he played the game effectively all the way for Jacques Cartier when he
was presented to the French monarch. No doubt he wanted to make sure
that he created the means of getting back to his native land. In any
event, he had been canny enough to bring along with him several bundles
of his best trade goods, consisting mostly of “Beavers, and Sea Woolves
skinnes.” Maybe, among other things, he had French squaws in mind for
his holiday abroad, as one old scribbler has suggested.
It was some time before King Francis was able to get around to doing
much about the Indian king’s stories. In the meantime Donnacona
died. But Francis wanted to make the imagined treasures secure for
the French. The only way to do that was to colonize and fortify the
approaches through New France, to take possession of the land by
occupying it.
Realistic French merchants, like Jean Ango, were more interested in
the furs that had been finding their way back across the sea. However
colonization was an end they sought, too, if it provided a base for
their traders. It was a long way, across a dangerous ocean, to New
France.
With the support of both the king and the merchants, therefore, Jacques
Cartier went back to New France in 1541. The Sieur de Roberval followed
him in 1542. In their well-supplied fleets they transported several
hundred colonists, including many farmers, also soldiers, miners and
traders. Roberval’s expedition included some women. They planted near
Quebec, building forts there; both tried desperately to reach mythical
Saguenay. Each remained through only one Canadian winter among the now
hostile Indians.
Both leaders were more interested in finding quick treasure than in any
such prosaic business as fur trading. Cartier took back fool’s gold and
false diamonds found on the river’s bank near the forts. Rescue ships
had to be sent over from France with enough supplies to evacuate the
scurvy-ridden remnant of Roberval’s contingent.
It would be another sixty years before a permanent colony was planted
in these parts. But New France was held, nevertheless, for France. And,
curiously enough, by the very fur trade that had been so much ignored.
* * * * *
The fishing barques from St. Malo, from Dieppe, Rouen, La Rochelle and
Havre, kept coming to America’s northern coasts every summer, hundreds
of them. They fished for cod on the banks, hunted walrus in the great
gulf, and caught whales in the lower parts of the St. Lawrence River.
Always, wherever they were, the mariners drove an ever increasing trade
with the Indians for valuable pelts. Over the sides of their ships and
on shore they bartered for marten, otter, fox and beaver.
Commerce flourished to such an extent through this individual
enterprise that ships’ captains frequently found it profitable to
turn all hands to bartering for pelts. It was a French vessel in 1569
at Cape Breton whose master drove a “trade with the people of divers
sortes of fine furs” that picked up the Englishmen, David Ingram and
his two companions, Richard Browne and Richard Twide. Along with a
large number of others these three had been abandoned ashore following
the defeat of their famous leader, John Hawkins, the slaver, in a
piratical engagement in the Caribbean with the Spaniards. Ingram and
his two friends, however, struck out into the Florida wilderness,
“crossed the River May,” and for twelve months beat their hazardous
way northward through lands never before trod by white men, until they
reached Cape Breton. They reported seeing “plentie of fine furres”
along the way.
Gradually the traffic in furs moved inland via the St. Lawrence as
occasional traders, adopting the native mode of travel by canoe, braved
the wilderness for choicer pelts. There being no soldiers or forts
to fall back on, these traders, born of the fishing fleets, found it
expedient to treat the Indians well. The Montagnais and the Algonkins,
who had been hostile since Cartier’s last visit, reciprocated in kind.
So did the Hurons, eventually. They were all hopeful of allies with
fire guns to help them against their powerful enemies, the recently
formed league of the Five Nations of the Iroquois, who inhabited parts
of the St. Lawrence valley in the west and the country to the south.
In 1581 a French bark, sent out exclusively for fur by the merchants
of St. Malo, pushed into the upper St. Lawrence. The profits of this
venture were so spectacular that organized bulk traffic got under way
immediately between France and the St. Lawrence valley.
Within three years Richard Hakluyt, the English geographer, was
writing, “And nowe our neighboures, the men of St. Maloe in Brytaine,
in the begynnyinge of Auguste laste paste, of this yere 1584 are come
home with five shippes from Canada and the contries upp the Bay of St.
