- Furs have always been a fashion item.
They've always been used for trim and coats,
but especially these days for hats.
[upbeat music]
- Taylor Bailey: I'm so bored by my fashion choices lately.
- Kacie Lucchini Butcher: Well, why don't you take a look
at some of the stuff in my closet?
I have been eyeing up that new handbag you got.
Maybe we could do a trade. - Hmm, that's a good idea.
- It goes pretty deep.
You're gonna have to probably dig.
- You're not kidding.
When was the last time you cleaned this thing?
- Okay, all right, it's been a while, don't judge me.
- Wait, I think I found something.
How do I get out of this thing?
- Ugh, hold on, I'll come get you.
Well, all right.
- Taylor?
- Back here!
Girl, you really gotta do something about that closet.
- Maybe it needs, like, a shoe rack or something.
- Hey, what's that?
- Wait, is that a fur trader and his wife?
Wait, did we travel back in time?
Is this the wardrobe from Narnia?
- I don't know about all that.
- Well, I mean, it does look like they have clothes
and maybe they'll barter.
You were looking for new stuff. - Yeah, I was.
I don't know.
Let's check it out. - All right.
- Taylor: Hi. - Kacie: Hi.
- Ah, bonjour, madames.
Je suis Paul l'Avanture, voyageur extraordinaire,
and I speak English.
- Great, could you repeat that in English?
- Yes, my name is Paul l'Avanture.
I'm a voyageur.
That's my profession, and I speak English,
but you got that part. - Great.
- And this is my wife, who is Mukwawagikwe.
- Boozhoo. - Kacie: Bonjour.
- What do we have here?
You guys have a lot of things.
Are you selling things?
- We have a trade blanket, we are trading.
The Native people had a forest full
of fur-bearing animals.
And we, the Europeans wanted those furs,
bring 'em back to Europe and convert them to money.
- The North American fur trade refers to the exchange of goods,
including animal furs, between Europeans
and Indigenous peoples.
Native peoples had been using and trading furs
amongst themselves for thousands of years in North America.
In the area that became Wisconsin,
this included the Menominee, the Ho-Chunk,
Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Dakota, among others.
With the arrival of Europeans,
the trade became a global exchange.
The French, Dutch, British, and others were keen
to trade with Native partners across the Atlantic.
Exchanging goods for furs and animal skins
may seem like a simple transaction,
but this was a big deal for the development
of how Native peoples in the Americas
interacted with Europeans.
Eventually, the trading of furs would be connected
not just to clothing and fashion,
but to global and local politics,
cultural and social interactions,
labor, religion, and unfortunately, colonialism.
Why did the Europeans want furs?
- Well, for a couple of reasons.
Number one, furs have always been a fashion item.
They've always been used for trim and coats,
but especially these days for hats.
- Oh, very fashionable.
- Beaver fur, just the fur, was made into the hats,
which were so fashionable, in London and Paris.
And these furs, these skins would be
stripped from the animal by the Native women.
They'd be dried and scraped, so they wouldn't rot
during the journey that might take two years
to get back to Europe.
And the inner fur,
the beaver wool underneath these guard hairs,
would be pressed into a felt
that was made into these wonderful hats.
And in return, the Native people
wanted these things that they couldn't find
in their own environment or make with their own technology.
Steel knives, steel axes, brass kettles, and cloth especially.
Blankets and cloth to make clothes.
- There is a long history of humans using fur for clothing.
Animal skins were probably some of the earliest garments
worn by humans tens of thousands of years ago.
But by the 1600s and 1700s,
as the North American fur trade was really getting started,
furs in Europe were more of a luxury item.
This was in part because people had hunted many small,
fur-bearing animals almost to extinction in parts of Europe.
The result was that furs had become very expensive.
The high cost of furs made them a status symbol
in European fashion.
They were something that showed off a person's wealth
or their high social standing.
Fur could be used to trim a garment
or processed into something like a hat.
- But animal furs and skins
could be about more than just fashion.
The thick hides of animals like deer and bison
could be made into tough leather belts
that were used in the machines of the early industrial period.
All this meant that animal skins and furs
were a highly-sought commodity by European traders
in North America.
