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113-583: In the North American fur trade , by 1700, wool blankets accounted for more than 60 per cent of traded goods. French fur trader Germain Maugenest is thought to have advised the HBC to introduce point blankets. Originally point blankets had a single stripe across each end, usually in blue or red. In the mid-1800s blankets began to be produced with a green stripe, red stripe, yellow stripe and indigo stripe on

226-635: A blanket ranged widely by time and location, regardless of its size. Thickness and quality are the same blanket to blanket, and a larger blanket will naturally weigh more. In 1811, at Fort St. Joseph there was a shortage of greatcoats for the King's soldiers. The date was November 20, 1811, and British Army Captain Charles Roberts , wrote a letter to Captain Evans, Adjutant General in Quebec , making

339-519: A ceremony was held to thank the bear for "giving" up its life to them. One study of the Ojibwe women who married French fur traders maintained that the majority of the brides were "exceptional" women with "unusual ambitions, influenced by dreams and visions—like the women who become hunters, traders, healers and warriors in Ruth Landes 's account of Ojibwe women". Out of these relationships emerged

452-529: A fee), performed menial tasks such as cleaning, managing the fires to heat the pressing-irons, running errands, and matching fabric and trims. Apprentices were also taught the " tailor's posture ", to sit cross-legged on a raised board or bench while they sewed. A tailoring establishment then generally consisted of a well-appointed room in which the master would measure customers. Cutting, sewing, buttonholes, and finishing work were performed in adjoining rooms. In England, there were many negative associations with

565-563: A fierce rivalry grow between France and Great Britain as each European power struggled to expand their fur-trading territories. The two imperial powers and their native allies competed in conflicts that culminated in the French and Indian War , a part of the Seven Years' War in Europe. The 1659–1660 voyage of French traders Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers into

678-477: A gap between demand and supply and to a higher equilibrium in terms of supply. Data from the trading posts show that the supply of beavers from the Aboriginals was price-elastic and therefore traders responded with increased harvests as prices rose. The harvests were further increased due to the fact that no tribe had an absolute monopoly near any trade and most of them were competing against each other to derive

791-543: A growing trade in the French and later British territories in the 17th century. The transition from a seasonal coastal trade into a permanent interior fur trade was formally marked with the foundation of Quebec on the Saint Lawrence River in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain , officially establishing the settlement of New France . This settlement marked the beginning of the westward movement of French traders from

904-453: A hunt should occur, particularly prohibitions against needless killing of deer. There are specific taboos against taking the skins of unhealthy deer. But the arrival of the lucrative, European deerskin trade prompted some hunters to abandon tradition and act past the point of restraint they had operated under before. The hunting economy collapsed because of the scarcity of deer as they were over-hunted and lost their lands to white settlers. As

1017-674: A master's workshop than those who took in piecework in their own home. Tasks grew more specialized; by the end of the century, one individual might focus solely on collars and sleeves. The trade was one of the first in England to exhibit labor disputes, with tailors frequently on strike against lengthy working hours, low wages, and the use of laborers outside the workshop such as women and children. The strikes generally failed; some participants were imprisoned or transported to America or Australia. The unrest eventually influenced Parliament to establish rules for wages, hours, and working conditions in

1130-400: A new supply of Hudson's Bay point blankets for the upcoming winter to manufacture more greatcoats. This time Roberts had enlisted the aid of professional tailors and seamstresses to produce the greatcoats. A despatch runner advised that the long length of the greatcoat was impractical for the deep snow drifts when travelling between Mackinaw and Montreal and requested it be replaced by

1243-492: A requisition, written as follows: “All hopes having now ceased of the arrival of the schooner Hunter or any other vessel from Amherstburg with the clothing of the detachment, I am this day obtaining, upon my requisition to the storekeeper of the Indian Department , a consignment of heavy blankets, for the purpose of making them great coats, a measure the severity of the climate strongly demands and one, I trust,

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1356-512: A series of small fortifications, beginning with Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario in 1673. Together with the construction of Le Griffon in 1679, the first full-sized sailing ship on the Great Lakes, the forts opened the upper Great Lakes to French navigation. More native groups learned about European wares and became trading middlemen, most notably the Ottawa . The competitive impact of

1469-465: A series of special, limited-edition blankets in a variety of historic colourways and patterns. It added a 'Special Edition' label with a picture of the sailing vessel Nonsuch and the words 'Celebrating HBC's 350th Anniversary'. The Hudson's Bay blanket is called by different names in First Nations languages. Some examples are: North American fur trade The North American fur trade

1582-663: A significant effect on the social behavior of Native Americans. Under the influence of rum, the younger generation did not obey the elders of the tribe and became involved with more skirmishes with other tribes and white settlers. Rum also disrupted the amount of time the younger generation of males spent on labor. Alcohol was one of the goods provided on credit, and led to a debt trap for many Native Americans. Native Americans did not know how to distill alcohol and thus were driven to trade for it. Native Americans had become dependent on manufactured goods such as guns and domesticated animals, and lost much of their traditional practices. With