Lawrence, and have broughte twoo of the people of the contrie home,
and have founde suche swete in the newe trade that they are preparinge
tenne shippes to returne thither in January nexte....”
Almost overnight New France became noted for its valuable export of
pelts, especially beaver. Hakluyt, writing from Paris about this time,
said that in one man’s house he had seen Canadian otter and beaver to
the value of five thousand crowns.
The French merchants mostly kept to the St. Lawrence valley, for
Canada and the valley region in the hinterland teemed with fur-bearing
animals. Furthermore, communication with the natives in the valley was
relatively easy because of their earlier contact with Frenchmen.
Of course dialects differed, but limited palaver in a language similar
to that of the Algonkin tribe was possible with all the Indians in
these parts except the Iroquois. Theirs was a different tongue. The
Algonkin tribe of Canada, however, was part of a great linguistic
family which came to be known as Algonquin and which stretched
irregularly over most of the northern woodland and as far south as Cape
Hatteras on the Atlantic seaboard.
Intrepid French traders often spent the winter in the wilderness with
the different tribes, to learn about their habits and dialects. If they
were to know what was really in the minds of the unpredictable savages
with whom they dealt, it was best to know as much as possible about
them and especially the exact meaning of their words. A good knowledge
of the dialect of a particular tribe might mean an advantage over a
competitor, a better profit, or even the difference between life and
death.
The lonely fur trader in his canoe with his Indian guides soon
symbolized the occupation of New France. The deeper he penetrated into
the country the farther the fame of his conquest spread abroad. New
France was more than a claim; without colonization it was becoming a
recognized French possession. Geographers so indicated it on their maps.
The front line of this French conquest was to become known as the
beaver frontier. The coast of the fishermen had been the first fur
trading frontier, but when that trade began moving rapidly inland and
_castor canadensis_ took over the chief victim’s role in the drama of
destruction, it became the beaver frontier. For _castor canadensis_
is not a highly reproductive animal and he is not a migrant. He is
also hindered from flight in the face of danger by the large capital
investment he has made in his home.
The beaver is an amphibious rodent whose natural environment is a
pond or a sluggish stream. An industrious home body, operating on a
self-imposed economy, he hews trees and builds protecting dams and
apartment houses in which he cohabits with other beavers, all under a
system of government much like man’s.
Physically, the beaver is distinguished by his thick coat of soft fur,
his hard, incisor-like teeth with which he can cut through the stoutest
oak, his palmated hind feet and his horizontally-flattened, scaly tail.
He depends very much on that tail, which probably was a model for
Indian canoe paddles. It serves him as a rudder when he swims and as
a balance for his awkwardly-proportioned body when he runs. As the
foreman of a community construction project he uses his tail with
telling effect to lash laggards in the matter of pushing logs about
or sealing crevices in structures with good, hard clay. Frequently it
comes in handy to smack the surface of the water as a warning that an
enemy approaches as well as a protest to the unwelcome intruder. No
sound impresses itself more sharply on the woodsman than the crash of
an angry beaver’s tail on the quiet waters of his home preserve.
The fur of this busy little animal was much in demand in the old world.
Not only was it preferred as a coating because of its beauty, warmth
and durability, but the hat industry then centering about La Rochelle
was requisitioning it in increasing quantities. With European reserves
being depleted, the lovely blue-brown, blanket-like pelt of the larger
Canadian animal found eager bidders in the French market at twenty or
more livres a pound, the average beaver pelt weighing one and a half to
two pounds.
Castoreum, an important by-product of the beaver trade at the time, was
much in demand too. Obtained in the spring from the perineal glands of
both male and female animals, it was used extensively by perfumers as a
base for the flower scents. It was also often used to catch the beaver
himself. During mating season both sexes of the beaver deposited the
pungent, sticky, yellow substance on spots regularly visited by other
beaver and added mud and dead leaves to form scent mounds. These served
the natives to locate runways; also to bait the intricate snares they
set in lieu of spearing, before the white man provided them with metal
traps.
