when did the north american fur trade start
16th century
title: North American fur trade text: North American fur trade The North American fur trade was the industry and activities related to the acquisition, trade, exchange, and sale of animal furs in North America. Aboriginal peoples in Canada and Native Americans in the United States of different regions traded among themselves in the pre–Columbian Era, but Europeans participated in the trade beginning from the time of their arrival in the New World and extended its reach to Europe. The French started trading in the 16th century, the English established trading posts on Hudson Bay in present-day Canada in the 17th century, and the Dutch had trade title: North American fur trade text: by the same time in New Netherland. The 19th-century North American fur trade, when the industry was at its peak of economic importance, involved the development of elaborate trade networks. The fur trade became one of the main economic ventures in North America attracting competition among the French, British, Dutch, Spanish, and Russians. Indeed, in the early history of the United States, capitalizing on this trade, and removing the British stranglehold over it, was seen as a major economic objective. Many Native American societies across the continent came to depend on the fur trade as their primary source of income. title: North American fur trade text: Russian-American Company, with later participation by Spanish/Mexican, British, and U.S. hunters/traders. Non-Russians extended fur-hunting areas south as far as the Baja California Peninsula. Starting in the mid-16th century, Europeans traded weapons and household goods in exchange for furs with Native Americans in southeast America. The trade originally tried to mimic the fur trade in the north, with large quantities of wildcats, bears, beavers, and other fur bearing animals being traded. The trade in fur coat animals decreased in the early 18th century, curtailed by the rising popularity of trade in deerskins. The deerskin trade went onto dominate the relationships between title: North American fur trade text: By the mid-1800s changing fashions in Europe brought about a collapse in fur prices. The American Fur Company and some other companies failed. Many Native communities were plunged into long-term poverty and consequently lost much of the political influence they once had. French explorer Jacques Cartier in his three voyages into the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the 1530s and 1540s conducted some of the earliest fur trading between European and First Nations peoples associated with sixteenth century and later explorations in North America. Cartier attempted limited fur trading with the First Nations in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and title: North American fur trade text: and Grand Portage in modern Minnesota, all located in the Great Lakes region. The American Revolution and the resulting resolution of national borders forced the British to re-locate their trading centers northward. The newly formed United States began its own attempts to capitalize on the fur trade, initially with some success. By the 1830s the fur trade had begun a steep decline, and fur was never again the lucrative enterprise it had once been. On the Pacific coast of North America, the fur trade mainly pursued seal and sea otter. In northern areas, this trade was established first by the