Munsee Indian Trade in Ulster County New York 1712-1732: A Section from the Anonymous ‘Account Book, 1711-1729’ [in Dutch] Philip John Schuyler Papers (Volume 11)

Introduction

1 Introduction Wor king wit h sc a t t er ed and fragmentary primary sources forms one of the most serious challenges to students of European and Indian economic exchanges in northeastern America during the colonial period. Referring to the seventeenth-century fur trade in this region, one scholar has concluded that such exchanges are “known almost entirely through the archaeological record of the goods received by the native vendors.”1 This introduction examines several key aspects of a recently discovered Dutch account book recording trade with American Indians in Ulster County, New York, from 1712 to 1732. Throughout, comparisons are provided to a closely contemporaneous account book of the fur trade in Albany, New York, dating between 1695 and 1726.2 The Ulster County account book is an important source for the study of intercultural trade in the mid–Hudson River Valley during the first decades of the eighteenth century. The account book is not mentioned in any secondary literature on commercial exchanges between Indians and Europeans in the American Northeast. Just over two thousand transactions with native individuals allow for detailed indexing and comparative analysis. The manuscript is the only account book for the Indian trade in Ulster County that has so far been located.3 It documents native women participating in commercial exchanges in numbers that are higher than reported or assumed in the existing historiography. Aggregated data from the transactions in the ledger provide information on the types of commodities and services that native customers acquired; the associated prices and conditions; the degree to which Indians paid off their debts with the trader; and the types of products and services they used in 2 | Munsee India n Tra de in Ul st er Coun t y doing so. The data indicate that in the exchanges in this region the deerskin trade had replaced the declining beaver trade by the early decades of the eighteenth century. The account book documents a substantial trade with a few hundred Indians who belonged to Algonquian-speaking groups in and around the mid–Hudson River Valley. Esopus and Wappinger Indians usually referred to collectively as the northernmost bands of the Munsee-Delawares or Munsees represent the most identifiable native peoples in these records.4 The account book contains no evidence that the bookkeeper dealt with neighboring Mahican bands of the upper Hudson Valley. The manuscript lists a total of 243 accounts of Indians and reports on slightly more than two thousand transactions (see tables 1 and 2). During these exchanges, Indians acquired 2,057 products and services. In addition, they paid off all or part of their debts in 492 cases (see tables 3 and 4). The transactions can be organized into 580 grouped exchanges that occurred at or about the same moment in time. Eighty-five of these grouped transactions do not show the month and year in which goods or services were exchanged (see table 5). The accounts contain data on commercial dealings with about two hundred Indians in Ulster County; slightly more than one hundred appear with their names listed. Careful tabulation and cross-referencing of all Indian individuals who appear in the accounts shows that about fifty of these natives were listed only with their name; they were not otherwise described, for instance as being connected to another Indian individual in the account book.5 Besides this group of fifty natives, four Indians were identified by means of both their place of residence and their name.6 Another fifty Indians appear with their names and, in addition , the bookkeeper identified them through a connection with another named individual. A large number of Indians make an appearance in the accounts without their name but with links to other named Indians—usually their close kin. This group consists of about ninety individuals. It includes one native man who was described by listing his place of residence and his relation to another individual. He appears as “the savage from kisechton[,] perraris[’s] brother” in October 1725.7 The largest subgroup within this pool of ninety In tr oduc ti on | 3 natives consisted of women whom the bookkeeper described merely as the wives of named Indian men; at least twenty-seven such individuals can be discerned. Finally, a small number of Indians appear without their own name and without any described connection to another Indian in the account book. The appearances of such individuals are extremely difficult...