—5—

Competition, Conflict, and Chicanery

John Winthrop, by Samuel Harris, 1806.

HAD THE PLYMOUTH UNDERTAKERS ADVERTISED FOR the candidate to be their representative in London, they could hardly have found a more promising applicant than Isaac Allerton. A respected member of the community—one of the original passengers on the Mayflower and the fifth signatory of the Mayflower Compact—he seemed to be the perfect choice. Surely such a man would act in the undertakers’ best interests, especially since he was one of them. By 1630, however, he had resigned, leaving them facing an unholy financial mess.

Rather than sell furs and apply the profits to paying off the debt and supporting the colony, Allerton had taken a more self-serving path. Charging exorbitant amounts for supplies and engaging in duplicitous bookkeeping practices as well as questionable private expenditures, he not only squandered most of the profits but also allowed the undertakers’ debt to more than double. Reflecting on this sorry state of affairs, Bradford ruefully observed that the entire colony had been “hoodwinked.”¹

With Allerton gone, however, and a new accountant tracking business expenditures, the undertakers fervently hoped that their fortunes would improve. But with continuing access to a good supply of furs being cut off as a result of French incursions in the north and competition from the Dutch—and other Englishmen—in the southwest, the unfortunate undertakers’ bridge to economic viability was slowly crumbling: The imperial battle for America’s fur trade had begun.

Soon after Allerton resigned, the French struck a blow at Plymouth’s fur trade in an attack that was quick, bloodless, and almost comical in its execution. When a French ship arrived at Plymouth’s Penobscot trading post in 1631, the men onboard, including a Scotsman acting as interpreter, claimed that they had long been at sea and had no idea where they were, and since the ship was leaking they asked for permission to land to make repairs. Permission granted, they came ashore, whereupon the Scotsman, conversing with a few of the “servants,” discovered that their “master and the rest of the company” were at Plymouth fetching supplies. This information caused the Frenchmen suddenly to become quite interested in the guns on the wall racks of the trading post’s main house, and they took them down for a closer look. Seemingly unaware of the trap being set, the servants responded affirmatively when asked whether the guns were loaded. With that the Frenchmen stopped admiring the guns and pointed them at the servants, bidding “them not to stir, but quietly” gather all that was of value. Soon the Frenchmen were on their way, enriched by £500 of goods and three hundred pounds of beaver pelts.²

Four years later the French attacked the post again, when Charles de Menou, sieur d’Aulnay, sailed into Penobscot Bay with orders from the Acadian governor “to clear the coast unto Pemaquid and Kennebec of all persons whatsoever.” D’Aulnay commandeered the post’s shallop which was offshore, and forced its men to pilot in his ship. On shore he took possession of the post and “purchased” all of its supplies at prices he set, claiming that he would pay the dispossessed Englishmen later, if they ever came to get what he owed them. Having finished the fire sale, d’Aulnay, “with a great deal of compliment and many fine words,” gave the Plymouth men a small amount of food, crammed them into their shallop, and sent them home. When the ousted traders shared their story, it roused the colony’s ire and spurred Plymouth’s leaders to seek revenge and attempt to recapture the post.³

The Plymouth men consulted with their Puritan neighbors at the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which had been founded in 1629, to see if they would lend their support. Although the Massachusetts men approved of the retaliatory strike, they would not provide any funding, so Plymouth had to go it alone. They hired a three-hundred-ton ship, captained by a Mr. Girling and “well fitted with ordnance.” If Girling succeeded in driving off the French his reward would be seven hundred pounds of beaver; but if he failed he would get nothing. To assist Girling, Plymouth sent a bark with a crew of twenty, led by the fearless and resolute Miles Standish. In the bark’s hold, stored for safekeeping until the French were defeated, lay the sizable heap of beaver pelts that would be Girling’s payment.