- Most of the fur trade in terms of European money
was in textiles.
- Wow. - You look a little cold.
- Yeah, you know what?
- I could tell.
- We were just talking about how I needed new clothes.
- Well, we have something for you.
- Great.
- Ooh.
- A blanket coat called a capote.
Would you like to try it? - Taylor: Yes.
Oh, this is very heavy material.
- It's a blanket.
- Taylor: Ooh.
- I kind of like that blanket that doubles as a coat.
- Oh, and it has a hood.
- You've seen these kind of coats occasionally.
You just cut up a blanket.
You line up the stripes the right way,
and make a coat out of it.
- How do I look? - Kacie: Girl, I love it!
- It looks much better than what I had, right?
- Yeah, and now we'll give you a good price.
Let's say five beaver, you can have the whole coat.
- And where did the glass beads come from?
- Well, they come from Europe.
Now, the Native people were used to making beads
of bone, stone, teeth, and shell,
but these are glass beads, and they shimmer in the sunlight.
- I like that.
- And they're new and they're different, and therefore
they are fashionable.
- All human beings everywhere in the world like to look fancy.
- I can agree with that. - Yeah. [both laugh]
- Did the women need the beads?
Not any more or less than the men, but that's fancy.
- Kacie: Yeah. - It became an exchange
also of the culture.
Occasionally, they would stay in the village.
Among the French fur traders, there were many families
where a ceremony was performed,
which resulted in the couple being married.
Many of the voyageurs, rather than going back to Montreal,
would stay in the villages.
And their children were called Métis,
which is the French word for half.
The term "métis" refers to the ethnicity and culture
that developed around the children of European traders
and Indigenous women.
Métis people used elements from both their parents' cultures,
like parts of their different languages.
They also adopted new cultural elements for themselves,
like a type of woven belt called a ceinture fléchée
that reflected their fur-trading roots.
Métis people became a key part of the North American fur trade.
They supplied trading posts with goods, provided food
like pemmican, a type of dried beef to travelers,
and worked as clerks for trading companies,
among other types of labor.
Despite their rich history and traditions,
Métis people have struggled for official recognition.
The Canadian government didn't recognize them
as an Aboriginal group until 1982,
and the U.S. still doesn't recognize them.
Well, I don't have anything to trade you for,
so I think I'm gonna have to give the coat back.
- Well, but do come back sometime
with some beaver, or marten, or otter.
- This has been really cool, but we need to get back
to the 21st century.
- Yeah. - Back?
It is the 21st century. - What?
I thought this was the 1790s.
- No, no, we're in a park in Madison, Wisconsin.
And we two are historians who,
our hobby is reenacting the history.
- Oh! - Oh!
That makes a lot more sense.
- Wow, I guess your closet wasn't a time-traveling closet.
- Well, I'm kind of bummed about that.
- Wait, why do you reenact the history?
- Paul Rogovich: Well, for a few reasons.
Number one, we're passionately interested in this time
and place in the fur trade.
And you learn by doing.
We learn the crafts,
we learn how to make the right clothes,
and we just have a very good time with it.
- Dale Rogovich: The right food.
- The best part is that we meet the most wonderful people,
the people who come visit us,
and also the people who participate in these things.
As you know, curious people are the most interesting people.
- Oh, I don't know, Kacie.
I think I do like my clothes just fine.
- Yeah, but how many closets can take you to the fur trade era?
The North American fur trade played a major role
in the history of European and Native interactions.
This trade of goods led to exploration,
political alliances, new cultures, and more.
Unfortunately, what started out as a more even exchange
between Europeans and Indigenous people
would eventually devastate Native populations,
as more and more settlers took their lands
and erased their presence.
As important as furs were, other goods and materials
have also been crucial for shaping the history
of the Great Lakes area and Wisconsin.
See if you can find out what else was traded and exchanged
in the region, both by Native peoples before Europeans arrived
and in the centuries since then.
Doing so is a reminder that the movement of goods and peoples
is as old as humanity itself.
- Each of the partners of the trade thought
that they were getting the better deal.
These people, who wanted nothing
but the animals running around in the forest,
brought colored beads, images of the flowers that we live with,
and the plants and the trees.