Marginalizing the Native: An Exploration of the Influence of Alcohol on Native-French Politics during the 17th-19th Century Fur Trade

Summary

From the late 17th to the mid-19th century, Native American and French communities have engaged in dynamic and extensive trade relations. Alcohol became a significant factor that was both heavily exploited and employed during these exchanges. The trade and consumption of alcohol caused a radical change in the way these two peoples interacted. By exploring patterns in the variation of alcohol use at both Native and French sites and employing ethnohistorical data from additional sites in northern North America, I will attempt to explain the role alcohol has played in the fluid relations of the fur trade and in the ever-shifting political climate between Natives and French.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Culture Change and Persistence among North American Indigenous Peoples in the Contact Zone   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 92