This book provides an interesting primary resource. Kees-Jan Waterman, with linguistic information by Guntther Michelson, has edited a set of account books kept in Dutch by Evert Wendell and his siblings at the beginning of the eighteenth century in Albany, New York. The book itself is comprised of distinct (but interrelated) parts. The first is a long introductory essay describing the historical context of the location and period, and the economic and social role played by the Wendell family. The author then gives a highly detailed account of the records themselves, providing twenty-one tables tabulating various aspect of the accounts: number of accounts; tribal affiliations of traders (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga, Mahican, Catskill, and Canadian); natives identified by name; trade goods purchased; and goods exchanged. A third section is a set of photographs showing main features of the actual accounts. This is followed by an annotated translation of each page of the account book. Finally, there is a CD with the Dutch transcription.

Not too many family account books from the early eighteenth century exist. This one documents commercial exchanges between an important Dutch trading family and native traders. Although the accounts cover the period from 1695 to 1726, the bulk of the accounts are essentially from the first decade of the eighteenth century, 1697–1710. The introductory essay and the tables put together from Waterman's detailed reading of the account suggest an active trade between the Evert family and a wide range of Indians from many different tribal groupings. One has to be particularly impressed with the level of detail extracted from the accounts after looking at the photographs of the original documents. For someone who has worked with company records rather than family accounts, the sample pictures show a set of documents that range from the well- written and clearly recorded to the really messy or, as the author notes, disorderly pages (plate IV versus plate III) with many illegible words. The pictures show that the Wendell's not only did not keep the accounts in clear debit/credit column, but they also include pictographs on the pages. Some refer to types of furs traded, beaver versus fisher, while others, the author argues, represent individuals showing a representation of the account holder with any particular tattoos (plate V).

Waterman argues that these accounts with about 300 different individuals give us an unprecedented glimpse into intercultural exchanges in the upper Hudson River valley. He points to the role played by women in this trade; to the nature of the goods exchanges; to the range of different tribal groupings; to the mention of “white” and “black” individuals and to the descriptions of naming practices and tattoos or lack of same. But for all of the detail included in these accounts, the accounts themselves are problematic. The Wendells were a commercial family, part of which was this trade with the Indians. For someone who has worked on fur trade relations at the same period just further west, the story told here is unusual.

Over the period, most of the accounts are in deficit. Indeed, Waterman describes Indians coming in and getting goods against a future promise to pay, writing “[a]lmost all transactions between the Wendells and their customers lacked any type of assurance that Evert and Harmanus would see a return on their investments.” (p. 28). Given that most of these Indians only came in once, it is not surprising that many of the accounts are never repaid. In some cases, individuals used the Wendell's as a pawn shop, putting down an old gun or a blanket (table 15, pp. 62–63). But old guns had little value and probably did not work. As described, some of their customers came from Canada. One again can only ask why? It raises questions of the quality of the customer who had to come to Albany to trade rather than go to Montreal.

The biggest surprise in reading the actual accounts was the sums involved. Being used to a trade in the thousands, with 15,000 beaver pelts being traded at Fort Albany in 1700, (see Ann M. Carlos and Frank D. Lewis, Commerce by a Frozen Sea: Native Americans and the European Fur Trade in the Eighteenth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), the trade discussed here is barely a trade. Most Indians were trading one beaver at a time. For example, one representative account reads, “Debit an otter for a pair of baize stockings; 1709 June 13, a large shirt at 1 large beaver (p. 151).” These are extraordinarily small trades. There is no discussion of the quality of the beaver, only of its large size. We don't know if it is parchment or coat or cub beaver. Many purchases are clothing, often stockings. Although illegal, many other purchases are for rum or beer. What is interesting is that the exchange is some mixture of pelts for trade goods, but was also grain for trade goods, or money in the form of quarters. While Waterman provides an incredible level of detail about the people in these transactions, much more is waiting to be done on the exchanges themselves and in trying to understand the return to a commercial family of this money-losing business.