1695-786: A sub brand of A.W. Hainsworth & Sons Ltd. Wools from Britain and New Zealand are used in the manufacture of blankets. The official licensee allowed to import Hudson's Bay Blankets into the United States for commercial sale is Woolrich Inc. of Pennsylvania. Four U.S. retailers as of 2012 sell the blankets to consumers: Woolrich, L.L.Bean , Getz's Department Store in Marquette, Michigan , and Johnson Woolen Mills . Genuine point blankets have become very collectible and could fetch prices up to thousands of dollars. The main determinants of value include age, size, colour, pattern rarity and condition. Particularly collectible point blankets are

1808-455: A trade club at which they could procure workmen. Sometimes, a skilled journeyman assigned by the call house would be taken on permanently by the master. Master tailors who failed to comply with laws of wages or hours could lose access to the call houses, and journeymen whose work was reported as poor could be removed from the call book. Many tailors became virtually blind from the extensive hours of stitching by hand with only candelight to illumine

1921-401: A very slow return. The first revenues from fur sales in Europe did not arrive until four or more years after the initial investment. These economic factors concentrated the fur trade in the hands of a few large Montreal merchants who had available capital. This trend expanded in the 18th century and reached its zenith with the great fur-trading companies of the 19th century. Competition between

2034-511: A white background; the four stripe colours were popular and easily produced using good colourfast dyes at that time. In 1798, a mill owner received a purchase order for "30 pair[s] of 3 points to be striped with four colors (red, blue, green, yellow) according to your judgement." to be manufactured in Witney , Oxfordshire, a town famous for its woollen blankets since the Middle Ages. From

2147-666: A woman from one of these kinship networks would make a fur trader into a member of these networks, thereby ensuring that Indians belonging to whatever clan the trader had married into were more likely to deal only with him. Furthermore, the fur traders discovered that the Indians were more likely to share food, especially during the hard months of winter, to those fur traders who were regarded as part of their communities. One fur trader who married an 18-year old Ojibwe girl describes in his diary his "secret satisfaction at being compelled to marry for my safety". The converse of such marriages

2260-510: A wool or camel-hair canvas for the body, a horsehair chest piece for the breast area, and a flannel domette for a more masculine pronounced bulk. The shoulders of the British are more heavily padded. The fabrics used by the British are in the range of 9-13 oz due to the colder climate. This style of cut can be credited to Henry Poole & Co , and H. Huntsman & Sons . The British are also credited in creating their ever-so-popular trademark,

2373-503: Is a lack of critical discussion on other factors such as beaver population dynamics, the number of animals harvested, nature of property rights, prices, role of the English and the French in the matter. The primary effect of increased French competition was that the English raised the prices they paid to the Aboriginals to harvest fur. The result of this was greater incentive for Aboriginals to increase harvests. Increased price will lead to

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2486-555: Is defined by its inner construction. Since Italy lies in southern Europe and has a warm climate, the Italian tailors developed a cut that was light and cooler to coincide with the conditions. What they developed is called the Italian/European cut. This cut is more light, with fabrics ranging from 7-9 oz. This way of doing canvas has a range of 1-2 layers, a linen body canvas, and a light horsehair canvas. The Italian shoulder

2599-417: Is likely that the women were in fact acting with the approval of their menfolk. Henry claims that he had left at once out of the fear of violence from jealous Ojibwe men, but it seemed more likely that he was afraid that his French-Canadian voyageurs might enjoy themselves too much with the Ojibwe women at this one village and would not want to travel further west. American historian Bruce White describes

2712-399: Is more natural, and sometimes has a "shirt sleeve" with a roping head. The cut is also slimmer than the British, with a more casual setting. The tailors credited with these cuts are Brioni and Rubinacci . Bespoke suits created by an Italian tailor are called su misura . The average cost of a su misura suit is between €1,700 and €3,000 , although one might cost more than €5,000 from

2825-593: Is now southern Ontario being bordered on three sides by Lake Ontario , Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay , and it was through Wendake that the Ojibwe and Cree who lived further north traded with the French. In 1649, the Iroquois made a series of raids into Wendake that were intended to destroy the Wendat as a people with thousands of Wendat taken to be adopted by Iroquois families with the rest being killed. The war against

2938-539: Is the (typically) historical commercial trade of furs and other goods in North America , predominantly in the eastern provinces of Canada and the northeastern American colonies (soon-to-be northeastern United States ). The trade was initiated mainly through French, Dutch and English settlers and explorers in collaboration with various First Nations tribes of the region, such as the Wyandot-Huron and

3051-518: The Drape cut , credited to Frederick Scholte who trained the founders of Anderson & Sheppard . An Italian cut suit offers a flattering shape with soft tailoring, aiming for the most attractive appearance for the wearer. A suit jacket in northern Italy will usually have a square shoulder, while in southern Italy, the preference is for a more natural shoulder. Like the British cut, the Italian cut

