'Fur, Fortune and Empire': How the fur trade drove the exploration of America

'Fur, Fortune and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America'

by Eric Jay Dolin

W.W. Norton, 464 pp., $29.95

This is the story of the skinning of a continent. Eric Jay Dolin, with a Ph.D. in environmental policy and author of a previous history of American whaling, here explains how the fur trade shaped the exploration, settlement and development of North America.

A warm, fuzzy tale it's not. "Millions of animals were killed for their pelts, which were used according to the dictates of fashion — and human vanity," Dolin says. "This relentless pursuit of furs left in its wake a dramatic, often tragic tale of clashing cultures, fluctuating fortunes, and bloody wars. Although the traffic in furs never caused the extinction of a species, in a few cases it came mighty close."

Dolin examines virtually every follicle of this history. Dutch, French, British, Spanish, Swedish, Russian and later Americans and Canadians all joined in the fur-for-all. Their main targets were beaver, sea otters, fur seals and buffalo, but they also took muskrats, raccoons and even skunks.

The fur trade had a dramatic impact on Native American society. "As older generations died off they were replaced by new generations who had grown up in a cultural landscape awash in European goods," Dolin says. Native Americans abandoned their traditional tools and weapons because traders had better ones to offer; simultaneously, they lost the skills necessary to make those implements.

John Jacob Astor became the dominant force in the fur trade, which made him the richest man in the country (the town of Astoria, Ore., was founded as one of Astor's fur-trading posts). "Astor was a colossal, almost unstoppable force, and once he set his sights on a goal, it was unwise to bet against his achieving it," Dolin writes. He "proceeded to crush, purchase, or absorb the competition" and his "great success in the fur trade was built not only on a liberal use of alcohol [for Native Americans] but also on a system that ensured that he made a healthy profit at nearly every step of the trading process." In other words, he established what would now be called a vertically integrated company.

But Astor also foresaw the end of the fur trade. By 1830 the price of beaver pelts was falling even as beaver were becoming scarce from trapping and habitat destruction. Astor's health also was failing. In 1834 he sold his company and retired from the fur business.

By then sea otters and fur seals also had been hunted nearly to extinction. Only the buffalo were left — and we all know how that turned out. The slaughter of the buffalo also destroyed the way of life of Native Americans who depended on them.

Growing public consternation over the slaughter of animals and destruction of their habitat gave rise in the late 19th century to what eventually became the modern conservation movement. Yet those responsible for the slaughter also stimulated settlement of the continent, helping define its political boundaries and sewing seeds that would grow into cities. Perhaps slaughter was the price of settlement.

Dolin's story ends at the conclusion of the 19th century, though he notes the fur trade continues even today in the United States, part of an international trade that generates billions of dollars in sales.

Meanwhile, decimated animal populations have at least partly rebounded in some areas, and Dolin concludes this interesting, well-researched book by relating how New Yorkers were recently amazed at the first sighting of a beaver in their city in 200 years.