Demographic Borderlands: People of Mixed Heritage in the Russian American Company and the Hudsons Bay Company, 1670-1870

Document Type

Article

Department or Administrative Unit

History

Publication Date

Spring 2008

Abstract

For two hundred years, agents of the Russian American and Hudson's Bay companies maintained vast trading networks in northwestern North America. These agents extracted innumerable furs, for their own material benefit and for the profit of their home countries. In the process, many of them also formed relationships with Native American women. These women moved between their own cultures and very alien European ones. When children of mixed heritage resulted, colonial cultural identities became even more fluid and uncertain. By the 1860s, people of mixed heritage constituted a significant population in both European settlements and nearby Native American communities.

Comments

This article was originally published in The Pacific Northwest Quarterly. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.

Due to copyright restrictions, this article is not available for free download from ScholarWorks @ CWU.

Journal

The Pacific Northwest Quarterly

Rights

© 2008 University of Washington

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