Trade beads Trade beads Trade beads (sometimes called aggry and slave beads) were otherwise decorative glass beads used between the 16th and 20th century as a token money to exchange for goods, services and slaves (hence the name). Trade beads were used to African resources by early Europeans. This included African slave trade. The beads were integrated in Native American jewelry using various beadwork techniques. Aggry beads are a particular type of decorated glass bead from Ghana. Made to ease the passage of European explorers and then traders mainly across the African continents, the beads were made throughout Europe although the Venetians
Native American jewelry the purple beads from quahog clamshells. Wampum workshops were located among the Narragansett tribe, an Algonquian people located along the southern New England coast. The Narragansett tribal bead makers were buried with wampum supplies and tools to finish work in progress in the afterlife. Wampum was highly sought as a trade good throughout the Eastern Woodlands, including the Great Lakes region. Narragansett favored teardrop-shaped shell pendants, and the claw pendants made of purple shell were worn by Iroquois in the Hudson Valley, around the Connecticut River. The Seneca and Munsee made shell pendants with drilled columns, decorated with a circular