How did Plains Indians get glass beads?
Since ancient times, Indian people have traded with neighboring tribes and distant groups alike. Plains Indians, located at the center of vast coast-to-coast networks, mediated between cultural groups exchanging raw materials, traditional arts, and food surpluses. Trade relationships were often cemented through adoption or marriage, resulting in influential and broadly dispersed alliances. By the mid-1800s, when Europeans arrived on the Plains, their trade goods such as glass beads, colored cloth, iron implements, and guns had preceded them along well-established and dynamic Native trade routes. Most of the beads introduced to Plains Indian peoples by Europeans were made of glass, a material previously unknown to the Native cultures. When glass beads were introduced as a trade item, they were widely sought by Native peoples for their colors and ease of use. They often replaced Indian-made beads of bone, shell, copper and stone. Beads were important for early trade items because they we
