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Atrading post,trading station, ortrading house, also known as afactory in European and colonial contexts, is an establishment or settlement wheregoods and services could betraded.
Typically a trading post allows people from one geographic area to exchange for goods produced in another area. Usually money is not used. Thebarter that occurs often includes an aspect ofhaggling. In some examples, local inhabitants can use a trading post to exchange what they have (such as locally-harvested furs) for goods they wish to acquire (such as manufactured trade goods imported from industrialized places).[1]
Given bulk transportation costs, exchanges made at a trading post for long-distance distribution can involve items which either party or both parties regard asluxury goods.[2]
A trading post can consist either of a single building or of an entire town.[3] Trading posts have been established in a range of areas, including relatively remote ones, but most often near an ocean, a river, or another source of anatural resource.[4] A prominent geographical location and the head start provided by an early trading post ensured that trading posts feature in the history of many of today's cities, such asTimbuktu[5]andHong Kong.[6]
Major towns in the Hanseatic League were known askontors, a form of trading posts.[7]
Charax Spasinu was a trading post between the Roman and Parthian Empires.[8]
Manhattan andSingapore were both established as trading posts, by DutchmanPeter Minuit and EnglishmanStamford Raffles respectively, and later developed into major settlements.[9][10]
TheCity of Edmonton, Alberta began asFort Edmonton in 1812.[11]
TheRoman Empire was able to control a large amount of land because of its efficient systems for transferring information, goods, and military expeditions across large distances. Goods specifically were vital to maintaining outposts in territories distant from Rome, such as northern Africa and western Asia. Trading posts played a large part in managing these goods, deciding where they were going and when. Goods collected at these trading posts and other parts of the Roman trade system included precious stones,fabrics,ivory, andwine. There is also evidence thatcattle were traded at the Empúries trading post, established in the 6th century BCE, on the Iberian Peninsula.[12]
Trading houses were typically strategically located and stocked with goods thatNative Americans and other trappers would trade furs for. These goods included clothing, blankets, axes, beads, corn, wheat flour, and liquor. Eric Jay Dolin'sFur, Fortune, and Empire provides a history of trading posts in North America.
Plymouth colonists established Kennebec Trading House in 1628.[13] This was followed by the Plymouth Penobscot trading post. Conflicts between French and Plymouth colonists occurred in 1631 when Frenchmen arrived at the Plymouth Penobscot trading post. The masters of the trading post and most of the crew were absent, leaving only a few servants (employees) to attend to the Frenchmen. When the Frenchmen learned this was the case, they feigned interest in guns available at the trading post, which when they got their hands on them, they turned back onto the servants. They obtained all valuables, leaving with £500 of goods and £300 in beaver pelts.[14]
John Jacob Astor founded theAmerican Fur Company (AFC). One of the great feats achieved by the AFC was the establishment of a trading post in the native Blackfoot tribe's territory, located in modern-day Montana along the Rocky Mountains. The Blackfoot tribe had killed many Euro-Americans and, up to this point, had only traded with the Hudson Bay Company. In order to erect a trading post in Blackfoot territory, the AFC needed a way to establish contact on their behalf. Jacob Berger, a trapper, offered Kenneth McKenzie to serve as this contact and get the AFC into negotiations with the Blackfoot. The talks were successful, and McKenzie was allowed to build a trading post in Blackfoot territory, adjacent to the Missouri and Marias Rivers, naming it Fort McKenzie.[15]
The American post, Noochuloghoyet Trading Post, was established in the last 19th century in central Alaska adjacent to the Yukon River. This was an important trading post for the fur trade. It operated under different names, and its level of business activity varied greatly while it was in operation.[16]
Ohthere [...] also told of a journey south along the coast of Norway to the trading centre of Sciringesheal (this is most likely Kaupang in Westfold). [...] From Sciringesheal he took five days to sail to Hedeby. Kaupang was an international trading centre and Hedeby was Scandinavia's largest trading post. The purpose of the journey was no doubt to sell products from northern Scandinavia, which were considered luxury goods and would fetch a good price, and buy luxury goods which were difficult to obtain in his home area.
Nomadic Tuareg people established Timbuktu as a seasonal camp in about 1100, likely due to the location about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from the Niger River. Timbuktu developed into an important trading post along the major caravan route through the Sahara Desert and as a center for Islamic culture.
[...] as early as the nineteenth century [the Victoria Harbour] was already an important anchorage and passage for regional trading ships [...]. [...] Thereafter, Hong Kong rapidly developed into an important trading post.
Media related toTrading posts at Wikimedia Commons.
