"The Agonmenokiak [Europeans]... were entranced by the fur of the beaver and began to give us marvelous things in exchange for its pelts. The beaver, which was heretofore a relatively minor part of our annual hunting cycle, necessarily assumed a major role during this time. Access to beaver became critical, and friendly (or neutral) neighbors began to fight over the beaver-hunting territories. The beaver trade affected the rhythm of the seasons - we now found it important to get as many beaver as possible so that the foreigners' technology could be ours. Our respect for conservation and game animals was challenged for the first time in scores of generations. To survive in this changing world, we could not refuse the new technology, no matter what the environmental consequences. For our neighbors, who looked upon our hunting territories with newly greedy eyes, were themselves acquiring new weapons' technologies against which we would be helpless. We became caught in an escalation of warfare and environmental degradation from which we could not free ourselves."
Quoted from Fred M. Wiseman, The Voice of the Dawn: An Autohistory of the Abenaki Nation, p. 70.
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