The maritime fur trade, a ship-based fur trade system, focused largely on acquiring furs of sea otters and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and natives of Alaska. Entrepreneurs also exploited fur-bearing skins from the wider Pacific (from, for example, the Juan Fernández fur seal) and from the Southern Ocean.[1][2]
The trade mostly serviced the market in Qing China, which imported furs and exported tea, silks, porcelain, and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and in the United States.
- ^ Richards, Rhys (April 1984). "The Maritime Fur Trade: Sealers and Other Residents on St Paul and Amsterdam Islands, Part 1". The Great Circle. 6 (1). Australian Association for Maritime History: 24–42. ISSN 0156-8698. JSTOR 41562458.
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Richards, Rhys (October 1984). "The Maritime Fur Trade: Sealers and Other Residents on St Paul and Amsterdam Islands, Part 2". The Great Circle. 6 (2). Australian Association for Maritime History: 24–4293–109. ISSN 0156-8698. JSTOR 41562478.
In the three decades 1789 to 1809, it seems that St Paul and Amsterdam were visited almost annually, and were frequently inhabited by sealing gangs. In the quieter decade which followed, from 1810 to 1820, some visits continued, but less frequently [...]. In the main, this reduced sealing was not only the result of the excessive earlier depletion of seal stocks, but also reflected the effects of an external recession in foreign maritime trade in eastern waters following the London Stock Market crash of 1809, the War of 1812, and an economic decline in trade at Canton from 1814 onwards.