. Two ships sailed from Kamchatka to the Alaska Peninsula for the purpose of assessing the existing Russian activity and the possibilities of future development. Reports about the voyage, meant to be kept secret, spread through Europe and caused alarm in Spain. The Spanish government, already concerned about Russian activity in Alaska, decided to colonize Alta California and sent exploratory voyages to Alaska to assess the threat and strengthen Spanish claims of sovereignty on the coast north of Mexico.
The province of Alta California was established by José de Gálvez in 1769, just as the Krenitsyn-Levashev expedition was concluding. Five separate expeditions were dispatched to Alta California in 1769. By 1782, presidios had been established at San Diego, Monterey, San Francisco and Santa Barbara, linked by a series of mission stations along the coast. Spanish exploration voyages to the far north were launched in 1774, 1775, and 1779. In 1784, the center of Russian activity shifted east to Kodiak Island and hunting operations were extended into Cook Inlet. The two empires seemed destined to clash, but before direct Russian-Spanish contact was made new powers appeared on the Northwest Coast—Britain and the United States. When the clash came, at Nootka Sound in 1789, it was not between Spain and Russia but between Spain and Britain. The British first reached the region by sea in 1778, during James Cook's third voyage, and by land in 1793, when Alexander Mackenzie's transcontinental explorations reached the Pacific. The first British maritime fur trader, James Hanna, arrived on the Northwest Coast in 1785. The first American traders, John Kendrick and Robert Gray, arrived by sea in 1788. The Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived overland in 1805.
The early maritime fur traders were explorers, as well as traders. The Northwest Coast is very complex — a "labyrinth of waters", according to George Simpson— with thousands of islands, numerous straits and fjords, and a mountainous, rocky, and often very steep shoreline. Navigational hazards included persistent rain, high winds, thick fogs, strong currents, and tides, and hidden rocks. Wind patterns were often contrary, variable, and baffling, especially within the coastal straits and archipelagoes, which makes sailing dangerous. Early explorations before the maritime fur trade era—by Juan Pérez, Bruno de Heceta, Bogeda y Quadra, and James Cook—produced only rough surveys of the coast's general features. Detailed surveys were undertaken in only a few relatively small areas, such as Nootka Sound, Bucareli Bay, and Cook Inlet. Russian exploration before 1785 had produced mainly rough surveys, largely restricted to the Aleutian Islands and mainland Alaska west of Cape Saint Elias. British and American maritime fur traders began visiting the Northwest Coast in 1785, at which time it was mostly unexplored. Although noncommercial exploration voyages continued, especially by the Spanish Navy, the maritime fur traders made a number of significant discoveries. Notable examples include the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Clayoquot Sound, and Barkley Sound, all found by Charles William Barkley, Queen Charlotte Strait by James Strange, Fitz Hugh Sound by James Hanna, Grays Harbor and the Columbia River by Robert Gray. George Dixon explored the Dixon Entrance and was the first to realize that Haida Gwaii was not part of the mainland.
Russian maritime fur trading in the northern Pacific began after the exploration voyages of Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov in 1741 and 1742. Their voyages demonstrated that Asia and North America were not connected but that sea voyages were feasible, and that the region was rich in furs. Private fur traders, mostly promyshlenniki, launched fur trading expeditions from Kamchatka, at first focusing on nearby islands such as the Commander Islands. Unlike fur trading ventures in Siberia, these maritime expeditions required more capital than most promyshlenniki could obtain. Merchants from cities such as Irkutsk, Tobolsk, and others in European Russia, became the principal investors.
An early trader, Emilian Basov, traded at Bering Island in 1743, collecting a large number of sea otter, fur seal, and blue Arctic fox furs. Basov made four trips to Bering Island and nearby Medny Island and made a fortune, inspiring many other traders. From 1743 to the founding of the Russian-American Company in 1799, over 100 private fur-trading and hunting voyages sailed from Kamchatka to North America. In total, these voyages garnered over eight million silver rubles. During the early part of this era, the ships would typically stop at the Commander Islands to slaughter and preserve the meat of Steller's sea cows, a defenseless sea mammal whose range was limited to those islands. They were hunted not only for food, but also for their skins, used to make boats, and their subcutaneous fat, used for oil lamps. By 1768, Steller's sea cow was extinct. As furs were depleted on nearby islands, Russian traders sailed farther east along the Aleutian chain. By the 1760s, they were regularly sailing to Kodiak Island. Notable Russian traders in the early years of the trade include Nikifor Trapeznikov (who financed and participated in 10 voyages between 1743 and 1768), Maksimovich Solov'ev, Stepan Glotov, and Grigory Shelikhov.
