Indian trade ornaments in the collections of Field Museum of Natural History

By James W. VanStone

Subjects: Antiquities, Commerce, Silverwork, Clothing, Costume, Catalogs, Field Museum of Natural History, Indians of North America, Catalogs and collections

Description: Throughout its history, Field Museum of Natural History's Department of Anthropology has acquired a sizable collection of American Indian trade ornaments. This collection, which includes a variety of pendants, brooches, gorgets, and other objects of personal adornment, is described and illustrated in this study. Numerous items in the collection are marked with the individual marks of craftsmen who produced ornaments for the Indian trade. Though some marks cannot be identified with certainty, the majority of marked pieces represent the work of Canadian craftsmen and were traded to the Indians by traders based in Montreal. The collection as a whole illustrates the importance of this trade and the variety of ornaments traded to Indians in the Great Lakes area in the latter 18th and early 19th centuries.