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Article: Pre-1600: Trade and Commerce: Overview
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- American Eras
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Copyright informationCOPYRIGHT 1997 Gale Research Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Pre-1600: Trade and Commerce: Overview
Transformation.
Trade in North America began to undergo a sweeping transformation during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries because of the arrival of European traders, explorers, and fishermen. For thousands of years subsistence-based Native American tribes had engaged in the local, reciprocal exchange of high-prestige luxury items. With the coming of European merchants and explorers in the decades after Christopher Columbus
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s discovery, however, the Indians of the Northeast began exchanging beaver furs for European manufactured goods. As a result they soon abandoned subsistence activities and became specialized participants in the early ...
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