3164-558: The Métis people whose culture was a fusion of French and Indian elements. Indian men were the trappers who killed the animals for their furs, but normally it was the women who were in charge of the furs that their menfolk had collected, making women into important players in the fur trade. Indian women normally harvested the rice and made the maple sugar that were such important parts of the traders' diets, for which they were usually paid with alcohol. Henry mentions how at one Ojibwe village,

3277-604: The Central Plains . While some historians dispute the claims that the competition was predominantly responsible for over-exploitation of stocks, others have used empirical analysis to emphasize the changing economic incentives for Indigenous hunters and role of the Europeans in the matter. Calvin Martin holds that there was a breakdown of the relationship between man and animal among some Indigenous hunters who, adapting to

3390-736: The Compagnie des Cent-Associés went bankrupt, New France was taken over by the French Crown. King Louis XIV wanted his new Crown colony to turn a profit and dispatched the Carignan-Salières Regiment to defend it. In 1666, the Carignan-Salières Regiment made a devastating raid upon Kanienkeh, which led the Five Nations to sue for peace in 1667. The era from roughly 1660 through 1763 saw

3503-533: The Company of Habitants in the 1640s and 1650s, permitting a small group of investors within Canada an initial hold on the monopoly but then quickly pulling back and limiting trading and investment within the colony. While the monopolies dominated the trade, their charters also required payment of annual returns to the national government, military expenditures, and expectations that they would encourage settlement for

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3616-466: The Dakota , who were the enemies of the Ojibwe at the time. Likewise, the fur trader Alexander Henry in visiting an Ojibwe village in what is now Manitoba in 1775 described the "facility with which the women abandoned themselves to my Canadiens " to such an extent that he believed it would cause violence as the Ojibwe men would become jealous, causing him to order his party to leave at once, though it

3729-513: The Dutch Republic established trading posts and forts in various regions of eastern North America, primarily to conduct trade transactions with First Nations and local communities. The trade reached its peak of economic prominence in the 19th century, by which time the entire operation was fueled by seasoned trails, the knowledge and experiences of numerous frontiersmen and the system of elaborate trade networks. The trade soon became one of

3842-525: The High Middle Ages through the establishment of guilds . Tailors' guilds instituted a system of masters , journeymen , and apprentices . Guild members established rules to limit competition and establish quality standards. In 1244, members of the tailor's guild in Bologna established statutes to govern their profession and required anyone working as a tailor to join the guild. In England,

3955-624: The Iroquois ; ultimately, the fur trade's financial and cultural benefits would see the operation quickly expanding coast-to-coast and into more of the continental United States and Alaska . Europeans began their participation in the North American fur trade from the initial period of their colonization of the Americas onward, bringing the financial and material gains of the trade to Europe. European merchants from France , England and

4068-665: The Saint Lawrence River . He concentrated on trading for furs used as trimming and adornment. He overlooked the fur that would become the driving force of the fur trade in the north, the beaver pelt, which would become fashionable in Europe. The earliest European trading for beaver pelts dated to the growing cod fishing industry that spread to the Grand Banks of the North Atlantic in the 16th century. The new preservation technique of drying fish allowed

4181-455: The Statute of Artificers , passed in 1563, included the profession of tailor as one of the trades that could be entered only by serving a term of apprenticeship, typically seven years. A typical tailor shop would have a master, a foreman, several journeymen, and apprentices. The apprentices, often beginning their training as young adolescents and indentured to the master by their parents (for

4294-558: The pays d'en haut . Champlain supported the northern groups in their preexisting military struggle with the Iroquois Confederacy to the south. He secured the Ottawa River route to Georgian Bay , greatly expanding the trade. Champlain also sent young French men to live and work among the natives, most notably Étienne Brûlé , to learn the land, language, and customs, as well as to promote trade. Champlain reformed

4407-438: The rock of eye method of cutting: which is a freehand way of drafting a pattern by trusting your eye and experience rather than focusing on numbers. Instead of using pencil to draft the pattern, the rock of eye typically involves chalk to mark. Just as there are various methods of tailoring, there are also styles that differ regionally. This is due to different climates and cultures in the world, causing "house style" cuts of

4520-486: The "nations of the north" which was attended by Ojibwe, Dakota, and Assiniboine leaders, where it was agreed that the daughters and sons of the various chiefs would marry each other to promote peace and ensure the flow of French goods into the region. The French fur trader Claude-Charles Le Roy writes that the Dakota had decided to make peace with their traditional enemies, the Ojibwe, in order to obtain French goods that

4633-644: The 1620s, the Iroquois had become dependent upon iron implements, which they obtained by trading fur with the Dutch at Fort Nassau (modern Albany, New York ). Between 1624 and 1628, the Iroquois drove out their neighbors, the Mahican, to allow themselves to be the one people in the Hudson river valley able to trade with the Dutch. By 1640, the Five Nations had exhausted the supply of beavers in Kanienkeh ("the land of

