WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.379 Picture the foundation of the global economy. 00:00:02.740 --> 00:00:05.580 I mean, if you are like most people, you're probably 00:00:05.580 --> 00:00:09.019 visualizing, you know, massive steel mills or 00:00:09.019 --> 00:00:11.560 transcontinental railroads. Right. Or monolithic 00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:13.980 banking conglomerates in London and New York. 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:17.179 Exactly. You picture heavy industry. Right. And 00:00:17.179 --> 00:00:19.699 deliberate calculated nation building. Yeah. 00:00:19.800 --> 00:00:22.140 It is entirely natural to think of the modern 00:00:22.140 --> 00:00:25.140 economic landscape as something structural, like 00:00:25.140 --> 00:00:28.460 something metallic, permanent and forged in fire. 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:31.519 But if we rewind to the late 18th century, that 00:00:31.519 --> 00:00:33.880 whole heavy industrial framework just completely 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:36.579 vanishes. It's just not there yet. Right. Instead, 00:00:36.579 --> 00:00:39.600 we are looking at the world's first truly global 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:42.560 capitalist trade network. And it was built on 00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:44.799 something entirely different. It was built on 00:00:44.799 --> 00:00:46.880 fluff. Fluff. I mean, that is the perfect way 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:49.119 to describe it. Yeah. Welcome to your custom 00:00:49.119 --> 00:00:52.219 deep dive into the source material. Today, we 00:00:52.219 --> 00:00:54.679 are exploring the maritime fur trade of the late 00:00:54.679 --> 00:00:57.119 18th to mid -19th centuries. And we're working 00:00:57.119 --> 00:00:59.579 from a really comprehensive article detailing 00:00:59.579 --> 00:01:03.119 this whole era. Exactly. Our mission today is 00:01:03.119 --> 00:01:08.599 to explore how the insatiable demand for a single 00:01:08.599 --> 00:01:12.140 marine animal's pelt managed to wire the entire 00:01:12.140 --> 00:01:15.359 globe together. It's wild. It really is. We're 00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:16.819 going to look at how it connected the Pacific 00:01:16.819 --> 00:01:19.599 Northwest, Hawaii, China, and New England. and 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:22.200 how it permanently altered global ecosystems 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:24.760 and human histories. And to be clear, we are 00:01:24.760 --> 00:01:27.560 not talking about like a few dusty trappers wandering 00:01:27.560 --> 00:01:29.459 through the woods here. No, not at all. We're 00:01:29.459 --> 00:01:31.500 talking about an 18th century gold rush, right? 00:01:31.939 --> 00:01:35.060 But where the gold was furry. And it set off 00:01:35.060 --> 00:01:39.079 this massive chain reaction of incredible wealth, 00:01:39.480 --> 00:01:42.500 geopolitical warfare, and honestly, absolute 00:01:42.500 --> 00:01:45.019 ecological collapse. The stakes were incredibly 00:01:45.019 --> 00:01:47.239 high. Like this wasn't just trapping. It was 00:01:47.239 --> 00:01:50.079 a complex web of geopolitics that actually catalyzed 00:01:50.079 --> 00:01:52.799 the American Industrial Revolution and fundamentally 00:01:52.799 --> 00:01:55.180 reshaped indigenous societies across multiple 00:01:55.180 --> 00:01:57.079 continents. So to even begin to map out this 00:01:57.079 --> 00:01:59.040 global network, we have to start with the specific 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:01.859 catalyst, like the spark that lit the fuse. The 00:02:01.859 --> 00:02:04.099 Northern Sea Otter. Yeah, the Northern Sea Otter. 00:02:04.829 --> 00:02:07.150 Think about this from a biological perspective. 00:02:07.549 --> 00:02:09.750 Why this specific animal? Well, the sea otter 00:02:09.750 --> 00:02:12.330 is fascinating from a purely biological standpoint. 00:02:12.430 --> 00:02:15.129 Yeah. Which is exactly what made it so economically 00:02:15.129 --> 00:02:17.729 explosive. OK, how so? They possess the thickest 00:02:17.729 --> 00:02:22.219 fur of any mammal on Earth. up to a million hairs 00:02:22.219 --> 00:02:25.039 per square inch. Wait, a million hairs per square 00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:27.979 inch? That's insane. It's incredibly dense. And 00:02:27.979 --> 00:02:30.400 unlike other animals that shed their coats seasonally, 00:02:30.900 --> 00:02:33.219 their constant coat grooming habits prevent them 00:02:33.219 --> 00:02:35.939 from molting. Oh, I see. So they have this pristine 00:02:35.939 --> 00:02:39.020 prime coat all year long. So there's no off season 00:02:39.020 --> 00:02:41.500 for hunting them. Exactly. The article describes 00:02:41.500 --> 00:02:45.979 it as this prized, dark and silver tipped fur. 00:02:46.180 --> 00:02:48.180 Yep. And the Russian Empire was the first to 00:02:48.180 --> 00:02:50.370 really capitalize on this, right? Yes. Following 00:02:50.370 --> 00:02:53.189 early Russian exploratory missions in the 1740s, 00:02:53.370 --> 00:02:55.569 Russian contract hunters began moving east from 00:02:55.569 --> 00:02:58.009 the Kamchatka Peninsula. They moved along the 00:02:58.009 --> 00:03:00.509 Aleutian Islands, and they were driven almost 00:03:00.509 --> 00:03:03.169 entirely by the massive demand for these pelts 00:03:03.169 --> 00:03:06.030 in Imperial Chinese high society. Right, because 00:03:06.030 --> 00:03:08.710 the Chinese wealthy elite used the pelts for 00:03:08.710 --> 00:03:10.849 robe trimming. Yeah, it was a status symbol of 00:03:10.849 --> 00:03:13.060 the highest order. OK, let's unpack this step 00:03:13.060 --> 00:03:15.319 by step, because there's a lot of geographical 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:17.580 jumping around here. For sure. Finding out that 00:03:17.580 --> 00:03:20.240 a market exists in China is one thing. But then 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:23.080 the British stumble into this entirely by accident, 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:25.620 right? A total accident. Yeah. Captain James 00:03:25.620 --> 00:03:28.120 Cook's crew is exploring the Pacific Northwest 00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:31.900 in 1778, looking for the Northwest Passage. And 00:03:31.900 --> 00:03:35.099 they buy some sea otter pelts from the indigenous 00:03:35.099 --> 00:03:37.759 New Channel people in Newt to Sound. Which is 00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:40.080 on Vancouver Island. Right. And the sailors just 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:41.960 think of them as, you know, warm clothes for 00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:44.719 a cold voyage. But then after Cook is killed 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:48.319 in Hawaii, the crew sails to Canton, China. And 00:03:48.319 --> 00:03:51.639 that port visit in Canton basically changes world 00:03:51.639 --> 00:03:54.949 history. That is where the true financial value 00:03:54.949 --> 00:03:57.569 is revealed to the Western world. It's like finding 00:03:57.569 --> 00:04:00.430 a moth -eaten sweater in your attic, taking it 00:04:00.430 --> 00:04:03.689 to a pawn shop and finding out it's like a lost 00:04:03.689 --> 00:04:06.569 royal artifact worth millions. That's a great 00:04:06.569 --> 00:04:08.569 analogy. I mean, the British crew sold these 00:04:08.569 --> 00:04:12.490 pelts and realized a profit of 1 ,800%. 1 ,800. 00:04:12.689 --> 00:04:16.389 Yeah. Some sailors were selling individual prime 00:04:16.389 --> 00:04:21.180 skins for $120. $20 each, which was a life -changing 00:04:21.180 --> 00:04:23.800 fortune back then. Oh, absolutely. The crew was 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:26.240 so desperate to sail right back to the Pacific 00:04:26.240 --> 00:04:29.639 Northwest to get more furs that they nearly mutinied 00:04:29.639 --> 00:04:32.939 against their commanders. Wow. A near mutiny 00:04:32.939 --> 00:04:35.759 over fur. Yeah, it really illustrates the sheer 00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:38.939 magnetic pull of that profit margin. It completely 00:04:38.939 --> 00:04:40.939 rewired the priorities of everyone involved. 00:04:41.259 --> 00:04:43.180 I'm trying to square this, though. If the British 00:04:43.180 --> 00:04:45.660 discovered this massive profit margin in the 00:04:45.660 --> 00:04:48.600 1770s, and the Russians had already been hunting 00:04:48.600 --> 00:04:51.560 these waters for decades, how did a bunch of 00:04:51.560 --> 00:04:53.959 merchants from Boston eventually end up dominating 00:04:53.959 --> 00:04:55.920 the trade? What were the Russians doing differently? 00:04:56.079 --> 00:04:57.519 Well, the Russian approach was fundamentally 00:04:57.519 --> 00:05:00.199 different and, I should add, significantly more 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:02.579 brutal. OK. They didn't engage in free trade 00:05:02.579 --> 00:05:05.680 with the Native Alaskans. Instead, they imposed 00:05:05.680 --> 00:05:09.079 a system called Yasak. Yasaka? What's that? It 00:05:09.079 --> 00:05:11.459 was essentially a forced fur tribute. They enslaved 00:05:11.459 --> 00:05:14.600 the Aleut and Aleutic peoples, taking their families 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:17.769 hostage just to force the men to hunt. Oh, wow. 00:05:17.850 --> 00:05:21.009 That's horrific. It was. And they did this because 00:05:21.009 --> 00:05:24.230 these indigenous hunters were absolute expert 00:05:24.230 --> 00:05:27.449 kayakers, uniquely skilled at surviving the rough 00:05:27.449 --> 00:05:29.870 waters. So the Russians essentially conscripted 00:05:29.870 --> 00:05:32.089 an entire indigenous population to do all the 00:05:32.089 --> 00:05:34.750 dangerous work for them. Precisely. And the ecological 00:05:34.750 --> 00:05:37.209 disregard of this system was immediate. How so? 00:05:37.810 --> 00:05:39.730 Well, to give you an idea of the mechanics of 00:05:39.730 --> 00:05:41.910 this destruction, to feed and provision these 00:05:41.910 --> 00:05:44.050 Russian hunting camps along those remote islands, 00:05:44.670 --> 00:05:48.069 they slaughtered Stellar Sea Cows. Stellar Sea 00:05:48.069 --> 00:05:50.689 Cows? What were those? They were massive, slow 00:05:50.689 --> 00:05:53.569 -moving marine mammals, native to the area. And 00:05:53.569 --> 00:05:55.389 because they floated near the surface and had, 00:05:55.389 --> 00:05:58.410 like, no natural defenses, they were incredibly 00:05:58.410 --> 00:06:01.730 easy calories for the hunters. Oh no. Yeah. Because 00:06:01.730 --> 00:06:04.870 of this intense, unregulated exploitation, Stellar 00:06:04.870 --> 00:06:08.350 Sea Cow was entirely extinct by 1768. Extinct? 