The Indians of French Canada fell in readily with the white man’s
breathless pursuit of the beaver. They, themselves, had long since
learned the warmth and durability of his pelt. They used his sharp
teeth to point their cutting and scraping tools. They ate his flesh,
the tail of the beaver being considered a special delicacy. Now they
could trade his pelt and his castors for many wonderful things they
thought they needed--ironware, clothing, guns and brandy. It was not
difficult to persuade them to step up their war on the challenging
little animal that acted like a man.
This soon changed the Indian’s mode of life, making him more and more
dependent on the white man’s wares. Eventually it brought about the red
man’s destruction.
As old cultural habits began falling away and as hardware which the
Indian couldn’t make took the place of bone, wood and stone, he became
the prey of every evil white man who stood to gain from him. Always
deep in the Indian’s breast lay the revenge motive; always liquor
stirred his most primal instincts. The displacement of bows and arrows
by guns made it possible for him to kill off his aboriginal enemies
much faster. But he was dependent on the European’s continued help even
in that. Only the European could supply repair parts for the muskets
and furnish the required ammunition. It was a case of the red man
destroying himself with the white man’s culture.
The brass kettle had as much to do with it as guns or brandy--and
the process was not restricted to New France. The pattern was to be
repeated on every other American frontier, by the English, the Dutch
and the Swedes. The fur trade furnished the means of contact between
the two widely divergent cultures of white European and red American.
Profits were tremendous--on both sides, considering relative values.
But the trade led to the Indian’s self-destruction.
It also led to bitter rivalries among the white men.
IV
_Samuel de Champlain Lights a Blaze of Red Terror_
It was the first spectacular profits of the fur trade toward the close
of the sixteenth century that brought about a fresh and urgent need for
the colonization of New France.
The French government saw danger from jealous foreigners, Englishmen
in particular. Already the English had attempted settlements to the
south at a place called Roanoke. Greatly emboldened on the sea these
days they were admitting Spanish claims no more northerly than 34° and
French claims no more southerly than 45°. The land in between, from
Cape Fear to the Bay of Fundy, was claimed as English. All because John
Cabot had sailed that coast more than a century earlier!
Now English boats, too many of them, were poking about Newfoundland,
where England laid claim to certain discoveries, and even in the Gulf
of St. Lawrence itself. London merchants like Charles Leigh, ostensibly
on trading voyages in the great gulf, were boldly practicing piracy
against French as well as Spanish vessels. And Hakluyt, the English
geographer, was exhorting his countrymen to even greater competition.
“While the French, Bretons, Basques and Biscayans do yearly return from
these parts a manifold gain, we the English have merely stood still and
been idle lookers on,” he wrote provocatively.
French merchants, however, were not showing much inclination to
colonize the country; they saw no profit in underwriting such risky
ventures when things were going so well. It cost money to plant
colonies. Unencumbered competitive traders would probably profit as
much as those who did the planting.
The king saw it differently however. Unless something was done to
colonize the valley of the St. Lawrence, to fortify it, the great
trade of the French and the hoped-for route to Cathay stood to be
seized by foreigners. He resorted to offering monopolies.
Companies were given total rights to the fur trade in return for
promising to settle specified numbers of colonists a year. But no
volunteers as colonists appeared. When a company was given the fur
monopoly it had to take worthless tramps or convicts furnished by the
government and, as the merchants weren’t particularly interested in
colonization anyway, they didn’t bother much about these derelicts and
criminals once they had transported them to some desolate post in the
wilderness. Furthermore, independent traders, as well as the fishermen
who went ashore to barter, persisted in violating the monopolies. No
one was happy. So vociferous were the conflicting protests that the
king was forced to cancel the patents he granted one after another.
He didn’t begin to get the results he desired in New France until the
advent of Samuel de Champlain.
Champlain, born at Brouage on the Bay of Biscay in 1567, was the son
of a French naval captain and the nephew of a Spanish pilot major.