The expedition was a complete disaster. Pigheaded and rash, Girling disregarded the agreed-upon strategy, which was to give the French a chance to parley and voluntarily lay down their arms in the face of a well-armed foe. Instead Girling “began to shoot at distance like a mad man,” and because the French were well protected by earthen breastworks, he “did them no hurt at all.” Standish, alarmed and angered, convinced Girling that he would have better luck if he got closer to the targets, but it was too late. When Girling advanced he was able to get off only a few shots before exhausting his powder. At Girling’s urging Standish reluctantly went to the nearest English plantation and obtained additional powder to continue the assault. By this time, however, Standish had grown suspicious of Girling’s intent, having heard “by intelligence” that the incompetent captain intended to seize the bark and take all the furs. Rather than risk this Standish delivered the powder to Girling, then headed home with the pelts still onboard. His plan dashed, Girling bothered the French no more and sailed away.⁴

After Standish’s return the Plymouth Colony attempted yet again to get the Massachusetts Bay Colony to support an expedition against the French. And for the second time the Massachusetts men, while continuing to be sympathetic, declined, citing financial limitations. But the real reason the Massachusetts men demurred was that they had no interest in helping Plymouth’s fur trade at the expense of their own. From its founding, the Massachusetts Bay Colony viewed the fur trade as a means to maintain itself and pay off its investors.⁵ In 1630, just a year after the colony received its royal charter, “the most highly developed enterprise in New England was the exportation of furs by the Pilgrims,” and the Massachusetts men wanted to share in that success.⁶ The possibilities of the fur trade astounded the Reverend Francis Higginson, one of the earliest Massachusetts Bay settlers. “It is almost incredible,” he wrote in 1629, “what great gain some of our English planters have had by our Indian corn.” For proof he pointed to a man who sowed thirteen gallons of corn, which cost 6s. 8d. and was able to trade the resulting crop to local Indians for £327 of beaver, generating profits of nearly 1,000 percent.⁷

Before the Massachusetts Bay Colony could emulate Plymouth’s success, it had to gain access to furs. This posed a problem. Most of the fur-bearing animals in the vicinity of Boston Harbor had been killed to feed the trade, forcing the Massachusetts Bay men to look farther afield. But when they did they found that the Plymouth Colony had gotten there first. This caused John Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to complain bitterly in 1634, with more than a twinge of commercial jealousy, that Plymouth had “engrossed all the Chief places of trade in N:E: viz.: Kennebec, Penobscot, Narragansett, and Connecticut.”⁸ Therefore, whenever the Massachusetts Bay Colony had an opportunity to beat Plymouth in the race for furs, it took it. Indeed, after the Plymouth men had been run out of the Penobscot post, merchants from the Massachusetts Bay Colony launched their own trade with the post’s new French tenants, exchanging provisions, powder, and shot for furs and other goods, a move greatly decried by Plymouth’s leaders, who had expected less predatory and more brotherly behavior on the part of their God-fearing neighbors.⁹

 

THE PENOBSCOT AFFAIR WAS NOT THE FIRST TIME THAT THE Maine fur trade caused friction between the Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay Colonies. In April 1634 there took place an event that Bradford said was “one of the saddest things that befell them since they came.” John Hocking, a fur trader from the English plantation at Piscataway (now Portsmouth, New Hampshire), sailed up the Kennebec with a small crew, intending to go above the Plymouth Colony’s trading post and intercept all the furs the Indians brought downriver. When Hocking reached the post, John Howland, the post’s headman, told him that all the furs in the area belonged to Plymouth, demanding that Hocking and his men leave at once. Hocking responded that he would continue, Plymouth be damned, and trade there “as long as he pleased.” Howland shouted back that he would be compelled to remove Hocking by force. Unimpressed by this show of bravado, Hocking “bid [Howland]…to do his worst” and then sailed upriver, anchoring out of sight of the post.¹⁰

Howland and four of his men pursued Hocking a short time later, and when they reached him, Howland again implored Hocking to leave peacefully. Spewing “foul” words, Hocking refused and then demanded to know whether Howland intended to shoot him. No, Howland replied, but he promised to send him away, and with that, ordered his men to cut Hocking’s cables so that his boat would drift downriver. With one cable cut, Hocking warned Howland’s men not to cut the other, and when they attempted to do so, Hocking grabbed his pistol and placed it against the temple of one of Howland’s men, Moses Talbott. “Don’t shoot him, shoot me instead!” Howland screamed, adding that Talbott was just following orders, and that “if any wrong was done it was himself that did it.”¹¹ Ignoring Howland’s plea, Hocking pulled the trigger, killing Talbott instantly. Before he could shoot again one of Talbott’s “fellows (who loved him well),” shot Hocking, “who fell down and never spoke a word.”¹² Leaderless, the rest of Hocking’s men beat a hasty retreat.

