Cause of Change.

The arrival of Europeans in North America in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries initiated a process that would, over the next 150 years, change forever the eastern Indians' socioeconomic system. During that period tribes living in the Northeast began gradually to exchange beaver furs for European manufactured goods. At first this trade was conducted in a manner consistent with the Native Americans' system of reciprocal gift exchange. As the years passed, however, the northeast Indians' increasing participation in the fur trade radically transformed their traditional system of exchange and the nature of their society, and left them economically dependent on the Europeans.

Origins.

The fur trade began as a side business for European fishermen in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Breton, French, Basque, Spanish, and Portuguese sailors supplemented the profits they earned...