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Trading post

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A factory at Bathurst (Gambia) around 1900
A recreation of a typical trading post for trade with the Plains Indians

A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory in European and colonial contexts, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded.

Typically a trading post allows people from one geographic area to exchange for goods produced in another area. Usually money is not used. The barter that occurs often includes an aspect of haggling. In some examples, local inhabitants can use a trading post to exchange what they have (such as locally-harvested furs) for goods they wish to acquire (such as manufactured trade goods imported from industrialized places).[1]

A trading post can be either a single building or an entire town.[2] Trading posts have been established in a range of areas, including relatively remote ones, but most often near the ocean, a river, or another source of a natural resource.[3] The prominent geographical location and the head start provided by an early trading post ensured that a trading post features in the history of many of today's cities.

Examples

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Major towns in the Hanseatic League were known as kontors, a form of trading posts.[4]

Charax Spasinu was a trading post between the Roman and Parthian Empires.[5]

Manhattan and Singapore were both established as trading posts, by Dutchman Peter Minuit and Englishman Stamford Raffles respectively, and later developed into major settlements.[6][7]

The City of Edmonton, Alberta began as Fort Edmonton in 1812.[8]

The Roman Empire was able to control a large amount of land because of its efficient systems for transferring information, goods, and military expeditions across large distances. Goods specifically were vital to maintaining outposts in territories distant from Rome, such as northern Africa and western Asia. Trading posts played a large part in managing these goods, deciding where they were going and when. Goods collected at these trading posts and other parts of the Roman trade system included precious stones, fabrics, ivory, and wine. There is also evidence that cattle were traded at the Empúries trading post, established in the 6th century BCE, on the Iberian Peninsula.[9]

North American frontier

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Main article: Native American trade

Trading houses were typically strategically located and stocked with goods that Native Americans and other trappers would trade furs for. These goods included clothing, blankets, axes, beads, corn, wheat flour, and liquor. Eric Jay Dolin's Fur, Fortune, and Empire provides a history of trading posts in North America.

Plymouth colonists established Kennebec Trading House in 1628.[10] This was followed by the Plymouth Penobscot trading post. Conflicts between French and Plymouth colonists occurred in 1631 when Frenchmen arrived at the Plymouth Penobscot trading post. The masters of the trading post and most of the crew were absent, leaving only a few servants (employees) to attend to the Frenchmen. When the Frenchmen learned this was the case, they feigned interest in guns available at the trading post, which when they got their hands on them, they turned back onto the servants. They obtained all valuables, leaving with £500 of goods and £300 in beaver pelts.[11]

John Jacob Astor founded the American Fur Company (AFC). One of the great feats achieved by the AFC was the establishment of a trading post in the native Blackfoot tribe's territory, located in modern-day Montana along the Rocky Mountains. The Blackfoot tribe had killed many Euro-Americans and, up to this point, had only traded with the Hudson Bay Company. In order to erect a trading post in Blackfoot territory, the AFC needed a way to establish contact on their behalf. Jacob Berger, a trapper, offered Kenneth McKenzie to serve as this contact and get the AFC into negotiations with the Blackfoot. The talks were successful, and McKenzie was allowed to build a trading post in Blackfoot territory, adjacent to the Missouri and Marias Rivers, naming it Fort McKenzie.[12]

The American post, Noochuloghoyet Trading Post, was established in the last 19th century in central Alaska adjacent to the Yukon River. This was an important trading post for the fur trade. It operated under different names, and its level of business activity varied greatly while it was in operation.[13]

Other uses

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  • In the context of scouting, trading post usually refers to a camp store in which snacks, craft materials, and general merchandise are sold.[14] "Trading posts" also refers to a cub scout activity in which cub teams (or individuals) undertake challenge activities in exchange for points.[15]
  • A "trading post" also once referred to a trading booth within the New York Stock Exchange.[16]

Trading posts in North America

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Trading post; Factory - Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, 1989
  2. ^ "Santa Fe | History, Population, Map, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 2024-01-10. Retrieved 2024-01-11.
  3. ^ John C. Ewers, "The Trading Post in American Indian Life," Smithsonian Institution Annual Report for 1954 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1955), 389-401.
  4. ^ "Hanseatic League". BBC News. Retrieved 2024-01-11.
  5. ^ "Trade between the Romans and the Empires of Asia | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History". The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved 2024-01-11.
  6. ^ Matt Soniak (October 2, 2012). "Was Manhattan Really Bought for $24?". Mental Floss. Archived from the original on February 12, 2020. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  7. ^ Mun Cheong Yong; V. V. Bhanoji Rao (1995). Singapore-India Relations: A Primer. NUS Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-9971-69-195-0.
  8. ^ Edmonton House Journals, Correspondence and Reports, 1806-1821 (published by the Historical Society of Alberta), p. 182
  9. ^ Colominas, L., and Edwards, C. J. (2017) Livestock Trade during the Early Roman Period: First Clues from the Trading Post of Empúries (Catalonia). Int. J. Osteoarchaeol., 27: 167– 179. doi:10.1002/oa.2527
  10. ^ Dolin, Eric Jay (2010). Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-393-06710-1. OCLC 449865266.
  11. ^ Dolin, Eric Jay (2010). Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-393-06710-1. OCLC 449865266.
  12. ^ Dolin, Eric Jay (2010). Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-393-06710-1. OCLC 449865266.
  13. ^ Turck, Thomas J., and Diane L. Lehman Turck. "Trading Posts along the Yukon River: Noochuloghoyet Trading Post in Historical Context." Arctic, vol. 45, no. 1, 1992, pp. 51–61. JSTOR, JSTOR 40511192. Accessed 25 Mar. 2023.
  14. ^ Norfolk Scout Shop, accessed 10 February 2022
  15. ^ Online Scout Manager, Trading Post - Cubs, accessed 10 February 2022
  16. ^ New York Institute of Finance, Trading post, accessed 10 February 2022
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