Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 94, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1916 — Indians Keen Bargainers. [ARTICLE]

Indians Keen Bargainers.

Most people consider the American aborigines to have been easy victims of the sharper-witted whites in matters of buying and selling. A book about “The Original John Jacob Astor,” however, declares that “the Indian was a great bargainer,” and says that Astor needed all his resources to -get the- better-of the Indians in an exchange of commodities. He is said to have been the first fur dealer to become really proficient in the languages of the Mohawk, Seneca and Oneida tribes, and this ability to talk to she Indians in their own tpngue gave him great prestige among them.

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