Capitalism is when I own all the tools, and someone else does the labor in return for a small portion of the trade receipts. If the first nations people did that, then sure, the were proto-capitalists.
We have little to no evidence that this was the case. Unfortunately, we do have evidence that the first nations were settled, agrarian societies before smallpox and company were introduced. That’s what De Soto describes encountering 100 years before the English document that the first nations peoples live as roving hunter gatherers. Because our written historical record was only able to record what amounts to a post-apocalyptic society, and the first nations kept little written records themselves, there’s so much about Native America that we just won’t ever be sure about.
Is the joke that he’s talking nonsense? Trade doesn’t make a society capitalist.
