The Fur Trade Revisited is a collection of twenty-eight essays selected from the more than fifty presentations made at the Sixth North American Fur Trade Conference held on Mackinac Island, Michigan, in the fall of 1991. Essays contained in this important new interpretive work focus on the history, archaeology, and literature of a fascinating, growing area of scholarly investigation. Underscoring the work's multifaceted approach is an introductory essay by Lily McAuley titled "Memories of a Trapper's Daughter." This vivid and compelling account of the fur-trade life sets a level of quality for what follows. Part one of The Fur Trade Revisited discusses eighteenth-century fur trade intersections with European markets. The essays in part two examine Native people and the strategies they employed to meet demands placed on them by the market for furs. Part three examines the origins, motives, and careers of those who actually participated in the fur trade. Part four focuses attention on the indigenous fur-trade culture and subsequent archaeology in the area around Mackinac Island, Michigan, while part five contains studies focusing on the fur-trade culture in other parts of North America. Part six assesses the fur trade after 1870 and part seven contains evaluations of the critical historical and literary interpretations prevalent in fur-trade scholarship.

Jennifer S.H. Brown is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Peoples in an Urban and Regional Context, and Director of the Centre for Rupert’s Land Studies, University of Winnipeg.

• Contents 
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Memories of a Trapper's Daughter: Banquet Address of the Sixth North American Fur Trade Conference
• McAuley, Lily
• Part I 
• Transatlantic Fur Trade Markets and Entrepreneurs
• Exchange Patterns in the European Market for North American Furs and Skins, 1720-1760
• Wien, Thomas
• British Capital in the Fur Trade: John Strettell and John Fraser
• Duckworth, Harry W.
• Part II 
• Native People and Changing Trade Relations
• Articulation of the Lakota Mode of Production and the Euro-American Fur Trade
• Pickering, Kathleen
• French and Spanish Colonial Trade Policies and the Fur Trade among the Caddoan Indians of the Trans-Mississippi South
• Perttula, Timothy K.
• The Flow of European Trade Goods into the Western Great Lakes Region, 1715-1760
• Anderson, Dean L.
• “No less than 7 different nations”: Ethnicity and Culture Contact at Fort George-Buckingham House
• Gullason, Lynda
• Looking at the Ledgers: Sauk and Mesquakie Trade Debts, 1820-1840
• Kurtz, Royce
• “Half-Breed” Rolls and Fur Trade Families in the Great Lakes Region—An Introduction and Bibliography
• Hansen, James L.
• Part III 
• Becoming a Trader: Origins, Lives, and Survival
• The Career of Joseph La France, Coureur de Bois in the Upper Great Lakes
• Tanner, Helen Hornbeck
• The Cadottes: Five Generations of Fur Traders on Lake Superior
• Schenck, Theresa M.
• The Fear of Pillaging: Economic Folktales of the Great Lakes Fur Trade
• White, Bruce M.
• Roots in the Mohawk Valley: Sir William Johnson's Legacy in the North West Company
• Devine, Heather
• Faithful Service under Different Flags: A Socioeconomic Profile of the Columbia District, Hudson's Bay Company and the Upper Missouri Outfit, American Fur Company, 1825-1835
• Swagerty, William R.
• Wilson, Dick A.
• Failure on the Columbia: Nathaniel Wyeth's Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company
• Cole, Bradford R.
• Part IV 
• The Fur Trade at Mackinac
• The Michilimackinac Misfortunes of Commissary Roberts
• Marshall, Peter
• Effects of the American Revolution on Fur-Trade Society at Michilimackinac
• Widder, Keith R.
• Apprentice Trader: Henry H. Sibley and American Fur at Mackinac
• Gilman, Rhoda R.
• Crucifixes and Medallions from Michilimackinac
• Rinehart, Charles J.
• Part V 
• Archaeology and Material Culture
• A Newly-Discovered Trade Gun Type
• Duncan, James R.
• When Rivers Were Roads: Deciphering the Role of Canoe Portages in the Western Lake Superior Fur Trade
• Birk, Douglas A.
• Origins of Fort Union: Archaeology and History
• Hunt, Jr., William J.
• Part VI 
• Into the Twentieth Century
• The Hudson's Bay Company in Southwestern Alberta, 1874-1905
• Klassen, Henry C.
• Creating Corporate Images of the Fur Trade: The Hudson's Bay Company and Public Relations in the 1930s
• Geller, Peter
• Capt. Thierry Mallet: Adventurer, Businessman, Writer
• Hoyle, Gwyneth
• Part VII 
• Fur Trade Literature and Interpretation: Issues and Problems
• Long's Voyages and Travels: Fact and Fiction
• Blanar, Michael
• The H.B.C.'s Arctic Expedition 1836-1839: Dease's Field Notes as Compared to Simpson's Narrative
• MacLaren, I. S.
• Fur Trade Social History and the Public Historian: Some Other Recent Trends
• Payne, Michael
• About the Authors and Editors
• Index