He served with French troops as a quarter-master before the Peace of
Vervins and later captained a Spanish transport conveying troops to
the West Indies. He was there for two years. Having an observant eye
he carefully sketched and mapped everything he saw in the Caribbean,
the account of his adventures even containing a suggestion of a Panama
Canal whereby “the voyage to the South Sea would be shortened by more
than 1500 leagues.”
When he first came to the St. Lawrence valley in 1603 as an advance
agent of a company with a fur trade monopoly, Samuel de Champlain held
the title of Geographer Royal, a brevet nobility. It had been conferred
upon him by Henry IV in recognition of his demonstrated ability to get
at the facts in America. Now a captain in the French navy he came with
instructions from the French monarch to bring back a true report on
the St. Lawrence valley. While others in the expedition spent their
time bartering with the aborigines, Champlain and Francois Grave, Sieur
duPont, a principal merchant of the company, set out to explore the
great waterway to the west and to get all the intelligence they could
about it.
Actually, they penetrated no farther west than Cartier had done, and
not so far as other traders in recent years, but Champlain judiciously
recorded what he learned from the Indians and made impressive
recommendations. Before returning to France he made a similar survey
of the regions about Gaspe and the Acadian Peninsula where there were
thought to be rich mines. His report, while recognizing the advantages
of establishing a trading post on the St. Lawrence at Three Rivers
as Dupont-Grave recommended, pointed out that the powerful league of
Iroquois nations barred the way to any farther penetration westward.
Too, the feasibility of a possible passage by this route to China was
complicated by rapids and ice.
It might be better to try for a more southerly passage, one that would
flank the war-like Iroquois, Champlain suggested. There were rivers on
the coast south of the St. Lawrence that might lead directly to the
lakes in the west--possibly to the western sea.
The new Huguenot head of the company, Pierre de Guast, Sieur de Monts,
favored this plan. He’d like to find a new entry into New France, one
free of the bitter cold of Canada, and one free of the jealousies of
the merchants who had pioneered in the St. Lawrence. The king fully
approved. The prospects of finding minerals in the more southerly parts
intrigued him. To make sure the company had sufficient ground in which
to operate he gave de Monts a patent extending from Cape Breton south
to present-day Philadelphia, from 46° north latitude to 40°.
The next few years were spent in making settlements in the Bay of
Fundy, at St. Croix and at Port Royal.
Scurvy and cold plagued the colonists even more than Basque pirates,
Hollanders and other poaching foreigners annoyed the company’s traders.
Trade was brisk nevertheless, with the furriers and hatters of Rouen
and Paris bidding up all the pelts that could be shipped to France.
In fact, prices rose so high that the Hatters Corporation of Paris
complained to the ministry.
Meanwhile, Champlain explored to the south of the French settlements
as far as Cape Cod for better sites. He found that Englishmen had been
investigating that coast, but he didn’t discover a river that led
inland to the lake country, skirting the terrible Iroquois. He didn’t
look south far enough. If he had found the Connecticut or the Hudson,
New England might today be populated by Frenchmen. And New Yorkers
probably wouldn’t have their Dutch ancestors.
In the end Champlain advised the king and the merchants that the
company should return to the St. Lawrence valley. Trading posts should
be established there, he said. With the help of native enemies of the
Iroquois he believed he could defeat the Five Nations--force them to
trade--force a way through to Tartary or the western sea.
This is what the company now proceeded to do. An expedition was sent
to the St. Lawrence in 1608. Dupont-Grave traded at Tadoussac with one
ship while Champlain in another set out to erect a factory at Quebec.
There, at the foot of the cliff where the river was narrow, he built a
trading post fort consisting of a two-story wooden building surrounded
by a large moat. Cannon which would carry across the river were placed
on mounds at the corners, and the surrounding land was cleared of
timber and brush against attack.
The going was rough, for _le capitaine_ tolerated no shirking of toil.
