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
Links to People, Places, and Publications
- Jessica Stern
- The Lives in Objects: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast
- David Silverman, Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America
Sponsor Links
Complementary Episodes
- Episode 056: Daniel J. Tortora, The Anglo-Cherokee War, 1759-1761
- Episode 091: Gregory Dowd, Rumors, Hoaxes, and Legends in Early America
- Episode 104: Andrew Lipmann, The Saltwater Frontier: Europeans & Native Americans on the Northeastern Coast
- Episode 158: The Revolutionaries’ Army
- Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America
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?
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