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4746-646: The Coronation blankets: the one produced for the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II brings approximately $ 600 if in mint condition while examples of the even rarer 1937 coronation blanket have sold for as high as $ 1300. In 1890, HBC began adding labels to their blankets because point blankets of similar quality were being sold by HBC competitors from such manufacturers as Early's of Witney. Harold Lee Tichenor , point blanket collector and consultant to Hudson's Bay Company, has written two books on point blankets and their collectability. In April 2017, HBC updated

4859-403: The English and the French was disastrous on the beaver population. The status of beavers changed dramatically as it went from being a source of food and clothing for Indigenous peoples to a vital good for exchange with the Europeans. The French were constantly in search of cheaper fur and trying to cut off Indigenous middleman which led them to explore the interior all the way to Lake Winnipeg and

4972-477: The Five Nations once and for all, and to teach them to respect the "grandeur" of France. The repeated French raids took their toll with the Mohawk who could field about 300 warriors in the 1670s to able to field only 170 warriors in the summer of 1691. The Iroquois struck back by making raids into New France with the most successful being a raid on Lachine in 1689 that killed 24 Frenchmen while taking 80 captives, but

5085-434: The French took an ambivalent attitude towards the Iroquois push west. On one hand, having the Five Nations at war with other nations prevented those nations from trading with the English at Albany, while on the other hand, the French did not want the Iroquois to become the only middlemen in the fur trade. But as the Iroquois continued to win against the other nations, they prevented French and Algonquin fur traders from entering

5198-577: The Hudson Bay. Their success led to England's chartering of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670, a major player in the fur trade for the next two centuries. French exploration and expansion westward continued with men such as La Salle and Jacques Marquette exploring and claiming the Great Lakes as well as the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys. To bolster these territorial claims, the French constructed

5311-590: The Hudson's Bay Company competition. At the same time, the English presence in New England grew stronger, while the French were occupied with trying to combat the coureurs de bois and allied Indians from smuggling furs to the English for often higher prices and higher quality goods than they could offer. In 1675, the Iroquois made peace with the Machian while finally defeating the Susquenhannock . In

5424-480: The Hudson's Bay Company show this trend. The English and French had very different trading hierarchical structures. The Hudson's Bay Company had a technical monopoly of the beaver trade within the drainage basin of Hudson Bay while the Compagnie d'Occident was given a monopoly of the beaver trade farther south. The English organized their trade on strictly hierarchical lines while the French used licenses to lease

5537-447: The Iroquois finally made peace with the French in 1667, one of the terms was the French had to hand over all of the Wendat who had fled to New France. The Iroquois had already clashed with the French in 1609, 1610 and 1615, but the "beaver wars" caused a lengthy struggle with the French who had no intention of allowing the Five Nations to set themselves up as the only middlemen in the fur trade. The French did not fare well at first, with

5650-463: The Iroquois inflicting more casualties then they suffered, French settlements frequently cut off, canoes bringing fur to Montreal intercepted, and sometimes the Iroquois blockaded the Saint Lawrence. New France was a proprietary colony run by the Compagnie des Cent-Associés who went bankrupt in 1663 because of the Iroquois attacks which made the fur trade unprofitable for the French. After

5763-503: The Iroquois, who had a predatory attitude towards their neighbors even at the best of times, constantly raiding neighboring peoples in "mourning wars" in search of captives who would become Iroquois, were determined to be the only middlemen between the Europeans and the other Indians who lived in the West, and quite consciously set about eliminating any rivals as such as the Huron (Wendat). By

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5876-534: The Mississippi River valley, and the Ottawa showed signs of finally making an alliance with the Five Nations, in 1684, the French declared war on the Iroquois. Otreouti in an appeal for help correctly noted: "The French will have all the beavers and are angry with us for bringing you any". Starting in 1684, the French repeatedly raided Kanienkeh, burning crops and villages as Louis gave orders to "humble"

5989-498: The Native Americans in debt. Traders would rig the weighing system that determined the value of the deerskins in their favor, cut measurement tools to devalue the deerskin, and would tamper with the manufactured goods to decrease their worth, such as watering down the alcohol they traded. To satisfy the need for deerskins, many males of the tribes abandoned their traditional seasonal roles and became full-time traders. When

6102-570: The North West with Montreal . The old system of native middlemen and coureurs de bois traveling to trade fairs in Montreal or illegally to English markets was replaced by an increasingly complex and labor-intensive trade network. Licensed voyageurs , allied with Montreal merchants, used water routes to reach the far-flung corners of the North West with canoe loads of trade goods. These risky ventures required large initial investments and had

6215-637: The Ojibwe were blocking them from receiving. Le Roy writes the Dakota "could obtain French merchandise only through the agency of the Sauteurs [Ojibwe]" so they made "a treaty of peace by which they were mutually bound to give their daughters in marriage on both sides". Indian marriages usually involved a simple ceremony involving the exchange of valuable gifts from the parents of the bride and groom and, unlike European marriages, could be dissolved at any time by one partner choosing to walk out. The Indians were organized into kinship and clan networks, and marrying