Some of his men conspired to murder him by poison, and, should that
fail, by “a traine of gunpowder.” This plot, he discovered in the nick
of time. One of the mutineers was hanged; the others were shipped back
to France, condemned to the galleys.
When the trading ships with their cargoes of beaver and “blacke
Foxes, which seeme to exceede Sables” returned to France in the fall,
Champlain remained behind at Quebec with twenty-eight men. But scurvy
and dysentery took its usual toll. Only eight remained by spring.
Nevertheless the French captain proceeded with his plan to invade the
country of the Iroquois. He made overtures to their ancient enemies,
the Montagnais and the Algonkin Indians.
“Notwithstanding, being a man, who is astonished with nothing, and of
a gentle conversation, knowing wisely how to acquaint, and accommodate
himselfe with those people, after having promised them, that when the
land of the Iroquois, and other Countries should be discovered, the
great French Sagamos (meaning our King) would give them great rewards:
he invited them to goe to warre against the said Iroquois, promising
(for himselfe) that he would take part with them. They (in whom the
desire of revenge dieth not, and who delight in nothing more then in
warre) passe their word unto him, and arme themselves about one hundred
men, for that effect, with whom the said Champlain, ventures himselfe,
accompanied with one man, and one of Monsieur deMonts his footemen.”
This alliance of 1609 was to have far reaching effects on the future
colonial history of America. It sparked a blaze of red terror along
the borders between Dutch and French, and between French and English,
wherever the competition for the fur trade was joined, that was not to
be extinguished for a hundred and fifty years.
News has a way of travelling fast in the wilderness, especially news
of a war alliance. The Hurons in the west were Iroquoian, but were
bitter enemies of the Five Nations. They wanted to be members of such
a promising war party, one with white men carrying the astonishing
“fireguns” that the nations of the enemy league had never before seen
or heard.
Down the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence the Hurons came to Quebec, with
furs to barter but with their tomahawks well sharpened. Champlain and
his savage allies gave them a resounding welcome. The French captain
traded with them and made a war pact. Then they all set off up the
St. Lawrence for the mouth of the Richelieu River, beyond which lay
the territory of the Five Nations. There, turning south in a flanking
movement, they ascended the Richelieu to reach the “Lake of the
Iroquois,” later to be called Lake Champlain.
The invaders proceeded with extreme caution after reaching the
lake, travelling only at night. However, the French captain had an
opportunity to observe something of the advanced state of civilization
of the Iroquois before the alarm was given. Their farms, sown with corn
and beans, were models of orderliness. Their palisaded forts, he noted,
contained buildings of three to four stories, similar to those he had
previously observed among the highly organized natives of Mexico.
Champlain must have had some premonition then that these intelligent
but bloodthirsty savages would prove far more troublesome than any
other natives the French had encountered in America.
When the battle was joined, the invading savages cunningly kept the
three Frenchmen hidden behind ranks until, by the sudden appearance of
white men with death-dealing thunder, the greatest consternation might
be created among the Iroquois. The effect upon the Iroquois was even
more dramatic than was anticipated. “On a sodaine, all was in disorder,
astonished at such a noise, and death so unexpected. Upon this feare,
the men of Kebec loosing no occasion, followed earnestly their enemies,
and killed about fiftie of them, whose heads they brought backe, to
make therewith merry feasts, and dances, at their returne, according
to their custome.” They also took back ten or twelve live prisoners
reserved for torture.
The Iroquois, when they recovered sufficiently from their shock to
learn more about white men and guns, became the irreconcilable haters
of the French. The flame blazed. And it would be fed even more by the
Frenchmen--by surprise arquebus massacres and the savagery of the white
men’s Algonkin and Huron allies.
Champlain went back to France that fall. Once more the monopoly
had been cancelled; the company had lost its exclusive patent. The
government was permitting free trade to all Frenchmen in the St.
Lawrence valley. However, the company decided to stick it out in the
face of this competition. Champlain became affianced, under a marriage
contract, to a girl of twelve who was to join him later as his wife,
and then he returned to Canada.