Auction Details
In 1913, my grandfather, George E Kennedy went to the Navajo country and built a trading post, Salina Springs Trading. It was the most complete store of the times during which there were approximately twenty posts. At the time, as now, the reservation was the size of West Virginia. By the 50s, the number of posts grew to ~250. The Kennedy trading legacy continued for over 100 years. I am the third generation. I began trading with my dad when I was nine years old. Only two people ever traded with all the reservation trading posts – my dad, John W Kennedy, and me. They were the lifeline to our Indian arts and crafts wholesale supply business as well as our piñon nut business. We traded for about 6,000 Navajo rugs a year and acquired as much as 1 million pounds of piñon nuts a year through our reservation trader network.
I retired from trading in 1995. During my career I was appointed to the Advisory Board of the National Park Service and founded the Indian Arts & Crafts Association. I have written five books, four of which deal with trading and Southwest Indian culture. A Good Trade is the generational story of my family in trading over over 100 years. Navajo Trading Posts is my personal reflection of dealing with every Navajo trading post.
GE Kennedy built the store and home by himself and later brought his family, including my six-week-old dad, to the new post. He methodically built a good business. He came to Salina Springs after receiving a degree from Business School in Missouri and then managing a company store in the McGaffey Mountains, southeast of Gallup. There he learned about working with Navajo people as well as their language. As with the traders before him, there was no “manual” outlining the business of trading. There was no business transacted except trade because the Navajos had no money. Each trader had to learn on his own while working with people that did not speak or understand English and had no English-speaking neighbors. His Navajo customers and their families were his teachers. To create a Navajo economy the Navajos first came up with the concept of pawn. The traders developed trade tokens. Both practices were acceptable and adaptable between traders and their Navajo clientele.
Not all trading posts and traders had tokens. To become a trader on the Navajo reservation, a government license was required. As trading posts were built in the 40s, traders didn’t want to buck the system. Whatever a bureaucrat dictated, traders were obliged to adhere, and the bureaucrats didn’t like trade tokens. No other business activity in America was held to the same standard and many businesses had been using tokens for years.
When traders settled in the late 1800s, little attention was given to business in Navajo country because the area was remote with a relatively sparse population. The Navajos lived in family units, not villages, so there were no concentrations of population. Until the 40s, the Navajos had no central governing structure and therefore did not represent a significant voting bloc. They were wards of the federal government. Traders were allowed to extend credit in anticipation of lambs and wool in the spring, a rug on the loom or other potential trading activity. Traders were the first to recognize Navajos as a potential commercial market, but licensing was required by the government. Traders chose to move their families to the remote areas of the vast Navajo reservation (size of West Virginia) and live among people that spoke no English and had no money. By early 1900 there were fewer than twenty trading posts for the Navajos. By 1950 the number grew to two hundred fifty and the population from ~90,000 to ~300,000. Logically, traders did not abuse the situation because they needed to co-exist for their survival. Everyone, Navajos, and traders alike, was interdependent. The traders bartered for livestock, wool, hides, jewelry, and rugs. In turn the traders then bartered those goods with their wholesale supply houses for essential trade goods such as groceries, hardware, soft goods, etc. Often time’s people came to a trading post to trade and did not fully consummate a trade. Traders maintained separate counter pads for each family and recorded all transactions with ongoing balances. Not understanding credit and unable to read or write, the people were leery of credit slips or ledger entries. The Navajos had been introduced to trade tokens while in exile following their tragic trek to the Bosque Redondo in New Mexico during the 1860s. The government provided tokens as currency for the commissary. Traders had to devise a means of acknowledging transactions, especially if a credit balance was involved. They came up with trade tokens, which were already commonplace in American commerce and familiar to the Navajo people. If a credit balance existed at the end of a transaction, traders would issue trade tokens which could be redeemed the same as money. A transaction could be recorded upon issuance of a token and redemption of a token. Policies varied throughout the reservation. The tokens were the same denomination as coins; however, they were made from tin or pot metal rather than silver. The tokens could be redeemed at the trading post for merchandise at any time. For the customer, the token represented physical proof of value. For the trader, it was a means of securing customer confidence and loyalty. Tokens were specific to a trading post or a trader. There was no “Navajo” economy; rather trading post economy. Each trading post had a micro economy of its own. If a trader had several posts, tokens were often provided with the trader’s name rather than specific trading post and thus interchangeable. When a token was redeemed, the traders had various methods of invalidating the token, usually by punching a hole or stamping it. Most common token denominations were 1¢, 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, 50¢, and $1. In early days, most transactions did not exceed $10 or $15. Trade tokens were in greatest circulation from the 1920s to the 1940s before being forbidden by the government. The justification was economic imprisonment of Navajo people to specific trading posts that might restrict opportunities to do business elsewhere, despite limited mobility. What was acceptable for business between the Navajos and the government in 1863 was no longer tolerable between the Navajos and traders. However, metropolitan businesses, which had been using tokens for years were not subject to the same scrutiny and regulations. Trade tokens were the initial assault by the government to restrict credit transactions for the Navajos. By the late 50s, tokens were no longer in circulation after having a significant role in the Navajo economy. Pawn and trading would soon come under similar assault and elimination. Eventually, by the 1970s, off-reservation transactions had no standing on the reservation. Businesses such as car dealers were forbidden to seek collection or repossession on the reservation, thereby additionally jeopardizing Navajo credit and sustenance. No other business activity or group of Americans were punished by the government as was the Navajos. The Navajo reservation economy became a cash economy and Navajos had severely restricted access to credit both on and off their reservation. The economic reversals abated the elimination of trading posts. After one hundred years, there are again approximately twenty trading posts on the Navajo reservation. Most have been replaced with cash-and-carry convenience store operations.
Token availability (supply) was impacted other ways. Notable was Hogback Trading. When fifth-generation trader, Tom Wheeler was a boy, he found two wooden crates in the 50s with Hogback tokens. Since they were essentially worthless at the time, Tom frequently took a bag of tokens to the top of the hogback and sailed them into the wind. He also skipped them on the water of the San Juan River, as well as use for target practicing with a .22 rifle.
By the 50s, trade tokens were no longer in circulation. Supply and demand are imbalanced. Today, the limited supply is mainly through collections or estates. Only what can be found can be had.