6328-621: The Saint Lawrence heightened the fierce competition between the Iroquois and Huron for access to the rich fur-bearing lands of the Canadian Shield . The competition for hunting is believed to have contributed to the earlier destruction of the Saint Lawrence Iroquoians in the valley by 1600, likely by the Iroquois Mohawk tribe, who were located closest to them, were more powerful than the Huron, and had

6441-404: The Wendat was at least just as much a "mourning war" as a "beaver war" as the Iroquois obsessively raided Wendake for ten years after their great raids of 1649 to take single Wendat back to Kanienkeh, even though they did not possess much in the way of beaver pelts. The Iroquois's population had been devastated by losses because of European diseases like smallpox for they had no immunity, and when

6554-512: The animals' North American populations. The natural ecosystems that came to rely on the beavers for dams , river and water management and other vital needs were also ravaged, leading to ecological destruction , significant environmental change, and even drought in certain areas. Following this degradation, both the river otter and beaver populations in North America would continue to decline, without much noticeable improvement until around

6667-414: The beaver returns from each trading post, biological evidence on beaver population dynamics and contemporary estimates of beaver population densities. While the view that increased competition between the English and the French led to over-exploitation of beaver stocks by the Aboriginals does not receive uncritical support, most believe that Aboriginals were the primary actors in depleting animal stocks. There

6780-484: The business of the trade, creating the first informal trust in 1613 in response to increasing losses because of competition. The trust was later formalized with a royal charter, leading to a series of trade monopolies during the term of New France. The most notable monopoly was the Company of One Hundred Associates based back in France, with a period of attempted transition towards other share trading companies, such as

6893-621: The commander of the forces will not disapprove of when he is informed that not a remnant remains of the coats served out to them in the year 1807 and that they have received none since.” – Captain Charles Roberts Roberts requisitioned HBC 3.5-point blankets from the British Indian Department to manufacture greatcoats for his troops. John Askin Jr. , a Métis and keeper of the King's stores at

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7006-426: The continual supply of European goods to their communities and discourage fur traders from dealing with other Indian tribes. The fur trade did not involve barter in the way that most people presuppose but was a credit/debit relationship when a fur trader would arrive in a community in the summer or fall, hand out goods to the Indians who would pay him back in the spring with the furs from the animals they had killed over

7119-465: The country north and west of Lake Superior symbolically opened this new era of expansion. Their trading voyage proved extremely lucrative in furs. More importantly, they learned of a frozen sea to the north that provided easy access to the fur-bearing interior. Upon their return, French officials confiscated the furs of these unlicensed coureurs des bois . Radisson and Groseilliers went to Boston and then to London to secure funding and two ships to explore

7232-535: The dead Iroquois; thus a cycle of violence and warfare escalated. More significantly, new infectious diseases brought by the French decimated Native communities . Combined with warfare, disease led to the near destruction of the Huron by 1650. During the 1640s and 1650s, the Beaver Wars initiated by the Iroquois forced a massive demographic shift as their western neighbors fled the violence. They sought refuge west and north of Lake Michigan . The Five Nations of

7345-529: The deer populations declined and the government pressured tribes to switch to the European settler's way of life, animal husbandry replaced deer hunting both as an income and in the diet. Rum was first introduced in the early 16th century as a trading item and quickly became an inelastic good . While Native Americans for the most part acted conservatively in trading deals, they consumed a surplus of alcohol. Traders used rum to help form partnerships. Rum had

7458-458: The deerskin trade collapsed, Native Americans found themselves dependent on manufactured goods, and could not return to the old ways because of lost knowledge. It was a common practice on the part of the Indian women to offer marriage and sometimes just sex in exchange for fur traders not trading with their rivals. Radisson describes visiting one Ojibwe village in the spring of 1660 where during

7571-444: The early days of the fur trade, wool blankets were made into hooded coats called capotes by both natives and French Canadian voyageurs , which were well-suited to Canada's cold winters. Points are short black lines woven into the selvage of the blanket along the edge just above the bottom set of stripes. About 4 inches (10 cm) in length (except in the case of half points, which are 2 in [5.1 cm]), they indicate

7684-521: The expansion while centralizing the French efforts. As native peoples had the primary role of suppliers in the fur trade, Champlain quickly created alliances with the Algonquin , Montagnais (who were located in the territory around Tadoussac), and most importantly, the Huron to the west. The latter, an Iroquoian -speaking people, served as middlemen between the French on the Saint Lawrence and nations in

7797-490: The finest tailoring houses. A master tailor can create a suit in approximately 40 hours. The number of tailors in Italy decreases at a rate of 8 percent annually, with fewer than 750 tailors as of 2016. The American cut of tailoring is a mix of the Italian and the British ways. The American cut is more baggy and full, with a natural shoulder that is lightly padded. American tailoring usually involves doing light canvas, where only

7910-452: The finished overall size (area) of a blanket and allow easy determination of the size of a blanket – even when folded. French weavers invented the point system in the mid-1700s since then, as now, blankets were shrunk as part of the manufacturing process. The word point derives from the French empointer , meaning "to make threaded stitches on cloth". Over the centuries the sizes of blankets have shifted, particularly during