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:10.459 Just like that. Wiped off the map in a matter 00:06:10.459 --> 00:06:13.279 of decades, simply as collateral damage of feeding 00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:15.660 the sea otter trade. That is deeply unsettling. 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:18.639 So the Russians have this entrenched forced labor 00:06:18.639 --> 00:06:21.240 empire and the British have just realized the 00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:23.259 astronomical profits awaiting them in China. 00:06:23.480 --> 00:06:26.019 Exactly. But as you mentioned, it was the Americans, 00:06:26.939 --> 00:06:29.720 specifically merchants from New England who became 00:06:29.720 --> 00:06:32.439 known as the Boston Men. Right. The Boston Men. 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:35.699 They eventually swoop in and perfect the ultimate 00:06:35.699 --> 00:06:38.529 capitalist trade route. How do they pull Well, 00:06:38.829 --> 00:06:40.930 the Americans were perfectly positioned to take 00:06:40.930 --> 00:06:45.250 over, largely because the British entirely hobbled 00:06:45.250 --> 00:06:47.829 themselves with their own bureaucracy. Ah, the 00:06:47.829 --> 00:06:51.029 classic self -inflicted wound. Exactly. The source 00:06:51.029 --> 00:06:53.209 article mentions that to legally trade in these 00:06:53.209 --> 00:06:56.110 waters and sell in China, British ships needed 00:06:56.110 --> 00:06:58.589 expensive licenses, and they needed them from 00:06:58.589 --> 00:07:00.610 both the East India Company and the South Sea 00:07:00.610 --> 00:07:03.250 Company. So they were fighting their own monopolies. 00:07:03.370 --> 00:07:06.329 Yeah, the East India Company basically had a 00:07:06.329 --> 00:07:08.689 monopoly on British trade in China. And they 00:07:08.689 --> 00:07:11.230 wouldn't even let the British fur traders export 00:07:11.230 --> 00:07:14.629 Chinese goods back to Europe. That is a bureaucratic 00:07:14.629 --> 00:07:17.269 nightmare. It completely stifled British innovation. 00:07:17.589 --> 00:07:20.129 Completely. But the Americans, on the other hand, 00:07:20.329 --> 00:07:23.050 had just won their independence. They were unfettered 00:07:23.050 --> 00:07:26.170 by these royal monopolies. And they were completely 00:07:26.170 --> 00:07:29.069 desperate for new revenue streams following the 00:07:29.069 --> 00:07:31.389 economic depression after the Revolutionary War. 00:07:31.790 --> 00:07:34.230 So they just bypassed the rules? Yeah. Independent 00:07:34.230 --> 00:07:37.069 traders like Robert Gray, who famously became 00:07:37.069 --> 00:07:39.329 the first non -Indigenous person to navigate 00:07:39.329 --> 00:07:42.990 the Columbia River in 1792, they just sailed 00:07:42.990 --> 00:07:45.470 right past the red tape. Here's where it gets 00:07:45.470 --> 00:07:48.529 really interesting. The Americans developed this 00:07:48.529 --> 00:07:51.209 route called the Golden Round. The Golden Round, 00:07:51.209 --> 00:07:53.389 yes. Think about the logistics of this from your 00:07:53.389 --> 00:07:56.439 perspective today. Imagine trying to run a business 00:07:56.439 --> 00:07:58.699 where your supply chain requires sailing around 00:07:58.699 --> 00:08:01.480 the bottom of South America just to pick up your 00:08:01.480 --> 00:08:03.839 raw materials. It's unthinkable now. Right. While 00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:05.660 the British are filling out forms in London, 00:08:06.120 --> 00:08:08.839 the Americans are sailing from Boston all the 00:08:08.839 --> 00:08:11.420 way around Cape Horn up to the Pacific Northwest. 00:08:12.259 --> 00:08:14.819 They trade manufactured goods for sea otter furs 00:08:14.819 --> 00:08:17.860 with the indigenous peoples. Then they sail down 00:08:17.860 --> 00:08:20.660 to Hawaii to spend the winter and restock provisions. 00:08:20.779 --> 00:08:23.180 Right. It was a crucial stopover. Then from there, 00:08:23.259 --> 00:08:26.019 it's off to Canton, China to trade the furs for 00:08:26.019 --> 00:08:29.819 teas, silks and porcelain. And finally, they 00:08:29.819 --> 00:08:32.279 sail back across the Indian Ocean to Boston. 00:08:32.700 --> 00:08:35.279 And the returns on this golden round were just 00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:37.799 staggering. I mean, they had to be right to justify 00:08:37.799 --> 00:08:41.460 that trip. Oh, absolutely. During the late 1810s, 00:08:41.580 --> 00:08:44.299 a return on investment of 300 to 500 percent 00:08:44.299 --> 00:08:47.539 was just standard. Standard. Yeah. And in the 00:08:47.539 --> 00:08:50.440 earliest days, some voyages hit a gross return 00:08:50.440 --> 00:08:54.509 of 2000. 