AMER.INST: Give Us Good Black Tobacco: Brazilian Tobacco, Consumer Demand and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Hudson's Bay Company's Fur Trade, 1750-1800

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                ABSTRACTS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY
                     (c) 2001 EH.Net
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Name: Linda Wimmer
Email: wimmerl@ssu.southwest.msus.edu
Institution: Southwest State University

Co-author: none

Title: "Give Us Good Black Tobacco": Brazilian Tobacco, Indigenous
Consumer Demand and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Hudson's Bay
Company's Fur Trade, 1750-1800

Internet Address of abstracted work: not available

By mail:
1501 State St.
Marshall, MN 56258

Phone: (507) 537-7108
Fax: (507) 537-6115

Language: English

Abstract:
>From the 1680s, Brazilian tobacco played a prominent role in the
Hudson's Bay Company fur trade. Cree traders rejected Virginia
tobacco, insisting instead on the Brazilian variety introduced
earlier by rival French traders. Indigenous consumer preferences
forced the Company to buy this commodity despite its expense, its
inconvenience to obtain and transport, and its direct competition
with varieties produced within England's own empire. Brazilian
tobacco's integration in the fur trade challenges interpretations
that assume European dominance and indigenous dependence. Using
Hudson's Bay Company records, my paper explores the use of this item
in cross-cultural trade from 1750 to 1800. English factors used
Brazilian tobacco to obtain furs, subsistence goods, services of
guides and hunters, to attract new trading partners to the post, and
to give as gifts preceding trade. Its use in such exchanges made
Brazilian tobacco crucial not only to the fur trade, but also to
establishing its context.

Bibliography: Wimmer, Linda. "'Give Us Good Black Tobacco':
Brazilian Tobacco, Indigenous Consumer Demand and Cross-Cultural
Exchange in the Hudson's Bay Company's Fur Trade, 1750-1800."
Working Paper, Southwest State University, 2001.

Subject: S
Geographical Area: 6
Country/Region: Canada
Time Period: 7

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