8023-642: The first permanent settlement of Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay River on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, up the Saint Lawrence River and into the pays d'en haut (or "upper country") around the Great Lakes . What followed in the first half of the 17th century were strategic moves by both the French and the Indigenous groups to further their own economic and geopolitical ambitions. Champlain led

8136-457: The flint," the Iroquois name for their homeland in what is now upstate New York ), and moreover Kanienkeh lacked the beavers with the thick pelts that the Europeans favored and would pay the best price for, which were to be found further north in what is now northern Canada. The Five Nations launched the "Beaver Wars" to take control of the fur trade from other middlemen who would deal with the Europeans. The Wendat homeland, Wendake, lies in what

8249-545: The fort, hired local women to design and manufacture forty woollen greatcoats. Everyone was in agreement that the newly tailored greatcoats were of superior quality than the British Army standard-issue greatcoats and helped to increase the morale of the King's soldiers. At the beginning of the War of 1812 , Roberts and his men occupied Fort Michilimackinac located at the present-day Mackinaw City, Michigan . Roberts ordered

8362-406: The fur trade also brought profound changes to the Indigenous communities living along the Saint Lawrence. European wares, such as iron axe heads, brass kettles, cloth, and firearms were bought with beaver pelts and other furs. The widespread practice of trading furs for rum and whiskey led to problems associated with inebriation and alcohol abuse. The subsequent destruction of beaver populations along

8475-484: The future, when the Hudson's Bay Company began to commercially sell point blanket coats, the Mackinaw jacket remained popular with their customers. Versions of the blanket are available at Hudson's Bay stores throughout Canada. Solid colours are available, as is the classic pattern featuring the green, red, yellow, and indigo stripes. The blankets have always been made in England; today they are made by John Atkinson,

8588-409: The importance of personal contacts and experience in the fur trade, gave an edge to independent traders over the more bureaucratic monopolies. The newly established English colonies to the south quickly joined the lucrative trade, raiding the Saint Lawrence River valley and capturing and controlling Quebec from 1629 to 1632. While bringing wealth to a few select French traders and the French regime,

8701-413: The label, rotating it from vertical to horizontal, making it easy to display English and French on either side of the crest, which has been enhanced with red on the flag. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canada in 2017, HBC added an additional label to the blanket: a picture of voyageurs in a canoe, with "Canada" printed at the top. On 2 May 2020, HBC celebrated its 350th anniversary. It re-released

8814-688: The late 1670s and early 1680s, the Five Nations started to raid what is now the Midwest , battling the Miami and the Illinois while alternatively fighting against and attempting to make an alliance with the Ottawa. One Onondaga chief, Otreouti, whom the French called La Grande Gueule ("the big mouth"), announced in a speech in 1684 that the wars against the Illinois and Miami were justified because "They came to hunt beavers on our lands ...". Initially,

8927-525: The main economic drivers in North America, attracting competition amongst European nations, whom maintained trade interests in the Americas. The United States sought to remove the substantial British control over the North American fur trade during the first decades of its existence . Many Indigenous peoples would soon come to depend on the fur trade as their primary source of income and method of obtaining European-manufactured goods (such as weaponry, housewares, kitchenwares, and other useful products). However, by

9040-487: The mainly Basque fishermen to fish near the Newfoundland coast and transport fish back to Europe for sale. The fishermen sought suitable harbors with ample lumber to dry large quantities of cod. This generated their earliest contact with local Indigenous peoples, with whom the fisherman began simple trading. The fishermen traded metal items for beaver robes made of sewn-together, native-tanned beaver pelts. They used

9153-418: The maximum benefit from the presence of the English and the French. Additionally, the problem of the commons is also glaringly visible in this matter. Open access to resources leads to no incentive to conserve stocks, and actors which try to conserve lose out compared to the others when it comes to maximizing economic output. Therefore, there appeared to be a lack of concern by tribes of the First Nations about

9266-610: The men only wanted alcohol in exchange for furs while the women demanded a wide variety of European goods in exchange for rice. Tailor A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory , there is evidence of tailor shops in Ancient Greece and Rome , as well as tailoring tools such as irons and shears . The profession of tailor in Europe became formalized in

9379-412: The mid-19th century, changing fashions in Europe brought about a collapse in fur prices and led to the crashing of several fur companies. Many Indigenous (and European) communities that relied on the fur trade were suddenly plunged into poverty and, consequently, lost much of the political influence they once held. The number of beavers and river otters killed during the fur trade was devastating for

9492-455: The mid-twentieth century. French explorer Jacques Cartier in his three voyages into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in the 1530s and 1540s conducted some of the earliest fur trading between European and First Nations peoples associated with 16th century and later explorations in North America. Cartier attempted limited fur trading with the First Nations in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and along