As traders sailed farther east, the voyages became longer and more expensive. Smaller enterprises were merged into larger ones. During the 1780s, Grigory Shelikhov began to stand out as one of the most important traders through the Shelikhov-Golikov Company. In 1784, Shelikhov founded the first permanent Russian settlement in North America, at Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island. Shelikhov envisioned a continual extension of the Russian maritime fur trade, with trading posts being set up farther and farther along the coast all the way to California. He sought exclusive control of the trade, and in 1788 Empress Catherine II decided to grant his company a monopoly only over the area it already occupied. Other traders were free to compete elsewhere. Catherine's decision was issued as the imperial ukase (proclamation) of 28 September 1788.
By the time of Catherine's ukase of 1788, just as other nations were entering the maritime fur trade, the Russians had spent over 40 years establishing and expanding their maritime operations in North America. A number of colonies were being established over a large region stretching from the Aleutian Islands to Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound. Many ships sailed from Kamchatka to Alaska each year. The Russians not only had an early start, but they also controlled the habitats of the most valuable sea otters. The Kurilian, Kamchatkan, and Aleutian sea otters' fur was thicker, glossier, and blacker than those on the Northwest Coast and California. The four grades of fur were based on colour, texture, and thickness. The most prized furs were those of Kurilian and Kamchatkan sea otters, Aleutian furs were second-grade, those of the Northwest Coast third, and the poorest grade was those of Californian sea otters. Russia also controlled the sources of sable furs, the most valuable fur-bearing land mammal.
The Russian system differed from the British and American systems in its relationship with Indigenous peoples. Using the same method they had used in Siberia, the Russians employed or enserfed Aleut and Alutiiq people, the latter being a subgroup of the Yup'ik people. The Aleut and Alutiiq people were expert sea otter hunters, noted for their use of kayaks and baidarkas. Russian ships were mainly used for transporting and assisting Native hunting parties. This differed from the British and American system, where the Natives hunted sea otters and prepared the furs on their own, and were essentially independent agents of the fur trade. The Russians did not trade freely with the Native Alaskans; rather, they imposed a fur tribute known as yasak. The yasak system, which was widely used in Siberia, essentially enslaved the Natives. In 1788, it was banned in Russian America, only to be replaced by compulsory labor.
The British entry into the maritime fur trade dates to 1778 and the third voyage of Captain James Cook. While sailing north to search for the fabled Northwest Passage, Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands. On the Northwest Coast, he spent a month in Nootka Sound, during which he and his crew traded with the Nuu-chah-nulth from the village of Yuquot. They ended up with over 300 furs, mostly sea otter, but thought them of no great value. Later, after Cook had been killed in Hawaii, the expedition visited Canton and were surprised by how much money the Chinese were willing to pay for the furs. A profit of 1,800% was made. James King, one of the commanders after Cook's death, wrote, "the advantages that might be derived from a voyage to that part of the American coast, undertaken with commercial views, appear to me of a degree of importance sufficient to call for the attention of the public." The crews of the two ships were so eager to return to Nootka Sound and acquire more furs, they were "not far short of mutiny". Nevertheless, they sailed for England, arriving there in October 1780. Accounts of Cook's voyage and the sea otter trade were published in the 1780s, triggering a rush of entrepreneurial voyages to the Northwest Coast.
British interest in the maritime fur trade peaked between 1785 and 1794, then declined as the French Revolutionary Wars diminished Britain's available manpower and investment capital. The country also concentrated its foreign trade activities in India. British maritime fur traders were hindered by the East India Company (EIC) and South Sea Company (SSC). Although the SSC was moribund by the late 18th century, it had been granted the exclusive right to British trade on the entire western coast of the Americas from Cape Horn to Bering Strait and for 300 leagues (around 900 mi (1,400 km)) out into the Pacific Ocean. This, coupled with the EIC monopoly on British trade in China, meant sea otter skins were procurable only in the preserve of one monopoly and disposable only in that of the other. To operate legally, British maritime fur traders had to obtain licenses from both companies, which was difficult and expensive. Some traders obtained a license from the EIC only, figuring the SSC was unable to enforce its monopoly. Others obtained only the SSC license and took their furs to England, where they were trans-shipped to China. Some traders tried to evade the licenses by sailing their ships under foreign flags. The EIC's primary focus in China was the tea trade, with never much interest within the company for the maritime fur trade. The EIC usually allowed British vessels to import furs into Canton, but required the furs to be sold via EIC agents, and the company took a percentage of the returns. Worse, the EIC did not allow the British fur traders to export Chinese goods to Great Britain. Thus, the last and most profitable leg of the maritime fur trade system—carrying Chinese goods to Europe and America—was denied to British traders.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Maritime fur trade”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.