As has been discussed previously, for the Spanish the primary focus of their explorations of the New World was gold and silver. Given the two precious medals were basically the global currency at the time, finding them was the equivalent of discovering a bunch of hundred dollar bills just lying on the ground. As a result, the Spanish really didn’t give two shits about the majority of North America once it was ascertained that no easy to get at sources of gold and silver existed. Aside from some initial expeditions and the occasional coastal raid to enslave hapless Native Americans who decided to visit the beach on the wrong day, the Spanish largely kept out of what we today call the United States and Canada.
The lack of interest by the Spanish created opportunities for other countries, though not initially, given none of the other nations were really interested either in an area with no discernible way to make a quick buck. Initial explorations by England and France in the early sixteenth century largely focused on trying to find the fabled Northwest Passage, and when they failed to do so, the region pretty much got ignored by them for the rest of the century, with two exceptions. The first was the founding of the French colony of Fort Caroline in 1564 in what is today Florida, built specifically to create a supply depot and base of operations for French privateers attacking Spanish shipping. Mysteriously, the Spanish weren’t really down with this and Fort Caroline was destroyed after less than a year. The Spanish then founded the colony of St. Augustine nearby in order to guarantee nobody else would build further forts in Florida. The second was the English pretty much doing the same thing, founding the Roanoke colony in present day North Carolina in 1587 to act as a supply depot for privateers. However, the 120 colonists completely disappeared by 1590, their fate unknown.
Though not a popular destination for permanent settlement, throughout the second half of the sixteenth century the cod rich Grand Banks region south of Newfoundland was a popular spot visited by English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish fisherman. When the boats were full, the fisherman would find a safe harbor along the American coast where they would dry the fish prior to returning home, you know, to avoid spoilage. When doing this, they would often trade with the local natives, mostly exchanging metal tools for various curiosities. One of the more popular items trade for were beaver skin coats, which being warm and waterproof, were perfect for the cold Atlantic crossing. Now as luck would have it, the increasing number of fisherman visiting the Grand Banks coincided with a major shift in fashion trends in Europe. Though beaver felt hats had been a mark of the aristocracy for the better part of a century, the rising merchant and middle classes, who wanted to look as rich and respectable as possible, caused a huge spike in demand starting around 1550. As a result, hunters in Russia, the place from which most western European nations imported beaver pelts, hunted their beaver to near extinction over the next fifty years, creating a new opportunity for profitable enterprise in the New World.
The French were the first to really latch onto the idea of the New World being a viable competitive source of beaver pelts. Starting in the late sixteenth century, they began sending expeditions to the New World specifically to trade with the Native Americans for pelts. The other nations of western Europe quickly followed suit, increasing demand, driving up the amount of trade goods the natives expected to be paid for each pelt, and leading to traders exploring further afield to find additional tribes with which to trade. The primary region for this trade was around the St. Lawrence River, where the highest quality beaver pelts could be found. Eventually, the increased competition led to French investors funding the establishment of permanent colonies along the eastern Canadian coast. The first of these was Port Royal in present day Nova Scotia. Built in 1605, it was later destroyed by rival English traders in 1613, but was then rebuilt. It was soon after followed by the colony of Saint John in present day New Brunswick in 1606 and Quebec City at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in 1608. French explorers also explored further up the river, Samuel Champlain exploring the eastern end of the Great Lakes in 1615.
As a result of building colonies across the St. Lawrence region, the French quickly came to dominate the North American fur trade. The English attempted to counter this by laying claim to Newfoundland, but it proved too late, especially given coastal supplies of beaver pelts were increasingly beginning to disappear. However, new competition in the pelt market arrived soon after in the form of the Dutch. In 1609, as part of the latest round of fruitless searching for the Northwest Passage, Dutch navigator Henry Hudson explored the North American coast, discovering what became known as the Hudson River in present day New York. Though Hudson would die two years later, set adrift by his mutinous crew in the icy waters of Hudson Bay, his earlier discovery of the river created a new avenue of trade with tribes further inland. Beginning in 1610, the Dutch merchants began sending regular trading expeditions to the Hudson River, exploring the surrounding coast and inland. These traders eventually consolidated into a single trading company, which built Fort Nassau near present day Albany in 1614 and then the colony of New Amsterdam, present day New York City, in 1621.
As was the usual with such things, while the Native Americans did benefit from these contacts with the outside world, they suffered more than they gained. Though the increased contact with European traders in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries led to the introduction of metal tools and other goods, it also caused the spread of disease, especially in present day New England, resulting in especially bad outbreaks in 1616. As a result, some 90 percent of the native population of the New England coast were dead by 1620, with traders reporting finding completely abandoned villages and great piles of unburied dead people. The shell shocked survivors did their best to maintain their traditional way of life, but were largely pushed aside by other less affected tribes. The death of so many so quickly, led to a significant shift in the beaver trade, with the Iroquois and Algonquian peoples living in the region around the eastern Great Lakes becoming the primary source. Eager to benefit from trade with the Europeans, they increasingly came into conflict with each other in order to secure prime hunting grounds. With the Dutch mostly trading with the Iroquois and the French mostly trading with the Algonquin, both European factions began actively selling firearms to their respective partners, resulting in a sharp increase in bloodshed and death. The Spanish had long been careful not to supply the natives they encountered with firearms, but the Dutch and French traders had no such qualms. This conflict, which would come to be known as the Beaver Wars, would rage for the next century. All just so fancy people in Europe could wear a particular type of hat.
