Fort Vancouver – Indian Trade Shop and Dispensary
2012.09.29
Next to the Blacksmith Shop was the Indian Trade Shop and Dispensary.
Chinook Jargon
Although the Hudson’s Bay Company was a British venture, most of the Euro-American employees spoke Canadian French. For trade and other communication with native tribes, they used Chinook Jargon. The earliest form of this language probably developed before European exploration, combining words from Chinook, Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Salish, and other native tongues. In time, English and French words were added or modified. Mixed-race (métis) children in the region often learned this as their primary language. A creolized form known as Tsinuk wawa survives to some degree on the Grand Ronde Reservation; efforts have been made to preserve and re-introduce it.
Made Beavers
Trade with the natives operated on a barter system. Practically, this extended to white fur trappers and settlers as well, due to a lack of coinage in such a remote place, but they were also offered store credit.
This barter system was centered around what was known as a “made beaver”, a large beaver skin that had been cleaned and stretched. Everything the natives brought in, and everything offered in return, was apportioned by how many made beavers (or fraction thereof) they were worth. The relative value varied in different regions, and changed over time. In 1830, Chief Factor McLoughlin wrote to the London directors “we can never bring the Indians to the old prices, of five Beaver for one Blanket, and I do not know if ever we will be able to increase the present price of one Large Beaver for a Blanket.”
Items available for trade to the natives included flintlock muskets, blankets, bolts of various types of cloth, finished European-style shirts and trousers, tobacco, glass beads, sewing needles and thimbles, fishhooks, and small bells.
The re-enactor in the Indian Trade Shop was entertaining and informative. As he demonstrated, the flintlock musket gave rise to phrases such as owning something “lock, stock and barrel” and “going off half-cocked”.
F.V. Blacksmith Shop