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Reviews
WHEN SKINS WERE MONEY: A HISTORY OF THE FUR TRADE
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by James A. Hanson
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| Museum of the Fur Trade, Chadron, Nebraska, 2005. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. 228 pages. $34.95 cloth, $24.95 paper. |
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| FROM THE OUTSET, James A. Hanson writes as though on a mission to set the record straight and to purge fur-trade history of what he believes are myths and criticisms that have maligned it. In his introduction, Hanson identifies the culprits as academics from past generations, such as W. J. Eccles, who blame fur traders for the degradation of aboriginal culture as well as modern anthropologists and historians more interested in "political correctness" than in recognizing the reality of fur traders' experiences. Hanson's real target, however, becomes evident in the epilogue, where he assails PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and similar organizations. In characterizing the ideology of PETA and the animal rights movement, Hanson attributes to them extreme positions, such as arguing that the lives of rats and humans are of equal value and "the practice of bestiality is acceptable if the animal is not physically injured" (p. 191). |
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He then assumes the perspective of the International Fur Trade Federation as his own and presents what he considers a reasoned antidote to the fanaticism of PETA and its ecoterrorist cohorts such as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). In short, When Skins were Money is a polemical treatise packaged as a popular history of the fur trade. |
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Having said this, it must be candidly stated that James Hanson is a capable and colorful writer. According to information provided on the back cover, he has written fifteen books, serves as editor of the Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly, and has held appointments with the Smithsonian Institution and the Nebraska State Historical Society. His knowledge of the North American fur trade is broad. In between introduction and epilogue are twenty-one chapters covering his understanding of the fur trade from aboriginal pre-contact trading patterns to modern fur farms. There are few who would have the knowledge or the presumption to cover such a broad range of topics under a single cover. Each chapter, headed by usually appropriate epigraphs, is relatively short and written in an engaging, easy-to-read style. Most chapters are preceded by maps intended to augment the text. While he presents no original research of his own, Hanson identifies over two thousand books and three thousand articles that deal in some way with the fur trade. Among these, he has selected three for each chapter as suggested further reading. His selections include a mixture of old and new scholarship as well as popular and scholarly writers. Graced with 128 illustrations, many in color, the book's esthetics will encourage the curious to at least thumb through its contents. |
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To write the complete history of the fur trade in 196 pages, including the introduction and epilogue, requires considerable ambition and a sharp editorial knife. Not everything can be covered. That which he included would have been more creditable, however, if it were not so liberally sprinkled with exaggeration and error. The maps are a case in point. It cannot be expected they would attain a high level of cartographic precision in such a book at this, but many of Hanson's maps do not meet even the minimum standards one would expect. There are too many errors to cite them all in this review but some of the most egregious are found on the map preceding Chapter 15 where some rivers are misnamed, others flow uphill or in the wrong direction, and Native people are misplaced (p.132). |
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The author would dispel a number of myths he believes critics hold regarding the fur trade, yet perpetuates a number himself. Chief among these is the myth that David Thompson lost a "race" with the Astorians to reach the mouth of the Columbia River (pp. 74, 136–7). Among other errors, Hanson confused the tale of Peter Pond's manuscripts fueling a kitchen stove with David Thompson (p. 75). Because William McGillivray received his share in McTavish Frobisher and Company before Alexander Mackenzie, the latter could not possibly have quit the firm when McGillivray became a partner, as Hanson states (p.75). The North West Company did not organize a brigade system to compete with American mountain men along the Columbia and Snake, as Hanson insists, because no mountain men were there (p. 79). Mysteriously, Hanson asserts that the Spanish governor of Louisiana, Baron Carondelet, established three forts in the Pacific Northwest and seized British shipping precipitating an international crisis, perhaps confusing Carondelet with Antonio Valdés and the seizure of British shipping with the Nootka crisis of 1790 (p.108). Other misstatements abound. Any one of these inaccuracies may be inconsequential in itself but the cumulative effect of so many is to render the whole of questionable reliability. |
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When Skins Were Money will appeal to those who see the study of fur-trade history as somehow connected to defending the modern fur industry. Most academics, I suspect, will find little of value in the book. The author states: "The purpose of the Museum of the Fur Trade [publishers of the book] ... is to provide scholarly information in a popular style and format for the education and enjoyment of the interested public" (p. 9). When Skins Were Money falls short of the mark. |
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| LLOYD KEITH
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| Arlington, Washington |
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