European University Institute Library

Pemmican empire, food, trade, and the last bison hunts in the North American plains, 1780-1882, George Colpitts, University of Calgary

eng

index present

non fiction

Pemmican empire

electronic resource

dictionaries

1097156052

George Colpitts, University of Calgary

Studies in environment and historyCambridge Social Sciences eBooks

food, trade, and the last bison hunts in the North American plains, 1780-1882

In the British territories of the North American Great Plains, food figured as a key trading commodity after 1780, when British and Canadian fur companies purchased ever-larger quantities of bison meats and fats (pemmican) from plains hunters to support their commercial expansion across the continent. Pemmican Empire traces the history of the unsustainable food-market hunt on the plains, which, once established, created distinctive trade relations between the newcomers and the native peoples. It resulted in the near annihilation of the Canadian bison herds north of the Missouri River. Drawing on fur company records and a broad range of Native American history accounts, Colpitts offers new perspectives on the market economy of the western prairie that was established during this time, one that created asymmetric power among traders and informed the bioregional history of the West where the North American bison became a food commodity hunted to nearly the last animal.--, Provided by publisher

Changing food energy regimes in the northern fur trade, 1760-1790 -- The pemmican bioregion, 1790-1810 -- Food fights and pemmican wars, 1790-1816 -- Selling bison flesh in the British market after 1821 -- Commercial war zones in the bison commons, 1835-1850 -- Ending the pemmican era