Early-Modern Globalization and the Extent of Indigenous Agency: Trade, Commodities, and Ecology

Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP01/2024
 
Publication date: June 2024
 
Author(s):
Ann M Carlos (University of Colorado Boulder United States)
[protected email address] (Department of Economic History, Lund University)
[protected email address] (Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University)
Angela Redish (University of British Columbia Vancouver Canada)
 
Abstract:

This paper examines the responses of Indigenous nations and European companies to new trading opportunities: Cree nations and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), and Khoe nations and the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This case study is important because of the disparate outcomes: within a few decades the Cree standard of living had increased, and Khoe had lost land and cattle. Standard histories begin with the establishment of trading posts but this elides the decades of prior intermittent contact which played an important role in the disparate outcomes in the two regions. The paper emphasizes the significance of Indigenous agency in trade.

 
JEL Classification:

N30, N70, N71, N77, J15, Q57

Keywords:

Indigenous economics, trade, ecology, cross-continental comparison

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