Episode 171: Jessica Stern, Native Americans, British Colonists, and Trade in North America

by Liz CovartJanuary 30, 2018

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History books like to tell us that Native Americans did not fully understand British methods and ideas of trade. Is this really true?

Did Native Americans only understand trade as a form of simplistic, gift exchange?

Jessica Stern, a Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton and the author of The Lives in Objects: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast, takes us on a journey into the southeast during the early 18th century to show us how trade between Native Americans and British colonists really took place.

About the Show

Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.

It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.

Each episode features a conversation with a historian who helps us shed light on important people and events in early American history.

Ben Franklin’s World is a production of the Omohundro Institute.

Episode Summary

Jessica Stern, a Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton and the author of The Lives in Objects: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast, takes us on a journey into the southeast during the early 18th century to show us how trade between Native Americans and British colonists really took place.

During our journey, Jessica reveals information about Native American peoples in the southeast during the early 18th century; The different types of trade Native Americans and British colonists conducted; And how using anthropology and its techniques can better help us understand the past.

What You’ll Discover

Southeastern Native American peoples in the early 18th century
Relations between British colonists and southeastern Native Americans
Trade between British colonists and southeastern Native Americans
Formal versus informal trade
Goods traded between British colonists and southeastern Native American peoples
Commodity exchange versus gift exchange
Using anthropology to better understand history
The “lives” in objects
Labor, production, and ideas about goods
How southeastern Native Americans viewed and used English trade goods

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Time Warp Question

In your opinion, what might have happened if British settlers in the southeast had been able to found the economies of their colonies based on landed property as they intended, instead of trade with Southeastern Native Americans for slaves and deerskins? How would the development of southeastern societies have been different?