Castoreum and Steel Traps in Eastern North America

In: American anthropologist: AA, Band 74, Heft 3, S. 479-483

Abstract

Historians and anthropologists have credited the invention of trapping beaver with castoreum bait and steel traps to the Indians of southeastern Canada in the 1790s. However, English trappers in Virginia used this technique before 1728, and the Indians of southeastern Canada were using it by 1756. It is suggested that the widespread adoption of castoreum and steel traps by Northeastern Indians in the 1790's was due to the collapse of the world fur market after the French Revolution.