Hocking’s men told their fellow colonists at Piscataway that Hocking was the victim rather than the instigator, and that he was killed “without provocation.” When this story filtered back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a great furor arose. Not only did the thought “of cutting one another’s throats for beaver” alarm the populace, but the murders themselves had violated the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” When one of Hocking’s relatives lodged a complaint with Governor Winthrop, “desiring that justice might be done upon the offender,” the Massachusetts Bay Colony sprang into action.¹³

Winthrop imprisoned John Alden, one of Plymouth’s magistrates, who just happened to be in Boston at the time, on the grounds that he was at the Kennebec trading post when the murders occurred and should be called to account, even though he was not directly implicated in the shootings.¹⁴

Plymouth’s leaders, outraged that their “neighbors,” who had “no jurisdiction over them,” had imprisoned a member of their colony and forced him to stand in court, sent Standish to tell their side of the story and gain Alden’s release. Winthrop set Alden free, but only after Standish promised to appear in court and answer the charges. In the meantime Lords Say and Brooke, the owners of the Piscataway plantation, sent some pointed advice to Plymouth’s governor, Thomas Prince: “We could, for the death of Hocking, have dispatched a man-of-war and beat down your houses at Kennebec about your ears; but we have thought another course preferable”—namely gathering together representatives from the Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and the Piscataway plantations to review the case and render a decision. But when the day came, nobody from Piscataway appeared, so the officials from Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay “fell into a fair debating of things,” and devised their own ruling. They concluded that Hocking had infringed on Plymouth’s rights, that he was to blame for the deadly altercation, and that his death was an excusable although deeply regretted homicide.¹⁵

The Hocking incident and the French takeover of the Penobscot post further stoked the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s interest in the Maine fur trade, underscoring the Plymouth Colony’s relative weakness and inability to protect its interests in that area. As a result Massachusetts Bay traders, as well as other English traders along the coast, gradually pushed the Plymouth fur traders aside, virtually eliminating them from Maine by the end of the 1630s. At the same time that Plymouth was being shut out of the northern fur trade, a similar dynamic was taking place to the south and west, where the Dutch—and to a much greater extent other English colonists—were putting the squeeze on Plymouth.

 

IN THE LATE 1620S, WHEN NEW AMSTERDAM AND PLYMOUTH were still enjoying a reasonably friendly if guarded relationship, the Dutch told the English about a wonderful place—the fertile and fur-rich lands along the Connecticut River. The Dutch invited the English to settle there and leave behind their present relatively “barren quarter.” Bradford viewed this invitation as a magnanimous gesture, but the Dutch had an ulterior motive—they assumed that if the English settled along the river they would come under Dutch control, thereby giving the Dutch the opportunity to consolidate their claim on the region while adding to the population of their still-small colony. Plymouth’s leaders initially rejected the invitation, but they had a change of heart after a visit from a Mahican sachem named Wahginnacut.¹⁶

In 1631 Wahginnacut, whose people lived in the Connecticut River valley, journeyed to both Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay with an offer. If the English settled along the Connecticut River, Wahginnacut would supply them with corn and eighty beaver skins each year, and the English would also be able to pursue the fur trade on their own. Wahginnacut hoped that the English would become allies against the Pequot, who had been attacking Wahginnacut’s people and evicting them from their lands. The Massachusetts Bay leaders politely declined, but their Plymouth counterparts were intrigued, especially since they had only recently learned of Allerton’s betrayal and were desperate to expand their trading activities. To find out if Wahginnacut’s offer was worth accepting, Plymouth sent Winslow on a reconnaissance mission to the Connecticut River the next year, and he reported that it was “a fine place.” This was followed by trading forays that were “not without profit.”¹⁷

Plymouth’s leaders finally decided in 1633 to stake a claim to the Connecticut River valley. In July, Bradford and Winslow met with Governor Winthrop and urged the Massachusetts Bay Colony to join with Plymouth to build a trading post on the Connecticut River in order to keep the Dutch out. When Winthrop refused, Bradford and Winslow sweetened the deal, offering to launch the venture if Massachusetts Bay would partner with them and promise to provide financial support in later years. But Winthrop could not be swayed, later writing that the Bay Colony’s leaders “thought [it] not fit to meddle with” the project. Finally Bradford and Winslow asked Winthrop if he was opposed to Plymouth going it alone, and when Winthrop said no, Plymouth began preparing to head to the valley. But, as Plymouth would soon find out, the Dutch were already there.¹⁸

