The Beavers Return to the Bronx River
The recent sighting of a male beaver swimming in the Bronx River outside of
Manhattan has generated great excitement and widespread media
attention. Why? Beavers disappeared from the river over two centuries
ago. Their surprising return to New York City highlights the improving
water quality of Gotham's rivers.
Biologists label beavers
ecosystem engineers. The presence of the furry rodents not only
indicates the health of their habitat, but their skills as dam builders
enable them to transform their environment. By felling trees and
constructing dams and lodges, beavers create ponds, wetlands, and
meadows that increase an ecosystem's biodiversity, improve its water
quality, and deter catastrophic flooding and erosion. But beavers are
important for another reason. More than any other wild animal, they
shaped the conflict among European nations for control of North
America--and the development of New York City.
Acquiring fur
pelts was one of the primary motives for European settlement in North
America during the seventeenth century. Beaver skins were especially
valued for the manufacture of hats. Their soft, dense fur made ideal
felt. No sooner did the Pilgrims establish Plymouth colony in 1620 than
they developed a flourishing beaver trade with Maine Indians. So did
other British settlers. The towns of Springfield and Concord,
Massachusetts, were both founded in 1635 as beaver trading posts. Beaver
hats became so fashionable in London that King Charles I declared in
1638 that "nothing but beaver stuff or beaver wool shall be used in the
making of hats." Beaver pelts served as a form of bartering currency. A
single skin was worth two pounds of sugar or a gallon of brandy. An
Indian could acquire a prized musket for 132 pelts.
During the
second half of the seventeenth century, the lucrative beaver trade
excited the imperial ambitions of the Dutch and French as well as the
British. Albany, New York, then called Fort Orange, emerged as the
center of the regional fur trade—and the site of imperial intrigues. At
Fort Orange, Indians traded pelts for rum and merchandise, and the pelts
were then transported down the Hudson River to Manhattan for sale to
colonial hatters and for shipment to Europe. In 1624 Fort Orange
processed 700 beaver pelts for export; by 1635 the number had soared to
15,000.
By 1650 relentless hunting had decimated the beavers in
the territory controlled by the Iroquois in central New York. Yet the
scarcity only increased the demand for pelts and embroiled the Indians
in complex international chicanery. First the Dutch and then the British
(after they gained control of New York in 1664) secretly encouraged the
Iroquois to push farther into western New York and across the Great
Lakes into southern Canada in the quest for more beavers. Such
incursions infuriated the French and their Indian allies. Backwoods
skirmishes over beavers and hunting rights led to major battles and even
global wars with far-flung consequences. The beaver trade also
heightened tensions between England and its American colonies. In 1732
Parliament passed the Hat Act prohibiting American hatmakers from
selling their beaver hats in England.
As frontier warfare between
the British and French and their Indian allies continued throughout the
eighteenth century, so too did the relentless killing of beavers. By
1800, the prized aquatic mammals had virtually disappeared east of the
Mississippi River. The need for new sources of furs was one of the
primary reasons why President Thomas Jefferson dispatched Meriwether
Lewis and William Clark to explore the trans-Mississippi West. Lewis and
Clark were astounded by what they found. The two intrepid explorers
described the foothills of the Rocky Mountains as "richer in beaver and
otter than any other country on earth." Lewis and Clark found even more
beavers in what is now Oregon.
News of Lewis and Clark's
discoveries spread fast. Entrepreneurs rushed to exploit the plentiful
pelts in the Pacific Northwest. In 1808 John Jacob Astor, an ambitious
German immigrant living in New York City, founded the American Fur
Company and built a trading center called Astoria at the mouth of the
Columbia River near what is today Portland. There he established a
flourishing global exchange that soon made him the first millionaire in
America and perhaps the wealthiest man in the world. The tens of
thousands of fur pelts he acquired from Indians and trappers were traded
in China for tea, silk, and spices, which in turn were exchanged in New
York City for beads, blankets, and rum, which Astor used to acquire
more western pelts. The flagship of Astor's merchant fleet was
appropriately named The Beaver. Over time, Astor used his fantastic profits to buy up much of Manhattan.
John
Jacob Astor's phenomenal wealth and notoriety ensured that the history
of New York would continue to be robed in fur. Images of the beaver are
on the official seal and flag of New York City. It is the official
animal of New York State (and Oregon). So it is not surprising that a
beaver swimming in the Bronx River should excite such commotion among
New Yorkers. It remains to be seen whether the beaver will be allowed to
keep his pelt.
-- David Shi is a historian, writer and president of Furman University