In the 1820's the Hudson Bay Company traders arrived in the Puget Sound with offerings from faraway lands. The Native people began to trade with the Bostonians not only for material items, but also as a way to gain personal power. This began a pattern for the Native’s interactions with the new pale strangers, and also a new model of life for many tribes in the sound area. These activities also provided much needed survival assistance, in some cases, to the men of the HBC. As a start of something new and enormous, these early trades shaped not only what the various people’s perceptions of each other were, but also how the Indians would interact with each other in the future of trading, and otherwise.