The Origins of the North American Fur Trade

When Europeans first came to the New World, the Spanish found vast amounts of gold and silver in Central and South America and each year sent a treasure ship back to Spain to fill the king’s coffers. The French and English hoped to find the same sort of treasures in North America but were sadly disappointed. But what they did find was a continent of boundless natural resources, including one as lucrative as Spanish gold, the peltries of the seemingly infinite number of beavers, deer, and buffalo.