The early modern world -- the time that follows the Middle Ages, from the late fifteenth century to the early nineteenth century -- has long been recognized as a period when nations, taking advantage of maritime improvements, established new links around the world, sustained contacts with previously isolated populations, intensively exploited natural resources, and established trade routes, consolidating the start of a true global economy. The exceptional circulation of people and ethos that marked this era was driven by an equally never before seen circulation of goods that connected the world through production, commerce, and consumption and also transformed the landscape and the native peoples of previously secluded areas. The success of these large scale enterprises, carried out by early modern states in Europe, Asia, and colonial states in the Americas and Africa, rested mostly on the power of the states, which sought to maximize profits on the far off lands under their control. The historiography of this early global age is, therefore, one that has dealt largely with broad trends of maritime mobility, conquest, frontiers settlements, large scale trade, intensified land use and extraction of previously unused and often unknown natural resources, as well as decimation of native populations by epidemics. The sable, the beaver, and the deer became main actors in the development of this global era.
All the regions presented by John F. Richards in his book The Unending Frontier (2005) share several similar trends in their environmental history. However, the hunt for and trade of fur and skin in Siberia, Eastern North America, and Taiwan during the early modern age share some startling similarities. By the 1500s these three regions remained open to exploration, conquest, and exploitation. They retained a very rich fauna and flora, which, during the next three hundred years, were intensively exploited by private and public undertakings.
In the late sixteenth century the Russian state along with private groups of fur trappers and traders started to explore Siberia. The Russian killing power was much superior to what the native Siberians could endure. Once conquered the natives had to obey the tsar’s authority and deliver a specified number of furs and pelts as payment of annual taxes established by the Russian state. The further the Russians went, the more they conquered and submitted the natives to their ruling power. The lure of more and more furs, especially sable’s, pushed the Russian frontiersmen eastward with their banner of conquest and domination. The native Siberians slowly but surely had to swear oath to the Russian authority. Effective resistance to the Russians was impossible since the native groups lacked centralizing state structures and organization power. Had the indigenous peoples of Siberia been more and better organized, perhaps it would have taken longer for them to be conquered. These native populations were also weakened by diseases that were foreign to them, such as smallpox, measles, and venereal diseases. Besides the epidemics, the natives were hit hard by alcoholism, which contributed to the breaking of their social fabric. Also, Russian brutality took a hard too on them. The Russian expansion over Siberia, besides bringing about the depletion of the sable population and other furbearers, destroyed the Siberian communities, turning the natives that had not been killed by the epidemics, very dependent on the Russian settlers.
Unfortunately, a similar story of conquest is that of Eastern North America. As Richards (2005, 463) explains, “Much of the early impetus for maritime travel to North America came from the profits to be made from hunting, killing, processing, and shipping animal skins back to Europe.” The North American beaver, much like the sable in Siberia, became the most valuable furbearer of the New World and for three hundred years demand for beaver hats in Europe propelled the hunting of this most industrious rodent, known for helping shape the landscape of North America through its constructions of dams.
Despite the fact that the French, the British, and the Dutch in North America were not as brutal to the natives as the Russians were in Siberia and did not demand any tax payment from them, the fur trade enterprise of North America shared several common trends with the settlement of Siberia, brought forward by the hunt for fur in that region. First, similar to the sable’s fate in Siberia, the demands established by the fur trade in North America depleted the beaver population to near extinction in the North, which had a profound impact on the landscape. It also depleted the deer herds in the South. Second, the contagious diseases brought to the New World by the Europeans killed thousands of indigenous people and weakened many more. The introduction of tobacco and alcohol also helped to weaken and demoralize Indian societies, tearing apart their social fabric, in a pattern similar to that found among the native populations of Siberia. Alcohol also caused depression among the Indians, making them even more vulnerable to the European advances. The cultural and social devastation suffered by the North American Indians was nearly identical to that faced by the native Siberians. While the native Siberians developed a need for bread, became addicted to alcohol and tobacco, and relied on firearms introduced by the Russians, the North American Indians developed a need for muskets, balls, powder, kettles, knives, hatches, needles, scissors, pipes, and other goods as well as a taste for tobacco, rum and brandy. The North American fur trade redefined Native American’s relationships with the wildlife, the forest, and their spiritual world. It made them more and more dependent on Europeans and their goods and also less able to resist invasion of their lands. In addition, dissemination of firearms brought much deadliness to the Indian population. Similar to the plight of the native Siberians, the advancing European settlement frontier set the final blow to most Indian groups in North American.
On the other side of the globe, in Asia, set the isolated island of Taiwan, off the China coast, which during the sixteenth century was covered with thick vegetation and was sparsely populated by native Taiwanese descendents of Neolithic Austronesian settlers, who had migrated to the island from China as early as 4,000 B.C.E. After much effort, in 1624 the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was able to monopolize the profitable trade in that region and establish Fort Zeelandia in Taiwan in order take control of the native Taiwanese and the island’s resources. Richards (2005, 95) explains that “where strong, confident regimes were in place […] VOC representatives became humble traders content to petition for whatever privileges they could obtain.” This was certainly not the case in Taiwan since the island was so sparsely populated and its native peoples not well organized, much like the Siberians in the Northern hemisphere. Thus, within only twenty years the Dutch were ruling most of Taiwan and running a very intensive business of deerskins, which were exported to Japan in great numbers as well as to other parts of the world. Even though the Taiwanese aborigines felt a heavy impact from the Dutch colonial policies, they were not struck by contagious diseases like the native Siberians and North Americans were, perhaps due to their previous contact to other foreign people. In a pattern similar to that found in Siberia and North America, the new rulers of Taiwan tried very hard to destroy the aborigine’s social fabric by introducing Christianity to them, challenging the spiritual authority of Taiwanese female shamans and chastising idol worshipers, for instance. Besides interfering with their original belief system, the Dutch also changed Taiwanese horticulture and established tax collection. In 1661 the Chinese took over Taiwan and started ruling over the island, putting even more pressure on the native Taiwanese to sell deerskins. By the mid-1700s the aboriginal culture had been severely damaged. The Chinese had overhunted the deer population and inflicted much destruction on their habitat. In less than two hundred years the vast deer herds of the early seventeenth century had been totally wiped out and the indigenous peoples of Taiwan that had not assimilated Chinese culture had to move out of their original environment upwards to the mountains.
The sable, the beaver, and the deer may have seemed unlikely actors in the development of trade in the early modern age, but as new links around the world were established and a global economy emerged, these animals became important components of the world’s economic and geographic expansion. The fur and skin trade, which centered, in large part, on these three animals, became a mechanism by which Europeans and Asians advanced into and settled new frontiers. Much like other natural resources exploited during the early modern age, these animals played a very important role in the expansion of territory and global trade. Unfortunately, they were the epicenter of much destruction of native populations and natural habitats.
--
Neda Bezerra
Geographically-Integrated History Laboratory
Historical Resources Management
Idaho State University
Pocatello, ID.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment