California hide trade

[11] They would first need to be cured, cleaned, stretched, dried in the summer sun, whipped, salted, and folded, a long and tedious process completed by sailors themselves with the aid of Native Americans and the Hawaiian Kanaka peoples, together called “droghers”.

[11][17] A tariff system charging up to 15,000 pesos enacted by the Mexican government would be paid at the customs house at Monterey, which allowed trading vessels to buy and sell goods at all of the California ports.

[11][17] The settlers (Spanish speakers born in the area became known as Californios) were able to purchase any number of manufactured products from trading ships - notably described by the writer Richard Henry Dana as “floating department stores”.

[15][18] Products purchased by the Californios and others were diverse and significant, many being finished goods not fabricated in the region, including silk, wine, sugar, lace, cotton, hats, horses, clothes, tobacco, cutlery and tea from abroad.

[15][20][18][17][13][21][22] By the mid-1820s, the hide and tallow trade, facilitated by Spanish missions and their clergy and later replaced by private ranches,[23][24][25] represented the key profitable industry in California, taxes on their primary products propping up the regional economy and infrastructure.

The Hide Trade proved to gain momentum and come to its ultimate fruition as a result of Mexican Independence in 1821, when individual ranches replaced missions during Mexico’s “secularization” era in the 1820s and 1830s.

[37][3] American trade initially began with sailors from New England, who found an interest in the California otter and seal skins industry which diminished in prominence rapidly after the beginning of the nineteenth century.

[41] The flourishing company of Bryant and Sturgis itself grew to become the most influential private business venture, facilitated by its associate William Gale,[11][18] taking in four fifths of all hides from California.

[36] Native Americans including the Tlingit, Chinook, Kodiak, Haida, Aleut and Tsimshian groups as well as others often interacted with white traders, at times giving way to positive and negative experiences.

[15] For those interested in further information, The Peabody Essex Museum located in Salem, Massachusetts provides one of many, unique places where one can learn firsthand about the California hide trade.