Traders, Agents, and Weavers by Robert McPherson complements his Both Sides of the Bullpen (2017) in the investigation of the culture and economy of the trading post system on the Navajo reservation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The current volume shifts the focus from the smaller posts in Utah and Colorado, which he focused on in Both Sides of the Bullpen, to an investigation of the area bordered by the San Juan River and the Chuska Mountains in northwestern New Mexico. That is the location of the Toadlena, Newcomb, and, especially, Two Grey Hills trading posts. Broadening his attention to the relationships among the posts, various Anglo and Navajo actors, and the nearby US Government Shiprock (Northern Navajo) Agency, McPherson highlights further aspects of the trading post dynamic.The Two Grey Hills trading post is only slightly less known than the Hubbell trading post in Ganado, Arizona, and the Crystal trading post in Crystal, Arizona, for its role in developing and marketing a distinctive, high-quality weaving style in rugs produced by Navajo weavers in the local area. McPherson uses the story of this trading post and its proprietors as a case study to combat what he considers the unfair criticism of Anglo traders in various government reports (including the 1973 report by the Federal Trade Commission) and in some histories of trading posts (including Kathy M'Closkey's 2002 Swept Under the Rug). He argues that far from routinely perpetuating fraud and theft, the Anglo traders served as middlemen to “bridge the cultural gap and provide what exchange what both sides desired” (265) and “were a good group of people who befriended and took care of their customers” (xv).The first four chapters provide the history of northwestern New Mexico from the prehistoric urban Pueblo period in the tenth and eleventh centuries through the end of William Shelton's tenure as agent at the Northern Navajo agency in 1916. Chapters five, six, and seven chronicle the “classic” era of the region's trading post culture from 1903 through the 1950s. McPherson outlines external and internal dynamics and the daily patterns of post life as experienced by both the traders and their clients. He also explains the distinctiveness of the Two Grey Hills rugs and their weavers. The final chapter lays out how the federal government's program of stock reduction, the social impact of the Second World War, the collapse of both lamb and wool markets, the extension of paved roads, and the adoption of trucks signaled the end of the relevance of trading post economics and culture.McPherson deftly blends his long personal study of ethnography and careful listening to Diné voices with archival documents in this work. His meticulous attention to interviews and original documents gives us a fresh look at the lives of Special Commissioner Herbert J. Hagerman, Agent William T. Shelton, and the missionaries and the traders who helped make Two Grey Hills and other posts successful in the advancing of Navajo weavers and the marketing of their rugs. However, McPherson's discussion of Navajo economics and culture and Navajo perspectives is limited by a reliance on Anglo ethnography and the author's further mediation and takes less advantage of investigations of governmental policies, political economies, and traditional Navajo concepts and values that have been explored by a generation of contemporary Diné and Indigenous scholars. Broadening the conversation would have contributed balance to many of his analytical conclusions.Traders, Agents, and Weavers follows the changes of the life encountered in the trading posts and the surrounding region of northwestern New Mexico, providing a fascinating and engaging resource for historians and students of intercultural dynamics and anyone interested in the history of the transition of the Navajo people into the modern America of the mid-twentieth century.
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Oct 14, 2024
Shang Wu 