200%. That is absurd. Even after you 00:08:54.509 --> 00:08:57.110 factor in the massive costs of outfitting a multi 00:08:57.110 --> 00:08:59.629 -year voyage and paying a crew, the net profit 00:08:59.629 --> 00:09:02.909 was still roughly 525%. You look at that model 00:09:02.909 --> 00:09:06.250 and it's essentially the prototype for modern 00:09:06.250 --> 00:09:08.929 global venture capitalism. It really is. They 00:09:08.929 --> 00:09:11.509 established the blueprint of extracting a free 00:09:11.509 --> 00:09:14.129 natural resource from a foreign land, routing 00:09:14.129 --> 00:09:16.649 it through an overseas manufacturing and trading 00:09:16.649 --> 00:09:19.230 hub in China, and returning the astronomical 00:09:19.230 --> 00:09:22.169 profits to Western investors. That's a very astute 00:09:22.169 --> 00:09:24.509 way to look at it. They built the modern venture 00:09:24.509 --> 00:09:26.470 capitalist framework on the deck of a wooden 00:09:26.470 --> 00:09:29.679 ship. But hold on. We established that the Russians 00:09:29.679 --> 00:09:33.039 had a brutal entrenched system in Alaska. They 00:09:33.039 --> 00:09:35.039 aren't just going to sit back and watch Boston 00:09:35.039 --> 00:09:37.940 merchants sail away with 500 % profit margins, 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:40.539 are they? Definitely not. What happens when these 00:09:40.539 --> 00:09:43.860 two competing systems physically collide? Well, 00:09:44.179 --> 00:09:46.460 the tension escalated rapidly into physical violence. 00:09:47.059 --> 00:09:49.100 The Russians began expanding south and east to 00:09:49.100 --> 00:09:51.659 secure more territory. They eventually reached 00:09:51.659 --> 00:09:54.980 Sitka Sound in present -day Alaska. Okay, and 00:09:54.980 --> 00:09:57.279 this led to direct clashes with the indigenous 00:09:57.279 --> 00:09:59.879 Tlingit people who were fiercely defending their 00:09:59.879 --> 00:10:02.100 sovereignty and also their own lucrative trade 00:10:02.100 --> 00:10:04.379 relationships with the Americans Yeah, the sources 00:10:04.379 --> 00:10:07.259 outline a massive bloody conflict over this. 00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:11.559 Yes in June 1802 Tlingit warriors attacked and 00:10:11.559 --> 00:10:13.860 destroyed the Russian settlement in Sitka killing 00:10:13.860 --> 00:10:16.720 or capturing most of the inhabitants Wow, but 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:18.620 the Russians were not gonna let go of the most 00:10:18.620 --> 00:10:22.039 lucrative sea otter habitats on earth In 1804, 00:10:22.039 --> 00:10:24.600 they returned with a heavily armed warship, the 00:10:24.600 --> 00:10:27.019 Neva. Just to take it back. Exactly, to take 00:10:27.019 --> 00:10:30.299 Sitka back by force. Yeah. It became the Battle 00:10:30.299 --> 00:10:33.659 of Sitka, a multi -day bombardment that forced 00:10:33.659 --> 00:10:36.480 the Tlingit to strategically withdraw. So we 00:10:36.480 --> 00:10:39.220 are seeing actual empires shedding blood, fighting 00:10:39.220 --> 00:10:42.740 pitched battles just to control access to this 00:10:42.740 --> 00:10:45.519 fluff. Yeah, Sitka became the heavily fortified 00:10:45.519 --> 00:10:48.340 colonial capital of Russian America. The global 00:10:48.340 --> 00:10:50.580 stakes were... undeniable at this point. But 00:10:50.580 --> 00:10:52.720 there is a fatal flaw in the American golden 00:10:52.720 --> 00:10:55.639 round, right? You can't extract wealth at a 500 00:10:55.639 --> 00:10:58.139 % profit margin forever without hitting a wall. 00:10:58.259 --> 00:11:00.480 It's impossible. The American system was almost 00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:03.139 too efficient. and it led to a massive ecological 00:11:03.139 --> 00:11:05.620 and economic crash. Yeah, the biology of the 00:11:05.620 --> 00:11:07.820 sea otter comes back into play here. We mentioned 00:11:07.820 --> 00:11:10.600 they have thick fur, but they're also incredibly 00:11:10.600 --> 00:11:13.720 slow breeders. Yeah, right. A female typically 00:11:13.720 --> 00:11:16.279 gives birth to only one pup a year. One a year. 00:11:16.500 --> 00:11:18.740 Yeah. So when you have fleets of global ships 00:11:18.740 --> 00:11:21.000 incentivizing the mass slaughter of these animals 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:23.220 across their entire habitat, the populations 00:11:23.220 --> 00:11:26.080 simply cannot recover. By 1810, the sea otter 00:11:26.080 --> 00:11:28.820 population along the coast was completely decimated. 00:11:28.940 --> 00:11:31.600 Swiped out. Supply just dried up. So what do 00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:34.700 the traders do? They pivot inland. They start 00:11:34.700 --> 00:11:38.539 trying to buy beaver pelts from indigenous interior 00:11:38.539 --> 00:11:41.960 networks instead. OK, beavers. But the ecological 00:11:41.960 --> 00:11:45.039 impact of that pivot was devastating in a completely 00:11:45.039 --> 00:11:47.019 different way, right? Oh, completely. You have 00:11:47.019 --> 00:11:48.480 to look at the mechanics of the environment. 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:51.320 Beavers are essentially nature's engineers. Right. 00:11:51.399 --> 00:11:54.080 They build dams. Exactly. They build dams that 00:11:54.080 --> 00:11:56.940 hold back water, creating lush wetlands that 00:11:56.940 --> 00:11:59.600 filter runoff and maintain a high water table. 