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women in the fur trade
Aboriginal women were also starting to foster important bonds with the traders during the same that that the men were. For instance, Bruce M. White writes how women's labour in the Ojibwa community differed greatly from the mens labour, which lead to the women being able to trade their own goods. These goods included rice, maple sugar, and woven matts. The women's production of food would become increasingly important to the traders when trade locations shifted to native villages because the traders would have to depend on their food supply for survival. Additionally, White states that in Ojibwa communities near the Great lakes the trading of canoes were also done by women since they participated in making the canoes. Through the women's ability to trade their own goods with the traders it can be seen how the women were able to foster their own relationships with them.

The different relationships between the aboriginal people and the traders highlight how the trade became interdependent. Both Europeans and Aboriginal people would become reliant on each other in order to sustain their way of life. Many scholars have contemplated whether or not these relationships of interdependency where a positive for everyone involved. For example, Mary C. Wright believes that the informal relationships that aboriginal women had with european men remained largely unrecognized and therefor left them with no more power than they had before the trade had begun. In contrast, Gerald Friesen believes that both sides were able to remain autonomous during the first century of the fur trade, and that we have no way of determining whether or not one side was "duped" in the exchange. Therefore, despite there being disagreement surrounding who held the power during the fur trade it is important to remember that both sides had to rely on the other for the trade to be as success as it was.

HillaryViolet (talk) 16:58, 24 March 2015 (UTC)