 

WHATEVER DESIRE THE DUTCH INITIALLY HAD FOR THE people of Plymouth to settle in the Connecticut River valley had evaporated by early 1633. The Dutch viewed the valley as their backyard and the English as potential invaders, who would not only displace the Dutch fur trade but the Dutch themselves if they had the chance. The Dutch were well aware of an English land patent that had been awarded to Lords Say and Brooke, among others, in 1631, which gave them title to a huge swath of land from Rhode Island to New York, including the Connecticut River valley. And the Dutch very likely had heard about Wahginnacut’s overtures to the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies. Then, in 1633, came an event that only heightened the growing animosity and distrust the Dutch had for the English in America.¹⁹

The English ship William arrived at Fort Amsterdam on April 18, and its supercargo, the Dutchman Jacob Eelkes, declared his intention to trade for furs farther up the Hudson. Eelkes was the very same man who, in 1622, as an employee of the Dutch West India Company, had seized a Sequin Indian chief and held him for the ransom of 140 fathoms of wampum. Summarily dismissed by the Dutch for this heinous action, he had thrown his allegiance to the English, and was now back in America to use his knowledge of the fur trade to benefit his new bosses.

What happened next was a sort of “comic opera.”²⁰ After getting drunk with Eelkes, Wouter van Twiller, the recently installed director general of New Amsterdam, remained mute while Eelkes and the Dutch adventurer David de Vries engaged in a heated argument that had both men claiming rights to the river and its furs by virtue of discovery. Eelkes claimed that Henry Hudson was English and therefore the river was an English possession, to which de Vries responded that Hudson was a Dutch employee at the time, and therefore the river was most certainly Dutch. A few days later Eelkes weighed anchor and began sailing upriver, while all van Twiller could rouse himself to do was break out the wine, drink up, and exhort his fellow Dutchmen to halt the Englishmen’s advance—a call that elicited mocking laughter but no action.²¹

The daring de Vries could hold back his condemnation no longer. He scolded van Twiller for being weak, and said that if he had been in charge he would have bombarded Eelkes’s ship with cannon fire from the fort, “and have prevented him from going up the river,” adding, “The English are of so haughty a nature, they think everything belongs to them. I should send the ship Soutberg after him, and drive him out of the river.” ²² A few days later van Twiller, urged to action by de Vries, sent three armed ships upriver to expel the intruder. By the time the ships arrived in the vicinity of Fort Orange, Eelkes had already begun trading, but it took the overwhelming Dutch force only a short while to round up Eelkes and his crew and transport them back to Fort Amsterdam, from which they and their ship were sent back to England. Spurred on by this incident, as well as knowledge of the impending English settlement of the Connecticut River valley, van Twiller proceeded with the construction of a small fort on the Connecticut River in the vicinity of what is now Hartford. Completed in June 1633, it was named “Fort Good Hope.”²³

Soon thereafter Plymouth forged ahead with its plan for a trading post on the Connecticut, purchasing from the Indians land six miles above the Dutch fort, and outfitting a “great new bark,” captained by William Holmes, with all the supplies necessary to construct the post. When Holmes reached Fort Good Hope in early October, the fort’s commander demanded to know where he was headed. Upon hearing that the Plymouth men planned to “seat” themselves above the fort and trade with the Indians, the commander ordered the Englishmen to “strike and stay” or be fired upon. Holmes defiantly responded that since he had a commission from the governor of Plymouth, it was his sworn duty to continue. The commander unleashed a few more choice threats, but his resolve didn’t match his words, and he let the English pass. After reaching their destination, on the site of modern-day Windsor, the Plymouth men quickly “clapped up” their prefabricated frame house and built palisades around it for protection.²⁴

When van Twiller learned of the Plymouth Colony’s impudence, he sent its leaders a letter pointing out that the Dutch had already laid claim to the Connecticut River, and requesting that the Plymouth men leave at once. Totally ineffectual, this letter was followed by van Twiller’s sending forth seventy armed men from Manhattan, with instructions to intimidate the English into leaving but not to use force. Upon seeing that the English were well defended, and that “it would cost blood” to dislodge them, the Dutch commander opted “to parley” instead, ultimately withdrawing his troops and returning to Manhattan “in peace.”²⁵ With this the Plymouth men commenced trading with the Indians, happy that the Dutch had not proved to be quite the obstacle to settlement that Plymouth’s leaders had feared. There was, however, another, much bigger obstacle to Plymouth’s ambitions in the Connecticut River valley—their fellow Englishmen.

