Pelts and palisades: The story of fur and the rivalry for pelts in early America

by Nathaniel C. Hale

Numerous Europeans had visited this great river before him. The Norsemen under the leadership of Thorfinn Karselfni in 1011 may have been the first. Certainly in 1524 the Frenchman, Verrazano, and his amorous crew stopped off there to mingle with the friendly natives. Not many months afterward a Portuguese captain, Estevan Gomez, sailing for Spain, probably put into the river’s mouth. In fact, Spanish archives are said to indicate that during the sixteenth century many Spanish ships used the harbor for watering and refitting on their fishing and fur trading trips between Newfoundland and New Spain.

But Henry Hudson ascended the river as far as it was navigable and recorded what he observed and what he did. He it was who took back to Europe the first news of the vast store of fur skins to be had there. And that is what opened the valley of the Hudson to trade and settlement.

His memorable exploration of the river got off however to an inauspicious start in the Lower Bay. Here, it was recorded, “the people of the Countrey came aboord of us, seeming very glad of our comming, and brought greene Tobacco, and gave us of it for Knives and Beeds. They goe in Deere skins loose, well dressed. They have yellow copper. They desire Cloathes, and are very civill.” Yet, Hudson did not trust them, and mutual suspicion quickly clouded the atmosphere. There was fighting and a sailor was killed. Later, some Indians who came aboard were kidnapped. They were plied with liquor and dressed in red coats while the sailors made crude sport of them. Two were kept prisoners.

But then, after passing the Narrows and entering the river, the Half Moon stopped off at Manhattan to find the natives there most hospitable in spite of any news they may have had about the fights in the Lower Bay. With their women and children they swarmed about the little Dutch yacht in a bid for friendship and trade. Captain Hudson, however, now believing that he had at long last entered on the strait that led to “Zipangu where the palace roof was covered with gold,” did not tarry long to barter for pelts.

Certainly, he didn’t let the escape of the two captive Indians delay the passage of the Half Moon upstream, even though these savages swimming ashore made provocative signs of derision and scorn toward the white men.

It wasn’t until it became disappointingly obvious that he had reached the head of ship navigation that Hudson took time for barter. This was in the vicinity of present-day Albany. Here he again found the natives both hospitable and anxious to trade. In one instance, when he went ashore to eat fat dog meat with a chief of the country, the Indians broke their arrows and cast them into the fire to prove their friendship. Later they came flocking aboard, bringing beaver and otter skins which they exchanged for glass beads, knives and hatchets.

Still, the Englishman and his Dutch mate decided to test some of the chief men of the country for possible treachery by getting them intoxicated in the privacy of the Half Moon’s cabin. One of them got so drunk that he finally dropped to the floor unconscious. The subsequent raising of this savage from the “dead” created such an impression on his fellows that they brought tobacco, venison and shell money to the white captain in gratitude. They also wanted to get drunk again.

Indeed, after Captain Hudson had reluctantly turned his ship’s prow downstream in disappointment over not finding the long sought passage to the South Sea, he was besieged by chief men of the country who wanted more aqua vitae. They brought women aboard who “behaved very modestly,” and they made it clear to the captain that whatever he wanted in their land was his.

So Hudson now concentrated on acquiring the only thing of value he recognized—pelts. As the Half Moon proceeded leisurely down the river he traded in earnest with the “loveing countrey people,” encouraging any who had furs to offer in exchange for knives and beads to come aboard. The story is vividly logged.

On reaching the Highlands the “people of the Mountaynes came aboord us, wondring at our ship and weapons. We bought some small skinnes of them for Trifles.” But here real trouble started when an Indian in a canoe “got up by our Rudder to the Cabin window,” and stole a couple of shirts.