The Maritime Fur Trade is a ship-based fur trade system that focuses on acquiring furs of sea otters and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and natives of Alaska.

The furs are mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain, and other Chinese goods, which are then sold in Europe and the United States.

The maritime fur trade is pioneered by Russians, working east from Kamchatka along the Aleutian Islands to the southern coast of Alaska.

British and Americans enter during the 1780s, focusing on what is now the coast of British Columbia.

The trade booms around the turn of the 19th century, after which a long period of decline begins in the 1810s.

As the sea otter population is depleted, the maritime fur trade diversifies and transforms, tapping new markets and commodities while continuing to focus on the Northwest Coast and China.

It lasts until the middle to late 19th century.

Russians control most of the coast of what is now Alaska during the entire era.

The coast south of Alaska sees fierce competition between, and among, British and American trading vessels.

The British are the first to operate in the southern sector, but are unable to compete against the Americans, who dominate from the 1790s to the 1830s.

The British Hudson's Bay Company enters the coast trade in the 1820s with the intention of driving the Americans away.

This is accomplished by about 1840.

In its late period, the maritime fur trade is largely conducted by the British Hudson's Bay Company and the Russian-American Company.Historians have coined the term "maritime fur trade" to distinguish the coastal, ship-based fur trade from the continental, land-based fur trade of, for example, the North West Company and American Fur Company.

Historically, the maritime fur trade is not known by that name, rather it is usually called the "North West Coast trade" or "North West Trade".

The term "North West" is rarely spelled as the single word "Northwest", as is common today.

The maritime fur trade bring the Pacific Northwest coast into a vast, new international trade network, centered on the north Pacific Ocean, global in scope, and based on capitalism but not, for the most part, on colonialism.

A triangular trade network emerges linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China, the Hawaiian Islands (only recently discovered by the Western world), Britain, and the United States (especially New England).

The trade has a major effect on the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest coast, especially the Aleut, Tlingit, Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Chinook peoples.

There is a rapid increase of wealth among the Northwest Coast natives, along with increased warfare, potlatching, slaving, and depopulation due to epidemic disease.

However, the indigenous culture is not overwhelmed by rapid change, but actually flourishes.

For instance, the importance of totems and traditional nobility crests increases, and the Chinook Jargon, which remains a distinctive aspect of Pacific Northwest culture, is developed during this era.

Native Hawaiian society is similarly affected by the sudden influx of Western wealth and technology, as well as epidemic diseases.

The trade's effect on China and Europe is minimal, but for New England, the maritime fur trade and the significant profits it makes helps revitalize the region, contributing to its transformation from an agrarian to an industrial society.

The wealth generated by the maritime fur trade is invested in industrial development, especially textile manufacturing.

The New England textile industry in turn has a large effect on slavery in the United States, increasing the demand for cotton and helping make possible the rapid expansion of the cotton plantation system across the Deep South.The most profitable furs are those of sea otters, especially the northern sea otter, Enhydra lutris kenyoni, which inhabits the coastal waters between the Columbia River in the south to the Aleutian Islands in the north.

The fur of the Californian southern sea otter, E. l. nereis, is less highly prized and thus less profitable.

After the northern sea otter is hunted to local extinction, maritime fur traders shift to California until the southern sea otter is likewise nearly extinct.

The British and American maritime fur traders take their furs to the Chinese port of Guangzhou (Canton), where they work within the established Canton System.

Furs from Russian America are mostly sold to China via the Mongolian trading town of Kyakhta, which had been opened to Russian trade by the 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta.