This dissertation argues that John Askin, a prominent British merchant, provides a vista from which to view the fluidity of the Atlantic fur trade and the constraints of the British Empire in the late-eighteenth-century North American Great Lakes. Through the critical exploration of Askin's life, family, and trade, this work examines the complex contestation and negotiation that confronted individuals as they went about their lives, businesses and day-to-day interests. Consideration of the family that Askin nurtured, the imperial and economic relationships that he maintained, and the public image he crafted shows that Askin maintained constant involvement with the complicated economic and social processes of the multi-ethnic communities in which he lived. Likewise, the network of kinship and colleagues that Askin developed allowed him to mute disruptive imperial demands and quell the economic uncertainty that occasionally defined the Great Lakes. Askin nurtured relationships with important British imperial officials like Major Arent Schuyler de Peyster and maintained several multi-ethnic families that connected him to new regions of the fur trade. This dissertation argues that Askin leveraged these relationships into a prosperous trade and established him as one of the region's dominant merchants, but his economic initiatives competed with British imperial designs, eventually making him a target of zealous British officials during the crisis of the American Revolution.
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