Pemmican Empire: Food, Trade, and the Last Bison Hunts in the North American Plains, 1780–1882In 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 also 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, George 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. |
Contents
Changing Food Energy Regimes in the Northern | 19 |
The Pemmican Bioregion 17901810 | 58 |
Food Fights and Pemmican Wars 17901816 | 100 |
Selling Bison Flesh in the British Market after 1821 | 148 |
Commercial War Zones in the Bison Commons 18351850 | 189 |
Ending the Pemmican Era | 219 |
Conclusion | 260 |
Fur Trade Food Glossary | 267 |
281 | |
299 | |
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Pemmican Empire: Food, Trade, and the Last Bison Hunts in the North American ... George Colpitts No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
Alexander Henry American animals areas arrived Assiniboine and Cree Athabasca bags of pemmican beaver bison herds bison hunt bison meat Blackfoot Brandon House Journals brigades British buffalo Calgary camps Canada Canadian canoe Carlton colony colony’s company’s cows Cree and Assiniboine Cumberland House dried meat Edmonton Ellice Environmental History Europeans food energy Fort Carlton Fort Edmonton Fort Ellice freemen fur trade George Simpson grease HBC’s HBCA Henry the Younger horses HouseJournals Hudson’s Bay Company Ibid Indian Isaac Cowie killed Lake Lake Winnipeg M’Gillivray Macdonell Manitoba market hunting marrow McKay meat and fat Métis Missouri Montreal Nor’Wester numbers Ojibwa parkland Pembina pemmican pemmican trade Piikani Plains Cree Portage post’s pounded meat prairie production provisions trade purchased Qu’Appelle quantities Red River region returned robes Rupert’s Land Saskatchewan season Selkirk Selkirk Papers settlement Sioux steppe subarctic summer hunt supply surpluses tallow territories voyageurs West Western Winnipeg winter women