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It depends on how worldly the Native American was. Most frontier businessmen were pretty unscrupulous, so if they could dazzle him with shiny objects or fancy looking junk, the Native American would get gypped.
The more savvy Native American would probably want the same things the white trappers wanted; tools and munitions, provisions and liquor. Cash wasn't all that important; it's not like there were many malls in the mountains.
On an immediate basis the natives were traded items they couldn't get like pots and pans, mirrors, glass beads, general manufactured goods of the cheapest quality. You may recall that Manhatten Island was a trade- The whole island for $27.00 dollars in what whites considered trinkets. The natives, who never had a word for ownership, a concept completely alien to their way of life, thought they got a good deal- nobody owns the earth (land), the natives used the land to sustain themselves as tribes, a community. The finest stewards of real estate the world has ever experienced. Too bad they could not band togetherand repel the white devils back into the sea from where they came. Lesson: always have a strong immigration policy with teeth- just in case!
Lastly, what the natives got for their trading with the white man was death and destruction of their culture and tribes. Not so odd is the fact that many of those same attitudes exist today but not so openly. The fact that I was raised in NYC by white folks attests to the willingness of the white authorities to split up native families today. I've even had white people tell me that because I'm native, I'm a barbarian. Crazy white people- they'll never learn.
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