This booklet is the last in a series of 20 Archaeological Research Booklets on the history of “trade beads” in the Americas. The booklet was published in 1985. It contains a photo chart of the variety of beads traded with the Indians of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America from the 1740’s to the demise of the Fur Trade by the 1870’s.

The “bead trade” started with the Russians throughout the first half of the 18^th century, and was later joined by the British and, Spanish toward the end of the century, and subsequently the Americans at the turn of the century. After the war of 1812 between the British and the United States, the Hudson’s Bay Company was the primary source of trade beads but by this time beads were of far less importance to trade that utilitarian products such as knives, axes, cooking pots and cloth.  

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