The Whiskey Trade of the Northwestern Plains

The last stage of the fur trade of North America's northwestern plains, in which native people played a decisive role, is known as the whiskey trade due to the overwhelming use of alcohol as a commodity of exchange. In the 1860s and 1870s, hundreds of trading posts were established throughout northern Montana and southern Alberta and Saskatchewan by independent American traders seeking buffalo robes processed by the women of local native groups. This study combines evidence from history, archaeology, and native oral traditions to present new insight on this most important, yet rarely studied, episode in the North American fur trade.