The Subarctic Indians and the Fur Trade, 1680-1860


Book Description

Using the accounts of fur traders, explorers, officials, and missionaries, Colin Yerbury documents the profound changes that swept over the Athapaskan-speaking people of the Canadian subarctic following European contact. He challenges, with a rich variety of historical documents, the frequently articulated view that there is a general cultural continuity from the pre-contact period to the twentieth century. Leaving to the domain of the archaeologists the pre-historic period when all the people of the vast area from approximately 52N to the edge of the tundra and from Hudson Bay to Alaska were hunters, fishers, and gatherers subsisting entirely on native resources, Yerbury focuses on the Protohistoric and Historic Periods. The ecological and sociocultural adaptations of the Athapaskans are explored through the two centuries when they moved from indirect contact to dependency on the Hudson Bay trading posts. For nearly one hundred years prior to 1769 when North West Company traders began to establish trading relationships in the heart of Athapaskan territory, contacts with Europeans were almost entirely indirect, conducted through Chipewyan middlement who jealously guarded their privileged access to the posts. The boundaries of the indirect trade areas fluctuated owing to intertribal rivalries, but generally, the hardships of travel over great distances prevented the Athapaskans from establishing direct contact with the posts. The pattern was only broken by the gradual expansion of the traders themselves into new regions. But, as Yerbury shows, it is a mistake to believe significant sociocultural change only began when posts were established. In fact, technological changes and economic adjustments to facilitate trade had already transformed Athapaskan groups and integrated them into the European commercial system by the opening of the Historic Era. The Early Fur Trade Period (1770-1800) was characterized by local trade centered on a few posts where Indians were simultaneously post hunters, trappers, and traders as well as middlemen. But the following Competitive Trade Period before the amalgamation of the fur companies in 1821 saw ruinous and violent feuding which had devastating effects on traders and natives alike. During these years there were great qualitative changes in the native way of life and the debt system was introduced. Finally, in the Trading Post Dependency Period, monopoly control brought peace and stability to the native population through the formation of trading post bands and trapping parties in the Athapaskan and Mackenzie Districts. This regularization of the trade and proliferation of new commodities represented a further basic transformation in native productive relations, making trade a necessity rather than a supplement to furnishing native livelihoods. By detailing this series of changes, The Subarctic Indians and the Fur Trade, 1680-1860 furthers understanding of how the Hudson's Bay Company and then government officials came to play an increasing role that the Dene themselves now wish to modify drastically.




The Subarctic Fur Trade


Book Description

The papers in this book focus on themes which have been near the centre of fur trade scholarship: the identification of Indian motivations; the degree to which Indians were discriminating consumers and creative participants; and the extent of Native dependency on the trade. Spanning the period from the seventeenth century up to and including the twentieth, with distinguished authors such as J. Arthur Ray and Toby Morantz, The Subarctic Fur Trade will help scholars become more fully aware of the issues concerned with Native economic history.





Book Description




In Defense of the Land Ethic


Book Description

In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy brings into a single volume J. Baird Callicott's decade-long effort to articulate, defend, and extend the seminal environmental philosophy of Aldo Leopold. A leading voice in this new field, Callicott sounds the depths of the proverbial iceberg, the tip of which is "The Land Ethic." "The Land Ethic," Callicott argues, is traceable to the moral psychology of David Hume and Charles Darwin's classical account of the origin and evolution of Hume's moral sentiments. Leopold adds an ecological vision of organic nature to these foundations. How can an evolutionary and ecological environmental ethic bridge the gap between is and ought? How may wholes—species, ecosystems, and the biosphere itself—be the direct objects of moral concern? How may the intrinsic value of nonhuman natural entities and nature as a whole be justified? In addition to confronting and resolving these distinctly philosophical queries, Callicott engages in lively debate with proponents of animal liberation and rights—finally to achieve an integrated theory of animal welfare and environmental ethics. He critically discusses the land ethic that is alleged to have prevailed among traditional American Indian peoples and points toward a new and equally revolutionary environmental aesthetic.




Native People, Native Lands


Book Description

This collection of timely essays by Canadian scholars explores the fundamental link between the development of aboriginal culture and economic patterns. The contributors draw on original research to discuss Megaprojects in the North, the changing role of native women, reserves and devices for assimilation, the rebirth of the Canadian Metis, aboriginal rights in Newfoundland, the role of slave-raiding, and epidemics and firearms in native history.




