Mi'kmaq Trade and Work

Image 1: The image above shows a Mi'kmaq man creating ash splints in order to make baskets.

This Story Map Journal explains four things about the Mi'kmaq in terms of trade and work.  The first section discusses Mi'kmaq trade prior to European arrival.  The second section talks about trade between the Mi'kmaq in the area now known as Maritime Canada/Maine and whites such as the French and British.  The third section covers the work that Mi'kmaq in Maritime Canada and Maine did.  The final section explains present-day work of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs.

We will start with the pre-contact period. Pre-Contact means the time period before Europeans arrived in the Americas.

The time period before Europeans arrived in North America is called Precontact when studying Native American History. It is divided into the Paleo-Indian Period, the Archaic Period and the Early Ceramic Period. To learn more about the lives of Native people in Maine and the Maritimes during these different periods, go to the Maine Memory Network’s page called  To 1500: People of the Dawn .  Maine Native Americans had a trade network that stretched at least to Labrador and Ohio, and might have been connected to all of North America. By 1000 BP (Before Present) stones from many locations in North America were found in New England. This means that the ancestors of the Mi’kmaq traded with other Native American groups.

In Maine, archaeologists found tools made of rocks from other areas.  For example, they found tools made of chert from Labrador, Northern Quebec, and western New York and Ontario. They also found tools made of jasper from Pennsylvania and chalcedony from Nova Scotia. The Mi'kmaq also used local rocks to make their tools. These include quartzite, agate and jasper. The use of local rocks meant tools looked different based on where people lived.

Before Europeans arrived, the Mi'kmaq traded for what they needed. Mi’kmaqs hunted for meat and gathered other things like berries to eat. They would trade meats and pelts for crops that were farmed by other Native Americans. The Mi'kmaq had friendly relations with the Montagnais who lived on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River Valley, as well as the Maliseet and Penobscot. They would trade copper and stone for tools in exchange for stone they did not have, maize, and shell beads. They traded with groups to the southwest. Coastal groups would travel inland to trade arrowheads and moose meat for martens and beavers.  Sometimes the Mi'kmaq traded with the Armouchiquois in Massachusetts Bay. For more information about Paleoindian history in Presque Isle,  click here .

By the end of the 1500s, thousands of ships full of traders and fishermen sailed from countries like France, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, and the Netherlands to the northern coasts of North America. Today, this would be Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia and possibly Maine.  The Basque , who lived in France and Spain, also traded with the Mi'kmaq. As Europeans moved inland to trade with the Mi’kmaq both groups used rivers as a way to gain access to each other. 

Along the coast, Europeans caught and dried fish. They set up temporary fishing villages to do so.  These fishermen traded with the Mi’kmaq. Mi’kmaq received iron objects, clothes, food, trinkets and other European goods for their furs. This increased trade between the Europeans and the Mi’kmaq. The fur trade increased hunting for furs and pelts and the expansion of territory. By the 1600s, the Mi'kmaq relied on more European trade goods, especially goods brought by the French who lived on Mi’kmaq lands.  They used the trade goods to help them survive the winter.  Because of the fur trade, the Mi’kmaq spent more time hunting beaver and other animals and less time hunting and gathering food for themselves. Mi’kmaq traded furs and pelts for the best European goods available. The Mi’kmaq had more power over the fur trade than Europeans as long as the Europeans stayed in coastal areas. Once the French and British established colonies in Mi'kmaq territory, the Mi’kmaq lost their power over the fur trade. This is because French and British fur companies controlled the fur trade and not the Mi'kmaq. To learn more about these fur companies and their effects on all Native Americans,  click here . Fur companies that affected the Mi'kmaq most would have control over the St. Lawrence River watershed.

When the Mi’kmaq started trading with the French, beaver and other animals were plentiful.  Europeans wanted fur, especially beaver, for hats. Hats made from beaver pelts was considered high fashion in Europe and showed people were wealthy.

