The North American fur trade involved acquiring, exchanging, and selling animal furs in North America. Native Americans in the United States and Canada traded among themselves before Europeans arrived and immediately began trading with the newcomers. Indians traded pelts of small animals, such as mink, for knives and other iron-based products or textiles.

The exchange was haphazard at first, and only in the 16th century, when beaver hats became fashionable, did firms form that dealt exclusively in furs. High-quality pelts are available only where winters are severe, so the trade took place predominantly in the regions we now know as Canada. However, some activity took place further South along the Mississippi River and in the Rocky Mountains. Deer skins also formed a market that predominated in the Appalachians.

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 breaking the British stranglehold on 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. The 19th-century North American fur trade, when the industry was at its economic peak, involved the development of elaborate trade networks and companies.

The first firms to participate in the fur trade were French, and under French rule, the trade spread along the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers and down the Mississippi River. In the 17th Century, following the Dutch, the English developed a trade through Albany. Then, in 1670, the British crown granted a charter to the Hudson’s Bay Company, which began operating from posts along the coast of Hudson Bay. For roughly the next 100 years, this northern region saw competition of varying intensity between the French and the English. With the conquest of New France in 1763, the French trade shifted to Scottish merchants operating out of Montreal. After Jay’s Treaty was negotiated in 1794, the northern border was defined, and trade along the Mississippi River was passed to the American Fur Company under John Jacob Astor. In 1821, the northern participants merged under the name Hudson’s Bay Company, and for many decades, the company continued to trade in furs. During this time, several offshoots of larger companies were also established to compete in the profitable business, including the North West Company, the Pacific Fur Company, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and many others.

By the mid-1800s, however, 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 their political influence.

 

©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2026.

Also See:

Fur Trading on the Frontier

Incidents of the Fur Trade

Trading Posts of the Fur Trade

Trappers, Traders & Pathfinders

Sources:

Economic History Association
Wikipedia