Late sixteenth-century basque banded copper kettles

Tracing the Distribution of Late 16th and Early 17th Century European Copper Artefacts in Southern Québec and Ontario, Canada

“…In north‐eastern North America, the late 16th and early 17th centuries of the current era were a time when Europeans appeared in ever greater numbers along the Atlantic coast of what is today Canada and the United States. Coastal Indigenous groups established regular trading relations with Europeans and, through their own long‐established trade routes, exchanged European goods with other Indigenous groups to the west and the south (Trigger ; Hamell , 73; Trigger [1976], 213–14; Fitzgerald et al , 49; Van Dongen ; Turgeon ; Fox ; Fox and Pilon ). Considerable research has focused on understanding the relations between Indigenous peoples and Europeans at this time period and their impact on the future transformation of North American geopolitics (Hamell ; Turgeon , 86; Salisbury ; Anselmi , ; Ehrhardt , 3; Howey , 333; Ehrhardt ).…”

“…Our current knowledge of the late 16th century in eastern Canada is based on the archaeological examination of early European whaling stations, on the archaeological examination of Indigenous sites with European trade goods, and on the historical analysis of notarial records from ports, such as Bordeaux, from where many of the Basque and French cod fishing, whale hunting and trading ships would have sailed, bringing European goods to North America (Fitzgerald et al ; Turgeon , , , ; Loewen and Delmas ).…”

“…They were technologically elaborate, made of ‘red copper’ (not brass) and stylistically distinctive. After being acquired by Algonquian groups all around the Gulf of St Lawrence, they were exchanged westward, through allies, into southern Ontario (Trigger ; Hamell , 73; Trigger [1976], 213–14; Fitzgerald et al , 49; Van Dongen ; Turgeon ). Although entire kettles were certainly traded, it was common practice to break pristine kettles apart and trade their fragments, which were then used to produce both utilitarian and ornamental items (Bradley , 130; Moreau and Langevin , 42; Fitzgerald et al , 55; Turgeon , 10).…”

Colonial Encounters, European Kettles, and the Magic of Mimesis in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century Indigenous Northeast and Great Lakes

“…They started formal trading in the Gulf and Estuary of St. Lawrence around 1580 (Fitzgerald et al 1993, p. 44). The iron-banded "red copper" kettle was a primary commodity in the Basque trade; these kettles often appear in quite large numbers and are listed first on Basque notarial contracts that inventory trade goods (Fitzgerald et al 1993). We see one instance of the priority that kettles assumed in this trade in the records of Micqueto de Hoyarsabal, master of a Basque vessel.…”

“…The iron-banded "red copper" kettle was replaced by a less complex, more economical, rolled-rim variety with folded-over copper alloy lugs often made of brass. These hemispherical kettles are referred to as "trade kettles" (Ehrhardt 2005, p. 73;Fitzgerald et al 1993;see Fig. 2 for an example of one of these more standardized trade kettles used in French trade monopolies).…”