00:11:59.950 --> 00:12:02.429 When the fur trade incentivized the mass killing 00:12:02.429 --> 00:12:05.110 of beavers across North America, it destroyed 00:12:05.110 --> 00:12:07.730 the hydrology of the continent. Because without 00:12:07.730 --> 00:12:10.610 the beavers maintaining the dams, the water just 00:12:10.610 --> 00:12:12.730 rushes right through the landscape. Exactly. 00:12:13.429 --> 00:12:15.669 Removing the beavers caused immediate flash floods, 00:12:16.029 --> 00:12:18.049 which eroded the topsoil. And that was subsequently 00:12:18.049 --> 00:12:20.769 followed by severe localized droughts because 00:12:20.769 --> 00:12:23.399 the land could no longer retain water. ecosystems 00:12:23.399 --> 00:12:25.720 were completely ruined. That is just tragic. 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:28.100 And even stripping the continent of beavers wasn't 00:12:28.100 --> 00:12:30.139 enough to keep the China trade alive, was it? 00:12:30.279 --> 00:12:32.919 No, it wasn't. The Americans started scrambling 00:12:32.919 --> 00:12:35.039 to diversify into whatever the Chinese market 00:12:35.039 --> 00:12:37.820 wanted. They sailed to Hawaii and stripped the 00:12:37.820 --> 00:12:39.879 islands of Sandalwood until it was depleted by 00:12:39.879 --> 00:12:42.799 1830. And we really should explain the mechanics 00:12:42.799 --> 00:12:45.519 of the devastation in Hawaii. Please do. The 00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:48.580 Hawaiian chiefs forced agricultural laborers 00:12:48.750 --> 00:12:51.090 out of the fertile valleys and into the mountains 00:12:51.090 --> 00:12:54.330 for months at a time to harvest this sandalwood. 00:12:54.529 --> 00:12:57.409 Just to trade with the ships. Right. And because 00:12:57.409 --> 00:13:00.090 the labor force was entirely redirected to chopping 00:13:00.090 --> 00:13:03.090 wood for foreign ships, the essential tarot fields 00:13:03.090 --> 00:13:06.389 were left to rot, which triggered widespread 00:13:06.389 --> 00:13:09.269 devastating famines across the islands. And then, 00:13:09.330 --> 00:13:11.669 when the sandalwood was gone, they sailed to 00:13:11.669 --> 00:13:14.840 Fiji to harvest sea cucumbers. known as Bech 00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:17.519 de Mer, boiling and drying them for the Chinese 00:13:17.519 --> 00:13:19.600 culinary market until those were depleted by 00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:22.759 1850. They even resorted to smuggling goods to 00:13:22.759 --> 00:13:24.679 Spanish California because it was illegal to 00:13:24.679 --> 00:13:26.860 trade there. It was just a frantic search for 00:13:26.860 --> 00:13:29.080 any commodity that could replace the sea otter. 00:13:29.419 --> 00:13:31.519 So what does this all mean? I mean, it sounds 00:13:31.519 --> 00:13:34.220 exactly like a tech startup that completely runs 00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:37.019 out of its core product, Panax, and just starts 00:13:37.019 --> 00:13:39.960 desperately pivoting to random side hustles to 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:42.539 stay afloat. That's spot on. Did they just strip 00:13:42.539 --> 00:13:44.960 mine the entire Pacific? That analogy perfectly 00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:47.480 captures the frantic energy of the era. And yes, 00:13:47.480 --> 00:13:49.419 they essentially did strip mine the Pacific. 00:13:50.019 --> 00:13:53.539 What's fascinating here is that this trade lacked 00:13:53.539 --> 00:13:56.399 any concept of sustainability. Not at all. They 00:13:56.399 --> 00:13:59.580 viewed the resources as infinite until the moment 00:13:59.580 --> 00:14:01.940 they weren't. And as the Americans grew more 00:14:01.940 --> 00:14:03.960 desperate, they turned to even darker avenues. 00:14:04.019 --> 00:14:06.620 Yeah. The deep dive materials outline how American 00:14:06.620 --> 00:14:10.740 traders engaged in and actively expanded the 00:14:10.740 --> 00:14:12.539 pre -existing indigenous slave trade on the coast. 00:14:12.840 --> 00:14:14.690 Right. And just to be clear for you listening, 00:14:14.789 --> 00:14:17.009 as we report on the historical facts from the 00:14:17.009 --> 00:14:19.169 source material, the traders were purchasing 00:14:19.169 --> 00:14:22.269 enslaved people near the Columbia River and trading 00:14:22.269 --> 00:14:24.830 them further north to different tribes. We're 00:14:24.830 --> 00:14:26.809 just relaying what the article lays out. But 00:14:26.809 --> 00:14:28.889 they did this simply because selling enslaved 00:14:28.889 --> 00:14:31.929 people, along with rum and gunpowder, was yielding 00:14:31.929 --> 00:14:34.629 higher profit margins than the dwindling supply 00:14:34.629 --> 00:14:37.690 of furs. It was a purely capitalist calculation 00:14:37.690 --> 00:14:40.870 devoid of morality. The traders were trying to 00:14:40.870 --> 00:14:43.509 extract the last drops of wealth. from a dying 00:14:43.509 --> 00:14:46.690 system. It's incredibly dark. It is. But this 00:14:46.690 --> 00:14:49.549 exact desperation, this chaotic scrambling for 00:14:49.549 --> 00:14:52.149 profits as the resources vanished, opened the 00:14:52.149 --> 00:14:55.070 door for a massive corporate giant to finally 00:14:55.070 --> 00:14:57.330 enter the fray and crush the Americans entirely. 