"In 1609, when Henry Hudson sailed the Halve Maen up what would become his namesake river, the beaver was likely the most ubiquitous mammal in North America, with a range that spanned from the arctic tundra to the Mexican desert"............. "Some estimate the continent’s beaver population at the time to have reached 400 million; others place the figure at 1.2 billion"..................."Indians had been killing the beaver for thousands of years before Hudson’s arrival"............. "They roasted it whole for food, skinned it to fashion coats, mittens, and moccasins abd carved its teeth into dice".............. "But the rates at which they killed it were sustainable".............. “Precolonial trade, the environmental historian William Cronon has written, enforced an unintentional conservation of animal populations, a conservation which was less the result of enlightened ecological sensibility than of the Indians’ limited social definition of ‘need".............."This approach changed in the colonial era, as the popularity of the felt hat among European men made fur for North American Indians, in the words of another historian, too valuable to wear"............"The most durable felt hats were constructed from beaver felt, itself the product of compressing shorn beaver fur until it forms a tightly interwoven fabric"............... "A seventeenth-century hatter could charge up to four pounds for a high-end beaver hat, or roughly as much as a low-skilled worker earned in three months (though the hats were bought mainly by the rich)"................ "Originally, European felt-makers sourced their beaver continentally, especially from Russia".............. "But as the European beaver, Castor fiber, nearly disappeared over the seventeenth century, its North American cousin, Castor Canadensis, assumed its place in the supply chain"..............."In the 1650's some 80,000 beaver pelts were exported annually from New Netherland(Dutch controlled New York City)"...................... "In 1686 British contolled New York City exported 30,000 pelts while in the following year, partly due to an Iroquois-French war, exports were down to 12,000 pelts"....................... "From June 1699 - June 1700 exports were not much better at slightly over 15,000 pelts"............... "It has been observed this decline was not a result of King William's War but rather was due to a decrease in the available beaver population"...............In just a 50 year period, New England and the Mid Atlantic region of what was to become the USA was effectively "trapped out" of Beaver..............A pre-cursor of what was ahead over the 150 year span(1650-1800) for virtually all our large native animals(e.g. Wolves, Black Bears, Elk, Deer, Caribou) east of the Mississippi

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Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America

Hudson River Valley Institute
Marist College 3399 North Road Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-1387
Phone: 845-575-3052 • Fax: 845-575-3176 • Email: hrvi@marist.edu



Money Substitutes in New Netherland and Early New York: The Beaver Pelt

Reference
Oliver A. Rink, Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York, Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1986; Dennis J. Maika, Commerce and Community: Manhattan Merchants in the Seventeenth Century, Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1995; John Franklin Jameson,Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664, New York: Scribner, 1909

On September 23, 1626 the first supply of pelts to be shipped to the West India Company headquarters left New Amsterdam on the ship Wapen van Amsterdam (the Arms of Amsterdam). The main cargo consisted of 7,246 beaver pelts; 853.5 otter pelts; 48 mink pelts, 36 wildcat pelts and 34 rat pelts (O'Callaghan, vol. 1, p. 37). Numerous ships followed her route. By the early 1630's New Netherland yielded between 10,000 and 15,000 pelts annually. This number continued to grow so that by the mid 1640's and through the 1650's the annual yields were in the range of 80,000 pelts. For the year 1657 the total number of furs shipped from the single village of Beverwick, at Fort Orange, to New Amsterdam amounted to 40,000 pelts

 In the 1650's some 80,000 beaver pelts were exported annually from New Netherland. In 1686 New York exported 30,000 pelts while in the following year, partly due to an Iroquois-French war, exports were down to 12,000 pelts. From June 1699 - June 1700 exports were not much better at slightly over 15,000 pelts. It has been observed this decline was not a result of King William's War but rather was due to a decrease in the available beaver population