 

IN 1630 PLYMOUTH WAS THE MOST POPULOUS OF ALL NEW England colonies, with roughly three hundred people, but within five years the “great migration” of Puritans from England catapulted the Massachusetts Bay Colony into the lead with four to five thousand inhabitants.²⁶ Many of these people were crowded along the coast and wanted for a variety of reasons to move on. Some felt physically hemmed in, others sought to find a place where they could pursue their own brand of religion beyond the reproachful eyes of the Puritan leaders of Massachusetts Bay, and still others were seeking new economic opportunities. For this last group the fur trade was the most compelling draw. Even before the vast tide of humanity descended on the Massachusetts Bay Colony, many of its earliest residents pursued this trade. For example, in 1629 Mathew Craddock, the first governor of the colony, established a fur-trading and shipbuilding post on the Mystic River, just three miles from Charlestown, in the area of modern-day Medford.²⁷ Six years later Simon Willard led a dozen families on a seventeen-mile march inland to found the town of Concord, choosing this location in large part because it was well situated for the fur trade, with plenty of streams and ponds, and a river running through it.²⁸

At first it appeared that the Massachusetts men weren’t interested in exploiting the Connecticut River valley. After all, in July 1633 Winthrop had declined Bradford and Winslow’s invitation to establish a joint trading post on the river. In doing so, however, Winthrop was, as one historian has politely observed, exhibiting “some disingenuousness.”²⁹ The leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wanted to settle the Connecticut River valley not only to take advantage of its furs but also its rich agricultural lands—they just didn’t want Plymouth as a partner. Within weeks of refusing Plymouth’s invitation Winthrop sent the Blessing of the Bay on a trip to the Connecticut River, Long Island, and New Amsterdam, where the Puritans presented van Twiller with a commission from Winthrop stating that “the King of England had granted the river and country of Connecticut to his own subjects; and therefore desired them [the Dutch] to forbear to build there.” Despite this thinly veiled threat, van Twiller “kindly entertained” his guests and sent them on their way.³⁰ A few days after the Blessing of the Bay returned to Boston, Winthrop received a letter from van Twiller recommending that the two colonies leave it up to the English king and the Dutch States General to “agree concerning the limits and parting of their quarters, that as good neighbors we might live in these heathenish countries.”³¹ But King Charles I was too busy dealing with a variety of domestic and international problems to concern himself with such distant colonial disputes, leaving the Massachusetts Bay Colony to deal with the issue as it saw fit. And the Massachusetts men soon made their choice—they were heading to Connecticut.

 

JOHN OLDHAM’S FUR-TRADING VENTURE TO THE CONNECTICUT River in 1633 proved decisive in making this choice. During the summer Oldham and three companions traveled what would later be called the “Old Connecticut Path,” an Indian trail that started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and wound its way over hills and through valleys, ending at the river near present-day Hartford.³² When the expedition returned in September with many furs, and spoke so glowingly about the prospects for trading, and the fertility of the dark, rich soil in the region, the Connecticut River valley became an exceedingly attractive destination for those seeking to get away from the confines of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and start a new life.³³

The floodgates for emigration opened in 1635, when a large group of colonists from Massachusetts Bay made their way to the Connecticut River, settling in Hartford, Wethersfield, as well as right on top of Plymouth’s trading post at Windsor. The post’s agent was alarmed by this great influx, writing to Bradford that “the Massachusetts men are coming almost daily, some by water, some by land…. I will do what I can to withstand them. I hope they will hear reason; as that we were here first, and entered with much difficulty and danger, both in regard of the Dutch and Indians, and bought the land.”³⁴ The Massachusetts men, however, were not interested in reasoning with Plymouth about ownership, for they believed that “God…in a fair way of providence tendered” the land to them. Shocked at this cavalier and pernicious claim of divine right, Bradford admonished the intruders not to “cast…a covetous eye upon that which is your neighbor’s and not yours,” but this and other remonstrations had no effect whatsoever. The Massachusetts men greatly outnumbered Plymouth’s meager force, they had all the power, and they weren’t going anywhere. The Plymouth Colony didn’t even consider retaliating but instead sought to make “peace…upon as good terms as they could get.” Those terms turned out to be not very good at all, leaving the Plymouth men with only one-sixteenth of the land they had originally occupied, with the rest going to the newcomers. “Thus was the controversy ended,” wrote Bradford, “but the unkindness not so soon forgotten.”³⁵