Nicolas Denys, a French fur trader who lived in the Gaspe Peninsula between 1633-1681, described the abundance of timber, game, and flora in the region around 1634. His son, Richard Denys controlled the fur trade in Miramichi. Like other fur traders, he married a Mi’kmaq woman named Anna Patarabego. Marriages like these helped with the fur trade and relations between the Mi’kmaq and the French. By 1642, the beaver and other animals hunted by the Mi’kmaq and other Native American groups began to decrease in number which made it harder for the Mi’kmaq and others to trade furs for European goods. This caused trouble between tribes that competed for the same furs and pelts.  The fur trade gave the Mi'kmaq guns and other weapons, which helped them in wars with other tribes. They fought over territory where beaver and other animals lived whose furs and pelts became important trade items. These wars between the Mi’kmaq and other Native Americans were called The Beaver Wars.

Mi’kmaq trade with the French and later, the British changed Mi’kmaq society. They became dependent on European goods and this changed their social values. By the 1700s, the European concepts of wealth, personal property and debt had become part of Mi’kmaq culture. This was made worse by the decrease in available furs and pelts. When furs were plentiful, the Mi’kmaq used trade with the French to their advantage to gain European goods. When the furs became depleted, the Mi’kmaq found it harder to get fair deals when trading for European goods. Unfortunately, the Mi’kmaq realized that they had been taken advantage of and were now a part of the European economic system in which they had trouble surviving. While the Mi’kmaq traded well with the French, they did not like trading as much with the British. However, as the British started pushing more into Mi’kmaq territory, the Mi’kmaq began to trade with the British. The main reason for this was that during the winter the Mi’kmaq found it harder to get to French trading posts than British ones.

The English traded with wampum which, although made by Native people in southern New England and Long Island, was popular in the Northeast. The Wabanaki were willing to trade furs for it, but the French had a hard time getting wampum to trade with and did not start making it themselves until the mid-1700s.

Wampum is made from beads of quahog and whelk strung together.  One European trade item that was helpful in making wampum was small steel drills. Native Americans started to use them in the 1600s. The drills created holes in the quahog and whelk beads so that they could be used as decoration on belts, necklaces and other things. By the mid-1630s, British colonists in southern New England started to make and used it as a trade item since coins were rare.  The British traded wampum beads with Native Americans who brought them furs and pelts. From southern New England, wampum as a trade item spread north to the St. Lawrence River Valley and west to the Great Lakes.  

Wampum had other uses as well. Native Americans used the beads in various forms to invite other Native groups or Europeans to meetings. They exchanged wampum at the meetings to make alliances and talk about war or peace. The Mi’kmaq first used wampum as decorations.  By the mid-1600s, they used it for diplomatic purposes. Over time, the use of wampum in diplomacy faded but they still used it to decorate necklaces, belts and other things into the 1800s. 

At first, the fur trade was beneficial for the Mi'kmaq.  The fur trade allowed the Mi’kmaq to buy European goods.  Once the population of beaver and other animals declined, the British, like the French, took advantage of the fact that the Mi’kmaq and other Native American groups needed European supplies. In 1736, the Wabanaki Confederacy, which included the Mi’kmaq, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and Maliseets, met with the British to discuss this issue. They discussed the fact that even though the beaver population was very low, prices were not changed and British trading posts cheated them. The other items the Mi’kmaq had to offer did not compare in value to that of furs and pelts.

Mi'kmaq chiefs often complained to the French about the negative effects of the fur trade, too. The major complaint was that the Mi’kmaq population was falling because of their dependency on European goods and disease.  They also stated that they received fake and spoiled items. Hunting beaver had helped the Mi'kmaq gain food and clothing, but trading posts spread disease, sold alcohol, and cared little about price changes when beaver furs declined. The Mi'kmaq became trapped in a cycle of debt. This caused them to over hunt beaver and other animals with valuable furs and pelts. When those animals disappeared, the Mi’kmaq sold their land to avoid debt.  To learn more about the effects of the fur trade on Maine Native Americans,  click here .