Born in 1951, Annabel Cropped Eared Wolf wrote Shuswap History: A Century of Change (Kamloops: Secwepemc Cultural Education Society, 1996), an introduction to the Shuswap First Nation that occupied territory from the Columbia River Valley to west of the Fraser River and south to the Arrow Lakes. "Initially the Shuswap viewed the traders as friends and allies,"; she writes. "The Shuswap thought the fur trade would increase their material wealth and well-being and perhaps enhance their political status and power. As beaver were depleted, the fur trade declined. The Shuswap began to experience economic hardships and diseases. Their initial friendliness and peaceful co-existence with the traders were replaced in the middle of the 1820s with suspicion and resentment. The traders became victims of Indian threats, and the Shuswap refused to cooperate with the trade. In the 1840s economic conditions worsened and it was obvious that the traders wanted to dominate the Indians. . . . By the 1850s the Shuswap had lost much of their economic autonomy and were more under the power of the traders.";

[BCBW 2005]