The Bay colonists were not the only ones seizing furs in Connecticut. Independent traders and fisherman were competitors, along with other English settlements, such as the one at the mouth of the Connecticut River, established in October 1635, when John Winthrop, Jr., sent a bark with twenty men to lay claim to the area. The fact that the Dutch had purchased this land from the local Indians three years earlier didn’t bother Winthrop in the least; since it was part of an English land patent, he viewed the Dutch as trespassers. When Winthrop’s men arrived they ripped down the arms of the Dutch government, which had been hanging from a tree, and “engraved a ridiculous face in their place.”³⁶ By the time van Twiller sent a sloop to chase off the English it was too late. With two cannons at the ready, Winthrop’s men repelled the puny Dutch force without firing a shot. The English fort and fur-trading post soon became known as Saybrook, in honor of Lords Say and Brooke, two of the patentees.³⁷

By 1636 there were nearly eight hundred Massachusetts émigrés in Connecticut, further marginalizing the few Plymouth settlers who remained and making it more difficult for them to benefit from the region’s fur trade.³⁸ That same year Plymouth’s situation worsened when William Pynchon, one of the leaders of the Bay Colony, established a fur-trading post on the Connecticut River at a place called Agawam—now Springfield, Massachusetts—upriver from Plymouth’s trading operations at Windsor. Pynchon’s post soon absorbed most of the fur traffic on the river.³⁹

With Plymouth bullied by the French to the north and pushed aside by the English to the southwest, the colony’s fur trade suffered, and just when it seemed that things could get no worse, they did. Since jettisoning Allerton, Plymouth’s leaders had blithely assumed that their financial difficulties were over. But they were shocked by the results of an audit of their fur-trade accounts in 1636. According to their agents in England, Plymouth still had considerable debts, despite having shipped roughly £12,000 worth of beaver and other furs to England between 1631 and 1636, an amount that, according to Bradford, should have cleared their entire account and then some.⁴⁰

It appeared that Plymouth’s leaders had been hoodwinked again, but much of the blame must be laid at their own feet. Given their past experience, the leaders should have been much more engaged in overseeing their economic destiny. Hemmed in on all sides and unable to defend its interests, the colony found its fur trade slowly atrophying. For the remainder of the decade the colony sent fewer furs back to England each successive year, and by 1640 the trade had for all practical purposes ceased.⁴¹

 

AS PLYMOUTH’S FUR FORTUNES SANK, THE TRADE THRIVED throughout the rest of New England, spurred by growing demand. The rising colonial population led to an increase in the local consumption of beaver hats. Even in the Bay Colony, where the general court passed a law in 1634 that forbade the purchasing or wearing of beaver hats (except those already owned), because they were seen as promoting the twin sins of vanity and pride, such hats remained sought-after.⁴² And in Europe the wearing of furs remained an important sign of class distinction. As one contemporary Frenchman observed, “Bachelors, Doctors of Law, Emperors, and Doctors of Medicine are vested in furs which represent the mysteries of Theology, the maxims of politics, and the secrets of medical science…. Of all the ornaments which luxury has invented there are none so glorious, so august, and so precious as furs…. The privileges and honors of Furriers and Skinners surpass quite rightly those of all other crafts.”⁴³ English furriers who made beaver hats were given an added economic boost in 1638 when King Charles I declared that thenceforth England would no longer import foreign-made beaver hats, and that all beaver hats made in England for English consumption had to be made of 100 percent beaver, not mixed with other inferior furs, such as rabbit.⁴⁴

When New England’s fur traders pondered the future there was one particularly troubling sign. Fur-bearing animals were being hunted to commercial extinction over broader areas, requiring Indians to travel longer, over more tenuous supply routes, to bring furs to the scattered English trading posts. But New England’s traders believed that there was one way to improve their prospects: If they could take over the lucrative Dutch fur trade, profitability might be ensured.