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Duane Thomson and Marianne Ignace1 bc studies 4 as gift giving and arranging marriages between company servants and chiefly families, were inevitably “backed by the demonstrated reality of retribution that was fearless, implacable, and severe.” Harris concluded that “whatever Native peoples wanted to do about it, the traders established their presence, and the balance of power in the Cordillera tilted fairly inexorably towards them.” 4 Harris gives slight consideration to one significant reality of the Cordillera region: it was home to, and under the control of, numerous Aboriginal nations, which were distinguished from one another by language, social structure, economy, military power, values, and lifestyle. These nations were also differentially exposed to European technology and military power. 5 The dynamics of the evolving power relationships between European traders and these communities were complex and are not easily generalized. To narrow the focus, this paper concentrates on the fur traders’ relations with the Salish-speaking nations that controlled the Interior Plateau region of the Cordillera and attempts to understand the internal workings of those nations. 6 According to the 1910 memorial to Sir Wilfrid Laurier given by the chiefs of the Interior, these nations treated the European traders as guests in their homelands–sexlítemc in the language of the Secwepemc. The Salish nations offered the traders security for their persons and trade goods as long as their guests conformed to the economic, legal, and social regimes of the respective host communities.

As Jennifer Brown and Elizabeth Vibert have noted, the encounter between …