The southern Indian trade was a complex economic enterprise, and
the primary aim of all Indian traders was to make a profit by procur-
ing deerskins for British markets. The flow of goods to the Indian
country and hides to overseas markets required a variety of skills, talents, and
of course, capital. The years following the Yamasee War witnessed the de-
velopment of fairly standard trading procedures by backcountry merchants
and traders, methods that were designed to minimize difficulties and maxi-
mize profits from the deerskin trade. Colonial squabbling and jealousy in-
hibited the development of an organized bureaucracy designed to oversee
the trade, and there were no imperial regulations until relatively late in the
colonial period. What developed instead, through a scattering of rules and
regulations, was a de facto system that was supported by the leading Indian
merchants and traders. Traders were granted licenses by South Carolina, and
later Georgia, to trade at specific Indian towns. In turn, they posted bond
and agreed to abide by various regulations established by the colony of their
legal residence. Traders' conduct was subjected to cursory review by officials
from both colonies, but for the most part, traders were left alone to do
business. After 1763, the removal of the French, a rising colonial popula-
tion, and the overthrow of colonial regulations by the British government
disrupted--but did not end--established trading procedures. The time-
honored methods of trading conduct established in the years following the
Yamasee War outlasted both the British occupation and the deerskin herds of
the American Southeast.

In general, those involved in the trade fell into the following categories:
wholesale merchant, retail storekeeper, resident trader, packhorseman, boat-

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