Buckskin Breeches

My only claim to productivity today is I have learned about the deer skin trade of colonial Carolina and territories, where it went, and the market for it.

It was indeed huge.

Partly it was driven by the crash in beaver furs -- which happened in the New World as it did in the 16th century in Europe, due to over-hunting.  So something  had to come to take the place of beaver to signify rank and fashion,

Cocked hats were buckskin -- if I'd thought of them at all as to materials I would have assumed wool ....

especially in (men's) hats.  Deer skins, i.e. buckskins, played that part.  Not to mention his breeches, his gloves, the bindings of his books, and many other items of clothing and personal use signifying "gentleman."

Do I need to say that by 1750 the deer trade also collapsed to the regional scarcity of the animal by then?  As had, not coincidentally, the trade in slaving Native Americans to the Caribbean, as the population of many of the tribes that had extensive contact with the Europeans in the territory collapsed.