9605-564: The most economical use of the fabric. Alcega illustrated 163 patterns to scale in 23 categories of men's and women's garments. Master tailors used proprietary methods for creating their clothing patterns. Up until approximately 1790, patterns to be used for cutting were considered trade secrets to be exclusively owned by the masters. By the late 18th century, publications that not only printed patterns but also gave directions for cutting and layout were widely available. In addition to patterns and templates, some master tailors and cutters use

9718-543: The most to gain by controlling this part of the valley. Iroquois access to firearms through Dutch and later English traders along the Hudson River increased the casualties in the warfare. This greater bloodshed, previously unseen in Iroquoian warfare, increased the practice of " Mourning Wars ". The Iroquois raided neighboring groups to take captives, who were ceremonially adopted as new family members to replace

9831-460: The new English Hudson's Bay Company trade was felt as early as 1671, with diminished returns for the French and the role of the native middlemen. This new competition directly stimulated French expansion into the North West to win back native customers. What followed was a continual expansion north and west of Lake Superior. The French used diplomatic negotiations with natives to win back trade and an aggressive military policy to temporarily eliminate

9944-403: The new cattle herds roaming the hunting lands, and a greater emphasis on farming due to the invention of the cotton gin , Native Americans struggled to maintain their place in the economy. An inequality gap had appeared in the tribes, as some hunters were more successful than others. Still, the creditors treated an individual's debt as debt of the whole tribe and used several strategies to keep

10057-401: The outside workers for inferior products. Using outside workers also freed masters from the legal constraints that dictated hours and wages. Tailors who worked outside of workshops began to use their wives and family members in manufacturing garments, which increased their production to maximize their incomes. Some tailors would subcontract aspects of the work to laborers. The house of call system

10170-409: The profession of tailoring. Tailors were often called "snips", "bodkins", "thimbles", "shreds", "stiches" [ sic ], and "geese" (referring to the tailor's "goose" or iron). In William Shakespeare 's plays, a tailor was variously called a "thread", a "thimble", and a "rag". By reputation, tailors were generally presumed to drink to excess and to have effeminate tendencies (likely because of

10283-531: The robes to keep warm on the long, cold return voyages across the Atlantic. These castor gras (in French) became prized by European hat makers in the second half of the 16th century, as they converted the pelts to felt . The discovery of the superior felting qualities of beaver fur, along with the rapidly increasing popularity of beaver felt hats in fashion, transformed the incidental trading of fishermen into

10396-409: The settling to a lower level of stable population, further declines were caused by over-harvesting in two of the three English trading posts (Albany and York). The data from the third trading post are also very interesting in that the post did not come under French pressure and was therefore shielded from the kind of over-exploitation of stocks which resulted at the other trading posts. At Fort Churchill,

10509-475: The shorter double-breasted style, which became known as the Mackinaw jacket . At first, the Mackinaw jacket was produced in blue and was later replaced by the more popular red and black tartan pattern. The new design of the Mackinaw jacket was so beneficial for travelling through woods and trails that orders were received from people located from Fort William to Penetanguishene . More than 100 years into

10622-440: The sparsely populated New France. The vast wealth in the fur trade created enforcement problems for the monopoly. Unlicensed independent traders, known as coureurs des bois (or "runners of the woods"), began to do business in the late 17th and early 18th century. Over time, many Métis were drawn to the independent trade; they were the descendants of French trappers and native women. The increasing use of currency , as well as

10735-576: The stocks of beaver adjusted to the maximum sustained yield level. The data from Churchill further reinforce the case of over-exploitation of stocks caused by the French-English competition. Indigenous North American beliefs in the affected region incorporate respect for the environment. Traditionally, many tribes in the region believe in a spiritual relationship between the people and the animals they rely on for food, clothing, and medicines, and many tribes have traditional protocols surrounding how

10848-564: The superior resources of the French state proceeded to grind them down until they finally made peace in 1701 . The settlement of native refugees from the Beaver Wars in the western and northern Great Lakes combined with the decline of the Ottawa middlemen to create vast new markets for French traders. Resurgent Iroquoian warfare in the 1680s also stimulated the fur trade as native French allies bought weapons. The new more distant markets and fierce English competition stifled direct trade from

10961-455: The sustainability of the fur trade. The problem of over-exploitation is not helped by the fact that the efforts by the French to remove the middlemen such as the Huron who increasingly resented their influence meant that stocks were put under more pressure. All these factors contributed to an unsustainable trade pattern in furs which depleted beaver stocks very fast. An empirical study done by Ann M. Carlos and Frank D. Lewis shows that apart from

11074-430: The tailoring industry that led to its decline had occurred several decades before the development of the mechanical sewing machine. Tailoring men's jackets by adding underlayers of padding became fashionable in Europe by the 14th century. Over the years, additional areas were padded to provide an understructure that helped the garment lie neatly on the body. By the 19th century, well-tailored garments were carefully fit to

11187-406: The tailoring industry. Tailors were one of the first trades in England to form a labor union. The British census in 1851 identified 152,672 tailors, more than the entire railway industry at the time, and that number increased throughout the century. By then, living and working conditions of many tailors had deteriorated, but the trade was still the fourth largest of London professions. One factor

