The Impact of the European Fur Trade

The Impact of the European Fur Trade. . , European fur trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, increasing demand for fur products in western europe led to a critical shortage. This shortage coincided with European occupation of much of North America, whose forests and rivers teemed with fur-bearing animals. Quick to see the opportunities, merchants initiated contact with the Kansas and other tribes., By the late seventeenth century, establishment of French fur-trading posts on the Arkansas river drove a commercial wedge between the English colonies to the east and Spanish possessions to the southwest. Trade became increasingly competitive and violent centrally located as they were, and increasingly dependent upon european markets, The Kansas and their Indian allies became prime targets for manipulation by European interests. For instance, in 1720, seeking to stave off a Spanish advance, French traders spread suspicion against the Spanish. When a Spanish advance party reached the Platte Valley in August, an Indian force, probably consisting of a combination of Pawnees, Missouris, Otoes, and Kansas, surprised and killed twenty-five Spaniards and eleven of their Pueblo allies., The Kansas traded primarily with the French. If the French thought they could dictate all terms, however, they were soon to be disappointed. Observant of European tactics, the Kansas ultimately traded with the Canadians, British, and Spanish in order to benefit from competition among them., The years immediately preceding the end of the French and Indian war in 1764 were economically good for the Kansas. At the same time, the Kansas were plagued by problems that were to have deep long-range consequences. During military conflict between France and Britain, smallpox broke out and the epidemic hit Kansa villages. The fatality rate was high, especially among the warrior ranks. A further reduction in the number of young kansa males , perhaps as much as fifty percent , resulted from costly encounters with the Black Pawnees west of the Missouri River. The conflict stemmed from French and British competition and greatly reduced the population of both tribes., The late eighteenth century saw the migration of the Kansas from the Missouri River Valley to the Kansas River Valley. This move provided the Kansas with better access to the Western hunting grounds as well as greater distance from the better-armed Omahas, Sacs, and Iowas. Unsurprisingly, profit-seeking French and Spanish traders followed the Kansas. Not far behind them came the even more aggressive Anglo-American agrarians, whose main interest was land and who would ultimately complete the alteration of Kansa society begun by European traders more than a century earlier.