Towards a geography of white power in the Cordilleran fur trade

European commercial capital was drawn to the North American interior due to the fur trade, and there it integrated with management of native peoples. Thus started the discourse of the fur trade in Cordillera inclusive of commercial geography and closely associated strategies toward Natives. The foundation of those strategies was a politics of terror, a power struggle and complex connection of Native and white concerns. Though native and white agency were reinforcing, the balance of power favored whites establishing the fur trade as a nascent colonial presence.