Books on Early American History and Culture, 1951-1960


Book Description

This volume is part of a series of annotated bibliographies on early American history, including North America and the Caribbean, from 1492 to 1815. It includes monographs, reference works, exhibition catalogues, and essay collections published between 1951 and 1960, which were reviewed in at least one of thirty-four historical journals. Each entry gives the name of the book, its author(s) or editor(s), publisher, date of publication, OCLC number(s), the Library of Congress call number, the Dewey class number, the number of times the book has been cited in the journal literature, and the number of OCLC member libraries that held the item as of August 2005. Following each detailed citation is a brief summary of the book and a list of journals in which the book has been reviewed. This volume contains chapters on general early American history, historiography and public history, geography and exploration, colonization, maritime history, Native Americans, race and slavery, gender, ethnicity, migration, labor and class, economics and business, society, families and children, rural life and agriculture, urban life, religion, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Constitution, politics and government, law, crime and punishment, diplomacy, military, ideas, literature, communication, education, science and medicine, visual arts and material culture, and performing arts. This volume is part of a series of annotated bibliographies on early American history, including North America and the Caribbean, from 1492 to 1815. It includes monographs, reference works, exhibition catalogues, and essay collections published between 1951 and 1960, which were reviewed in at least one of thirty-four historical journals. Each entry gives the name of the book, its author(s) or editor(s), publisher, date of publication, OCLC number(s), the Library of Congress call number, the Dewey class number, the number of times the book has been cited in the journal literature, and the number of OCLC member libraries that held the item as of August 2005. Following each detailed citation is a brief summary of the book and a list of journals in which the book has been reviewed. This volume contains chapters on general early American history, historiography and public history, geography and exploration, colonization, maritime history, Native Americans, race and slavery, gender, ethnicity, migration, labor and class, economics and business, society, families and children, rural life and agriculture, urban life, religion, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Constitution, politics and government, law, crime and punishment, diplomacy, military, ideas, literature, communication, education, science and medicine, visual arts and material culture, and performing arts. Through this volume, Irwin aims to make scholars, teachers, and students of early American history aware of books written in the field between 1951 and 1960. He offers descriptions and location aids for those works, and he directs users to reviews of the books. He also suggests which works in the field have had significant scholarly impact. This volume may boast extensive indexes by subject and author, thematic chapters, book summaries that cover subject matter, scope and, often, argument and approach, and OCLC accession numbers to aid in edition identification and book location.




When the Spirit Calls


Book Description

In January 1832, in the most southern part of Ontario’s James Bay, an elderly Cree man by the name of Quapakay was told by the spirits of the shaking tent that in order to survive the winter, he was required to "spoil" the post at Hannah Bay, a Hudson's Bay Company goose hunting station. Following the directions of the spirits, Quapakay and his sons carried out this ill-fated task, resulting in the deaths of sixteen occupants of the Hannah Bay post. Now known as the "Hannah Bay Massacre," the victims included fur trader William Corrigal, the postmaster and his wife, and seven other Indigenous people. When the Spirit Calls explores the social, cultural, and historical context in which the Hannah Bay tragedy took place, as gleaned from the Hudson Bay Company’s archival records and elucidations by Cree oral traditions. The research is the culmination of over forty years of investigation by Edward J. Hedican in Indigenous communities, from the mid-1970s to the present day. In the book, Hedican aims to uncover the circumstances, behaviours, and attitudes that led to the slaughter. When the Spirit Calls sheds light on the racist attitudes held by the white settler population towards Indigenous people – attitudes that were prevalent in our colonial past and that continue to this very day.




The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State


Book Description

The most influential theory of the origins of women's oppression in the modern era, in a beautiful new edition In this provocative and now-classic work, Frederick Engels explores the interrelated development of the family and the state from ancient society to the Victorian era. Drawing on new anthropological theories of his time, Engels argued that matriarchal communal societies had been overthrown by class society and its emphasis on private, not communal, property and monogamous, rather than polygamous, sexual organization. This historical development, Engels argued, constituted "the world-historic defeat of the female sex." A masterclass in the application of materialist thought to history and anthropology, and touching on love, monogamy, property, and the development of the human, this landmark work is still foundational in Marxist and socialist feminist theory.




Global Perspectives on Gender and Work


Book Description

Central to all our lives, work affects our status in the state, the family, and the economy. This comprehensive reader examines the myriad ways in which work—whether it is well-paid, unpaid, or underpaid—profoundly influences our roles in both the public and private spheres. Jacqueline Goodman has selected a key set of essays that examine influential arguments on such central themes as (1) the origins of the gendered division of labor; (2) historical trends and economic transformations that affect and are affected by women's position in market and non-market work; (3) the effects of occupational and job segregation by sex on status, pay, and promotion; (4) the ways in which formal and informal organizational culture shape and in turn are shaped by gender in professional and managerial positions; (5) class consciousness among wage-earning men and women; (6) the different forms of gender discrimination that women and men face in the workplace; (7) the problems working parents face and the ways in which different societies, subcultures, and genders cope; and (8) alternative approaches to improving the lives of working women and their families in the global economy. With its rich interdisciplinary perspective, this text is ideal for courses in sociology, political science, anthropology, and women's and gender studies. Contributions by: Amel Adib, Kevin Bales, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Sharon M. Collins, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Susan Eisenberg, Ashley English, Yen Le Espiritu, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Nancy Folbre, Carla Freeman, Michele Ruth Gamburd, Jacqueline Goodman, Janet C. Gornick, Yvonne Guerrier, Luigi Guiso, Shannon Harper, Heidi Hartmann, Ariane Hegewisch, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Jacqueline Jones, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ivy Kennelly, Alice Kessler-Harris, Michael Kimmel, Eleanor Leacock, Judith Lorber, Susan E. Martin, Marcia K.Meyers, Ferdinando Monte, Martha C. Nussbaum, Jennifer Pierce, Pun Ngai, Barbara Reskin, Tracey Reynolds, Leslie Salzinger, Paola Sapienza, Joan W. Scott, Tyson Smith, Margaret Talbot, Louise A. Tilly, Christine L. Williams, Muhammad Yunus, and Luigi Zingales. , , ,