Trading post

{{Short description|Area where economic activity between peoples is less regulated}} thumb|A factory at Bathurst (Gambia) around 1900 [[File:Tradingpostguy.JPG|thumb|A recreation of a typical trading post for trade between American pioneers and Plains Indians]]

A '''trading post''', '''trading station''', or '''trading house''', also known as a '''factory''' in European and colonial contexts, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded.

Typically a trading post allows people from one geographic area to exchange for goods produced in another area. Usually money is not used. The barter that occurs often includes an aspect of haggling. 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).<ref>''Trading post''; ''Factory'' - Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, 1989</ref>

Given the expense incurred by transportation, exchanges made at a trading post can involve items which either party or both parties regard as luxury goods, especially lightweight high-priced items or goods that one side values more than the other due to local availability. Beaver pelts were commonly available in the old West where they had about the same utility as other animal skins, but in England they were specifically prized and uniquely useful for the hat-making industry.<ref> For example: {{cite book |last1 = Roesdahl |first1 = Else |author-link1 = Else Roesdahl |translator-last1 = Williams |translator-first1 = Kirsten |translator-last2 = Margeson |translator-first2 = Susan |date = 30 April 1998 |orig-date = 1991 |title = The Vikings |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=S9XNbDqS7dsC |edition = 3, revised |publisher = Penguin UK |pages = |isbn = 9780141941530 |access-date = 4 January 2025 |quote = 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. }} </ref>

A trading post can consist either of a single building or of an entire town.<ref>{{cite web |date=2024-01-10 |title=Santa Fe {{!}} History, Population, Map, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Santa-Fe-New-Mexico |access-date=2024-01-11 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> 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 a natural resource.<ref>John C. Ewers, "The Trading Post in American Indian Life," Smithsonian Institution Annual Report for 1954 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1955), 389–401.</ref> 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.

==Examples== Timbuktu<ref> {{cite book |last1 = Duram |first1 = Leslie A. |year = 2024 |chapter = Timbuktu. Mali |title = Endangered Places: Disappearing Sites around the World |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7zAaEQAAQBAJ |publisher = Bloomsbury Publishing USA |page = |isbn = 9798765111826 |access-date = 4 January 2025 |quote = 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. }} </ref>

Hong Kong <ref> {{cite book |last1 = Lee |first1 = Eliza W. Y. |year = 2013 |title = Public Policymaking in Hong Kong: Civic Engagement and State-society Relations in a Semi-democracy |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=QTj5TEHuY-IC |series = Comparative development and policy in Asia series, volume 13 |publication-place = Abingdon |publisher = Routledge |page = 23 |isbn = 9780415576055 |access-date = 4 January 2025 |quote = [...] 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. }} </ref>

Various emporia {{--}} especially Greek<ref> {{cite book |year = 2011 |orig-date = 2009 |chapter = The Dark Age and Greek Expansion |title = Ancient Greece: An Illustrated History |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tJTAsH4jLowC |series = An Illustrated History Series |publication-place = Tarrytown, New York |publisher = Marshall Cavendish |page = 47 |isbn = 9780761479321 |access-date = 17 August 2025 |quote = An overseas polis often started as a trading post ({{lang | grc | emporion}}), which then developed into a settlement as colonists followed. Trade was certainly the motivating factor in some of the very early Greek colonies, such as Al Mina in Syria and Pithekoussai in Italy. A trading post that turned into a colony was called an {{lang | grc | apoika}}, meaning a 'settlement elsewhere.' }} </ref> or Phoenician<ref> [https://books.google.com/books?id=QcjyEAAAQBAJ&pg=PP70 ''Ocean: A History of the Atlantic Before Columbus''] - [...] the northernmost archaeologically attested Phoenician trading post is at Santa Olaia, at the mouth of the Mondego river, about 150 kilometres north of Lisbon [...]. </ref> {{--}} in classical antiquity.

Major towns in the Hanseatic League, known as ''kontors'', a form of trading posts.<ref>{{cite web |title=Hanseatic League |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/A2MFANtn3Z/hanseatic_league |access-date=2024-01-11 |website=BBC News}}</ref>

Charax Spasinu, a trading post between the Roman and Parthian Empires.<ref>{{cite web |title=Trade between the Romans and the Empires of Asia {{!}} Essay {{!}} The Metropolitan Museum of Art {{!}} Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/silk/hd_silk.htm |access-date=2024-01-11 |website=The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |language=en}}</ref>

