试论毛皮贸易对北美印第安人的生态影响

The Ecological Impact of the Fur Trade on the Indians of North America

毛皮边疆是北美西部开发中最具有传奇性的一种边疆,它不仅涉及范围广,持续时间长,而且创造了白人与印第安人交往的新形式,同时还给北美印第安人带来了深刻的影响。本文主要从环境史角度探讨了毛皮边疆导致的印第安人生存环境的恶化和生态伦理的堕落,驳斥了所谓印第安人从毛皮贸易中受益的谎言。

Fur trade had been the most fantastic frontier in the history of North America, which lasted more than 300 years and covered almost all the areas of North America. Compared with the agricultural frontier of the American West, the fur trade frontier shaped a new mode of the White and Indians interaction. The two races cooperated in their chasing of the fur bearing animals. The white benefited a lot from the fur trade, however, what the Indians got was suffering and humiliation. This paper studies in the ecological changes that the fur trade brought to the indigenous people and refutes the so-called myth of Indians benefiting from the fur trade