00:14:57.529 --> 00:14:59.970 Enter the Hudson's Bay Company. Exactly. By the 00:14:59.970 --> 00:15:02.370 1820s, the Hudson's Bay Company, which had vast 00:15:02.370 --> 00:15:04.889 control over the inland North American fur trade, 00:15:05.409 --> 00:15:07.889 realized they had a massive leak in their system. 00:15:08.059 --> 00:15:10.379 The Americans. Right. American ships on the coast 00:15:10.379 --> 00:15:12.759 were intercepting beaver furs from indigenous 00:15:12.759 --> 00:15:15.779 interior networks before those furs could ever 00:15:15.779 --> 00:15:18.500 reach the inland HBC trading posts. The Americans 00:15:18.500 --> 00:15:20.399 were basically front running them. They were. 00:15:20.860 --> 00:15:24.360 So in the late 1820s, an HBC executive named 00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:27.340 George Simpson reorganized their entire operation. 00:15:27.700 --> 00:15:29.940 He launched a coastal fleet, which eventually 00:15:29.940 --> 00:15:33.240 included the famous steamship Dever. Oh, a steamship. 00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:35.559 Yeah. And the goal was to dominate the coastal 00:15:35.559 --> 00:15:38.740 waters and cut the Americans off. But the Americans 00:15:38.740 --> 00:15:40.899 still had the advantage of their global routes, 00:15:40.919 --> 00:15:42.960 right? They had surplus manufactured goods from 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:45.320 all over the Pacific, which allowed them to pay 00:15:45.320 --> 00:15:48.080 indigenous hunters top dollar for whatever furs 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:51.549 were left. How does the HBC overcome that? Well, 00:15:51.669 --> 00:15:54.870 the HBC employed a brutal but incredibly effective 00:15:54.870 --> 00:15:57.429 strategy known as predatory pricing. Predatory 00:15:57.429 --> 00:15:59.370 pricing, okay. Because the Hudson's Bay Company 00:15:59.370 --> 00:16:01.529 was a massive corporation with incredibly deep 00:16:01.529 --> 00:16:04.210 pockets, they deliberately paid exorbitant prices 00:16:04.210 --> 00:16:07.529 for furs on the coast. Wait, they overpaid? Yes. 00:16:08.070 --> 00:16:10.870 They took massive financial losses for years 00:16:10.870 --> 00:16:13.330 on end, purposefully overpaying the indigenous 00:16:13.330 --> 00:16:15.850 hunters just to make the coastal trade completely 00:16:15.850 --> 00:16:19.230 unprofitable for the Americans. So the HBC essentially 00:16:19.230 --> 00:16:21.850 decided to flood the engine. Precisely. They 00:16:21.850 --> 00:16:24.649 poured so much of their own money into the market 00:16:24.649 --> 00:16:27.169 that they drowned the Americans in an artificially 00:16:27.169 --> 00:16:30.149 inflated economy that only the HBC could afford 00:16:30.149 --> 00:16:33.129 to survive. That is the exact mechanism. They 00:16:33.129 --> 00:16:36.269 weaponized their own capital, and it worked beautifully. 00:16:36.870 --> 00:16:40.070 By 1841, the Americans essentially abandoned 00:16:40.070 --> 00:16:42.690 the Northwest Coast. Wow. They simply couldn't 00:16:42.690 --> 00:16:45.470 compete with a multinational corporation willing 00:16:45.470 --> 00:16:48.769 to bleed money just to win market share. Wait, 00:16:48.850 --> 00:16:51.009 the Hudson's Bay Company purposely lost money 00:16:51.009 --> 00:16:53.409 just to ruin their rivals? That's like a massive, 00:16:53.409 --> 00:16:56.549 modern megacorp selling products below manufacturing 00:16:56.549 --> 00:16:58.629 costs just to bankrupt the mom -and -pop stores 00:16:58.629 --> 00:17:01.789 down the street. It is exactly like that. But 00:17:01.789 --> 00:17:04.369 if we connect this to the bigger picture, the 00:17:04.369 --> 00:17:07.269 HPC won the battle, but they lost the war. By 00:17:07.269 --> 00:17:08.990 the time the Hudson's Bay Company secured their 00:17:08.990 --> 00:17:11.589 monopoly on the coast, the maritime fur trade 00:17:11.589 --> 00:17:13.890 was dying anyway. Because there were hardly any 00:17:13.890 --> 00:17:16.009 animals left to hunt. The animal populations 00:17:16.009 --> 00:17:19.369 were severely depleted. But beyond that, global 00:17:19.369 --> 00:17:21.670 consumer factions were changing. Oh, really? 00:17:22.250 --> 00:17:24.809 Yeah, silk was replacing beaver felt for top 00:17:24.809 --> 00:17:28.460 hats in European high society. and massive economic 00:17:28.460 --> 00:17:31.859 depressions, like the Panic of 1837, collapsed 00:17:31.859 --> 00:17:34.839 the global markets. The boom was definitively 00:17:34.839 --> 00:17:38.440 over. So the corporate oar ended. But the shockwaves 00:17:38.440 --> 00:17:41.099 of the maritime fur trade permanently rewired 00:17:41.099 --> 00:17:43.740 the cultures, economies, and demographics of 00:17:43.740 --> 00:17:46.920 four distinct regions of the globe. Let's look 00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:49.359 at the global fallout, starting with the Pacific 00:17:49.359 --> 00:17:52.279 Northwest. Well... For the indigenous peoples 00:17:52.279 --> 00:17:54.420 of the Pacific Northwest, the initial impact 