11300-588: The trade. The silhouette of a British cut suit is influenced by military tailoring, with a defined waist and shoulders. The target image is that of an upper-class gentleman. The British cut of tailoring can be defined by various ways of inner construction. Since the United Kingdom has a cooler climate than (for example) the Mediterranean, the cut of the British is heavier, and bears a greater military influence. This style of canvassing has 3 layers,

11413-417: The twentieth century as beds became larger. Blankets of 2.5, 3, 3.5 and 4 point were most common during the fur-trade era. Today, Hudson's Bay blankets are commonly found in point sizes of 3.5 ( twin bed ), 4 ( double ), 6 ( queen ) and 8 ( king ). The misconception persists that originally the points were an indication of a blanket's price in beaver pelts or even its weight. The number of pelts required to buy

11526-591: The use of their posts. This meant that the French incentivized the extension of trade, and French traders did indeed infiltrate much of the Great Lakes region. The French established posts on Lake Winnipeg, Lac des Praires and Lake Nipigon which represented a serious threat to flow of furs to the York Factory . The increasing penetration near English ports meant that the Native Americans had more than one place to sell their goods. The simulation of beaver populations around trading posts are done by taking into account

11639-403: The view of sewing as a woman's activity). Tailors were presumed to be physically weak and to have delicate constitutions. It was commonly asserted that their diets consisted of cabbage. In comics, they were portrayed as cuckolds or henpecked husbands. A common saying at the time was "Nine tailors make a man". As with other artisanal trades, tailors relied on the "house of call" or "call houses",

11752-546: The way in which the Ojibwe and the other Indian peoples sought to "use sexual relations as a means of establishing long-term relationships between themselves and people from another society was a rational strategy, one that has been described in many parts of the world". One fur trader who married an Ojibwe woman describes how the Ojibwe would initially shun a fur trader until they could give gauge his honesty and provided he proved himself an honest man, "the chiefs would take together their marriageable girls to his trading house and he

11865-403: The ways of the colonists, hunted to feed global fur markets with little consideration of the possibility of extinction. As competition increased between the English and French in the 16th century, fur also continued to be harvested by Aboriginal tribes, both for their own use and as middleman. All of this combined to cause a severe over-harvesting of beavers. Data from three of the trading posts of

11978-455: The wearer with a more subtly shaped understructure. Even with the advent of modern machines, nearly 75 percent of a custom-tailored suit's stitching is still done by hand. The earliest extant work on cutting by tailors is from Spain in 1580. Juan de Alcega , a Spanish tailor in the 16th century, published Libro de Geometría, practica, y traça ( Book on Geometry, Practice, and Pattern ) which documented methods of laying out patterns to achieve

12091-439: The welcoming ceremony: "The women throw themselves backwards on the ground, thinking to give us tokens of friendship and wellcome [welcome]". Radisson was initially confused by this gesture, but as the women started to engage in more overtly sexual behavior, he realized what was being offered. Radisson was informed by the village elders that he could have sex with any unmarried women in the village provided that he did not trade with

12204-421: The winter; in the interim, further exchanges often involved both Indian men and women. Fur traders found that marrying the daughters of chiefs would ensure the co-operation of an entire community. Marriage alliances were also made between Indian tribes. In September 1679, the French diplomat and soldier Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut , called a peace conference at Fond du Lac (modern Duluth, Minnesota ) of all

12317-420: The work. The call for tailoring peaked in the winter, and tailors were often unemployed for several months over the summer. During the 18th century, the profession began to shift toward large-scale and specialized production. A hierarchy of skills resulted, with the most prestigious level reserved for those who cut the cloth. "Mere sewers" ranked below the "cutters". More respect was given to those who worked in

12430-458: Was abandoned. When the Statute of Artificers was repealed in 1814, it abolished the apprenticeship requirement and so tailors could no longer control admission to the trade. Tailor strikes in 1827 and 1834 were largely motivated by opposition to employing women as outworkers. Unlike other industries, in which technological advances contributed to decline of trades, the changes to the work methods in

12543-418: Was given the choice of the lot". If the fur trader married, the Ojibwe would trade with him as he became part of the community, and if he refused to marry, then the Ojibwe would not trade with him as Ojibwe only traded with a man who "took one of their women for his wife". Virtually all Indian communities encouraged fur traders to take an Indian wife in order to build a long-term relationship that would ensure

12656-407: Was that a fur trader was expected to favor whatever clan/kinship network that he had married into with European goods, and a fur trader who did not would ruin his reputation. The Ojibwe, like other tribes, saw all life in this world being based upon reciprocal relationships, with "gifts" of tobacco left behind when harvesting plants to thank nature for providing the plants, while when a bear was killed,

12769-405: Was the growing availability and popularity of "slops": cheap ready-made clothing. Another was a shift from the vast majority of tailors being engaged in workshops to most working outside the shops of employers. Master tailors who relied on outside workers saved themselves the costs of lighting and heating, as well as some supplies. Rather than pay for foremen to supervise the work, masters would fine

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