EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

                ABSTRACTS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY
                     (c) 2001 EH.Net
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Name:  Ann M. Carlos
Email:  ann.carlos at colorado.edu
Institution:  University of Colorado

Co-author:  Frank D. Lewis
lewisf at qed.econ.queensu.ca
Queen's University

Title:  Trade, Consumption, and the Native Economy: Lessons from York
Factory, Hudson Bay

Internet Address of abstracted work:  not available

By mail:
Department of Economics
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0256

Language:  English

Abstract:
Like Europeans and colonists, eighteenth-century Native Americans 
were purchasing a greatly expanded variety of goods. As fur prices 
rose from 1716 to 1770, there was a shift in expenditures from 
producer and household goods to tobacco, alcohol, and other luxuries 
by Indians who traded furs at the Hudson's Bay Company's York Factory 
post. A consumer behavior model, using company accounts, shows that 
Indians bought more European goods in response to higher fur prices 
and, perhaps more importantly, increased their effort in the fur 
trade. These findings contradict much that has been written about 
Indians as producers and consumers.

Bibliography: Carlos, Ann and Frank D. Lewis. "Trade, Consumption, 
and the Native Economy: Lessons from York Factory, Hudson Bay." The 
Journal of Economic History, Vol. 61, No. 4 (December 2001): 
1037-1064.

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

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