00:17:54.420 --> 00:17:57.099 was a massive influx of wealth and new technologies, 00:17:57.380 --> 00:17:59.859 particularly iron tools. This actually led to 00:17:59.859 --> 00:18:02.200 a cultural flourishing. Think about the mechanics 00:18:02.200 --> 00:18:05.180 of carving a massive cedar totem pole. Before 00:18:05.180 --> 00:18:07.440 the trade, artists used stone or shell tools, 00:18:07.700 --> 00:18:09.640 which was incredibly labor intensive. I can't 00:18:09.640 --> 00:18:12.000 even imagine. Right. But the introduction of 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:14.259 iron chisels and blades from the fur traders 00:18:14.259 --> 00:18:16.519 allowed for the creation of much larger, more 00:18:16.519 --> 00:18:18.779 intricate totem poles in a fraction of the time. 00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:21.279 The sources also mention the crafting of elaborate 00:18:21.279 --> 00:18:23.960 button blankets and the development of Chinook 00:18:23.960 --> 00:18:26.940 jargon. Which was a completely new pidgin trade 00:18:26.940 --> 00:18:29.660 language that combined indigenous languages with 00:18:29.660 --> 00:18:32.740 French, English, and Russian just to facilitate 00:18:32.740 --> 00:18:35.180 all this commerce. It's fascinating. Right. But 00:18:35.180 --> 00:18:37.400 that cultural boom... came with a devastating 00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:40.839 cost. The maritime trade routes brought successive 00:18:40.839 --> 00:18:43.559 waves of deadly epidemics to communities that 00:18:43.559 --> 00:18:47.259 had no immunity. Right. The 1862 smallpox epidemic 00:18:47.259 --> 00:18:50.180 alone was horrific, wiping out massive percentages 00:18:50.180 --> 00:18:52.900 of the population. There was also the introduction 00:18:52.900 --> 00:18:55.839 of widespread alcoholism and, because of the 00:18:55.839 --> 00:18:59.400 influx of firearms, significantly increased and 00:18:59.400 --> 00:19:02.519 deadlier intertribal warfare. We're seeing how 00:19:02.519 --> 00:19:04.640 complex and heavy the source material is here. 00:19:04.740 --> 00:19:06.480 And the story is incredibly similar when you 00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:08.680 look at Hawaii. The influx of foreign wealth 00:19:08.680 --> 00:19:11.380 and Western weapons helped King Kamehameha unify 00:19:11.380 --> 00:19:14.079 the Hawaiian islands into a single kingdom. Honolulu 00:19:14.079 --> 00:19:16.900 exploded from a quiet harbor into a massive bustling 00:19:16.900 --> 00:19:19.680 global port city. But again, the human toll was 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:22.180 staggering. We already discussed how the sandalwood 00:19:22.180 --> 00:19:25.299 trade caused severe agricultural famines. Combine 00:19:25.299 --> 00:19:27.640 that malnutrition with foreign diseases brought 00:19:27.640 --> 00:19:30.630 by the sailors. like cholera and the native Hawaiian 00:19:30.630 --> 00:19:34.809 population dropped by roughly 50 percent by the 00:19:34.809 --> 00:19:38.289 year 1850. 50 percent. Half of the entire population 00:19:38.289 --> 00:19:41.769 gone in a matter of decades. It's just devastating 00:19:41.769 --> 00:19:43.309 to read. And then we look at the other side of 00:19:43.309 --> 00:19:47.250 the world. New England. Right. The massive capital 00:19:47.250 --> 00:19:49.529 generated by the Boston men on the Golden Round 00:19:49.529 --> 00:19:52.329 didn't just sit in shipping ledgers when the 00:19:52.329 --> 00:19:55.069 maritime trade dried up. No, it didn't. And this 00:19:55.069 --> 00:19:57.309 is perhaps the most profound economic legacy 00:19:57.309 --> 00:20:00.180 of the era. When the Pacific trade started to 00:20:00.180 --> 00:20:02.799 decline, those Boston merchants took all their 00:20:02.799 --> 00:20:05.339 fur money and shifted it. As the source text 00:20:05.339 --> 00:20:08.299 says, they moved capital from wharf to waterfall. 00:20:08.819 --> 00:20:10.500 Okay, explain the mechanics of that transfer 00:20:10.500 --> 00:20:13.019 for the listener, because how does a maritime 00:20:13.019 --> 00:20:15.420 shipping fortune become the American Industrial 00:20:15.420 --> 00:20:17.759 Revolution? Well, these merchants had accumulated 00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:20.440 massive cash reserves from those 500 % profit 00:20:20.440 --> 00:20:23.160 mernogens in Canton. As shipping became riskier 00:20:23.160 --> 00:20:25.500 and less profitable, they needed a safe place 00:20:25.500 --> 00:20:27.920 to part their capital. Makes sense. So they bought 00:20:27.920 --> 00:20:30.420 land along the fast -flowing rivers of Massachusetts 00:20:30.420 --> 00:20:33.480 and New England. They used their fur fortunes 00:20:33.480 --> 00:20:36.099 to build the infrastructure for massive water 00:20:36.099 --> 00:20:39.259 -powered textile mills. They essentially transitioned 00:20:39.259 --> 00:20:43.000 from extracting natural resources abroad to manufacturing 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:45.769 goods at home. But those massive textile mills 00:20:45.769 --> 00:20:48.470 needed raw material to weave. They needed cotton. 