Multiple Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, French and English trading-posts ("factories") in the Indian Ocean, from east Africa to the East Indies, but especially on the coasts of India, established from very early in the 16th century onwards.<ref> {{cite book |author1 = Kavalam Madhava Panikkar |author-link1 = K. M. Panikkar |year = 1954 |orig-date = 1953 |title = Asia and Western Dominance: A Survey of the Vasco Da Gama Epoch of Asian History, 1498-1945 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=pmMrAAAAIAAJ |series = Asia book |edition = 3rd |publication-place = New York |publisher = The John Day Company |access-date = 17 August 2025 }} </ref>

Manhattan and Singapore were both established as trading posts, by Dutchman Peter Minuit in 1626 and by Englishman Stamford Raffles in 1819 respectively; each later developed into major settlements.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Matt Soniak |date=October 2, 2012 |title=Was Manhattan Really Bought for $24? |url=http://mentalfloss.com/article/12657/was-manhattan-really-bought-24| url-status=dead |journal=Mental Floss |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200212095456/https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12657/was-manhattan-really-bought-24 |archive-date=February 12, 2020 |access-date=May 11, 2020}}</ref><ref name="YongRao1995">{{cite book |author1=Mun Cheong Yong |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZdZo5Ui8oS4C&pg=PA3 |title=Singapore-India Relations: A Primer |author2=V. V. Bhanoji Rao |publisher=NUS Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-9971-69-195-0 |page=3}}</ref>

The City of Edmonton, Alberta began as Fort Edmonton in 1812.<ref>Edmonton House Journals, Correspondence and Reports, 1806-1821 (published by the Historical Society of Alberta), p. 182</ref>

The Roman Empire imposed control over a large area due to its efficient systems for transferring information, goods, and military expeditions across large distances. The transportation of goods specifically were vital to maintaining outposts in territories distant from Rome, such as northern Africa and western Asia. Trading posts helped move these goods and decide where they were going and when. Trading posts and other parts of the Roman trade system collected a range of goods included precious stones, fabrics, ivory, and wine.

There is also evidence that cattle were traded at the Empúries trading post, established by Greeks in the 6th century BCE on the Iberian Peninsula.<ref>Colominas, L., and Edwards, C. J. (2017) Livestock Trade during the Early Roman Period: First Clues from the Trading Post of Empúries (Catalonia). ''Int. J. Osteoarchaeol.'', 27: 167– 179. {{doi|10.1002/oa.2527}}</ref>

==North American frontier== {{Main|Native American trade}}

Trading houses were typically strategically located and stocked with goods that Native Americans and other trappers would trade furs for. These goods included clothing, blankets, axes, beads, corn, wheat flour, and liquor. Eric Jay Dolin's ''Fur, Fortune, and Empire'' provides a history of trading posts in North America. thumb|Tadoussac. Trading post ''Chauvin de Tonnetuit'' Plymouth colonists established Kennebec Trading House in 1628.<ref>{{cite book|last=Dolin|first=Eric Jay|title=Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America|date=2010|publisher=W. W. Norton & Co|isbn=978-0-393-06710-1|location=New York|page=55|oclc=449865266}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Dolin|first=Eric Jay|title=Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America|date=2010|publisher=W. W. Norton & Co|isbn=978-0-393-06710-1|location=New York|page=62|oclc=449865266}}</ref>

John Jacob Astor founded the American 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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Dolin|first=Eric Jay|title=Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America|date=2010|publisher=W. W. Norton & Co|isbn=978-0-393-06710-1|location=New York|page=272|oclc=449865266}}</ref>

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.<ref>Turck, Thomas J., and Diane L. Lehman Turck. "Trading Posts along the Yukon River: Noochuloghoyet Trading Post in Historical Context." ''Arctic'', vol. 45, no. 1, 1992, pp. 51–61. ''JSTOR'', {{JSTOR|40511192}}. Accessed 25 Mar. 2023.</ref>

==Other uses== * In the context of scouting, trading post usually refers to a camp store in which snacks, craft materials, and general merchandise are sold.<ref>[https://norfolkscoutshop.co.uk/ Norfolk Scout Shop], accessed 10 February 2022</ref> "Trading posts" also refers to a cub scout activity in which cub teams (or individuals) undertake challenge activities in exchange for points.<ref>Online Scout Manager, [https://www.onlinescoutmanager.co.uk/programme.php?action=view&id=49668 Trading Post - Cubs], accessed 10 February 2022</ref> * A "trading post" also once referred to a trading booth within the New York Stock Exchange.<ref>New York Institute of Finance, [https://www.nyif.com/dictionary/t/term/tradingpost Trading post], accessed 10 February 2022</ref>

==Trading posts in North America== *List of Hudson's Bay Company trading posts * Fort Vancouver * Fort Edmonton * Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site * Fort Michilimackinac * Fort Umpqua * Fort William, Ontario * Tadoussac

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * {{Commonscatinline|Trading posts}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trading Post}} Category:Trading posts