00:20:48.769 --> 00:20:51.630 Yes. And to get that cotton, this newly built 00:20:51.630 --> 00:20:54.549 industrial engine subsequently fueled the rapid 00:20:54.549 --> 00:20:57.369 expansion of the cotton plantation slavery system 00:20:57.369 --> 00:21:00.289 in the American deep south. The demand for raw 00:21:00.289 --> 00:21:05.190 cotton to feed the northern mills directly incentivize 00:21:05.190 --> 00:21:07.390 the brutal expansion of the southern plantation 00:21:07.390 --> 00:21:10.930 economy. It is a profound and unsettling chain 00:21:10.930 --> 00:21:12.970 of cause and effect. It's just mind -blowing 00:21:12.970 --> 00:21:15.309 to think about. An intricate indigenous totem 00:21:15.309 --> 00:21:17.809 pole carved in British Columbia, the political 00:21:17.809 --> 00:21:20.609 unification of the Hawaiian Islands, a massive 00:21:20.609 --> 00:21:22.670 brick textile mill in Massachusetts, and the 00:21:22.670 --> 00:21:24.750 expansion of plantations in the Deep South. Yeah. 00:21:25.069 --> 00:21:28.329 They all share the exact same origin story. But 00:21:28.329 --> 00:21:30.309 did the people involved at the time have any 00:21:30.309 --> 00:21:31.930 idea they were changing the world this much? 00:21:32.309 --> 00:21:34.170 This raises an important question about how we 00:21:34.170 --> 00:21:36.859 view history. You know history is lived forward, 00:21:36.859 --> 00:21:39.980 but it is understood backward right the sailors 00:21:39.980 --> 00:21:42.880 the indigenous hunters the Russian elites They 00:21:42.880 --> 00:21:45.400 were all just looking for a payday. They were 00:21:45.400 --> 00:21:47.900 trying to survive or get rich in their immediate 00:21:47.900 --> 00:21:51.019 present They didn't realize they were acting 00:21:51.019 --> 00:21:55.559 as the vanguard of a new ruthless global capitalist 00:21:55.559 --> 00:21:57.940 system. They couldn't have known. A system that 00:21:57.940 --> 00:22:00.259 would connect completely disparate continents 00:22:00.259 --> 00:22:03.819 and exploit both nature and humans on an unprecedented 00:22:03.819 --> 00:22:06.240 scale. They were just chasing the fluff. The 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:09.099 immediate reward blinded them to the global architecture 00:22:09.099 --> 00:22:11.599 they were building. Well, to quickly recap this 00:22:11.599 --> 00:22:14.240 incredible destructive and world shaping arc 00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:16.799 for you listening. The maritime fur trade started 00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:19.240 as a localized hunt for the thickest fur on earth, 00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:22.039 but it sparked an international gold rush that 00:22:22.039 --> 00:22:25.880 bypassed royal colonial monopolies, drove multiple 00:22:25.880 --> 00:22:29.099 species to the brink of extinction, forced empires 00:22:29.099 --> 00:22:31.819 into pitched battles, and generated the exact 00:22:31.819 --> 00:22:34.319 capital that built the modern industrial economy. 00:22:34.700 --> 00:22:36.940 And all of it was interconnected over the fur 00:22:36.940 --> 00:22:39.680 of a single marine mammal. It really was the 00:22:39.680 --> 00:22:42.740 prototype for modern global venture capitalism. 00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:45.619 It forces you to look at global trade in a completely 00:22:45.619 --> 00:22:48.619 different light. You see the extreme fragility 00:22:48.619 --> 00:22:51.099 of it, how reliant it was on a single animal, 00:22:51.420 --> 00:22:55.299 but also the immense unstoppable momentum it 00:22:55.299 --> 00:22:58.000 created once the profit margins were realized. 00:22:58.160 --> 00:23:00.660 I want to leave you with a final lingering what 00:23:00.660 --> 00:23:03.329 if. based on today's deep dive. Oh, I like these. 00:23:03.670 --> 00:23:06.029 Imagine the butterfly effect if Captain Cook's 00:23:06.029 --> 00:23:08.509 crew hadn't bothered to stop in Canton to sell 00:23:08.509 --> 00:23:12.109 those furs in 1779, if they had just sailed straight 00:23:12.109 --> 00:23:14.170 home to England with a bunch of warm coats in 00:23:14.170 --> 00:23:16.210 their cargo hold. Right, if they just never knew 00:23:16.210 --> 00:23:19.730 the value. Exactly. The Russian monopoly in Alaska 00:23:19.730 --> 00:23:22.210 might have remained totally unchecked for decades, 00:23:22.670 --> 00:23:25.470 slowly expanding down the coast. The Boston merchants 00:23:25.470 --> 00:23:27.829 might never have gained the startup capital to 00:23:27.829 --> 00:23:30.150 launch the American Industrial Revolution. Yeah. 00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:33.119 The entire geopolitical map of North America 00:23:33.119 --> 00:23:35.779 and the Pacific at large would look completely 00:23:35.779 --> 00:23:39.039 different today. A single, seemingly minor decision 00:23:39.039 --> 00:23:42.220 by an exhausted crew in a Chinese port town changed 00:23:42.220 --> 00:23:45.039 the entire trajectory of the 19th century. From 00:23:45.039 --> 00:23:48.200 a fluffy sea otter pelt to the transcontinental 00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:51.140 modern economy. Thank you for joining us on this 00:23:51.140 --> 00:23:53.279 deep dive into the source material. We will catch 00:23:53.279 --> 00:23:54.079 you next time.