In establishing their chain of rude forts, or trading posts, along the
Great Lakes and through the valley of the Mississippi, the French had no
desire to plant agricultural settlements in the West. Their chief
thought was to keep the continental interior as a great fur bearing
wilderness; to encourage the Indians to hunt for furs, by supplying all
their other wants with articles made in Europe; and to prevent them from
carrying any of their furs to the English, who were always underbidding
the French in prices.
The officers of these forts were instructed to bully or to persuade the
Indians, as occasion demanded; and some of them became very successful
in this forest diplomacy. Around most of the forts were small groups of
temporary settlers, who could hardly be called colonists, for they
expected when they had made their fortunes, or when their working days
were over, to return to their own people on the lower St. Lawrence
River. It was rather an army of occupation, than a body of settlers.
Nearly every one in the settlement was dependent on the fur trade,
either as agent, clerk, trapper, boatman, or general employee.
Sometimes these little towns were the outgrowth of early Jesuit
missions, as La Pointe (on Chequamegon Bay), or Green Bay (De Pere);
but sooner or later the fur trade became the chief interest. Most of the
towns, however, like Milwaukee, La Crosse, or Prairie du Chien, were the
direct outgrowth of commerce with the savages. There were trading posts,
also, on Lakes Chetek, Flambeau, Court Oreilles, and Sandy, but the
settlements about them were very small, and they never grew into
permanent towns, as did some of the others.
At all these places, the little log forts served as depots for furs and
the goods used in trading with the Indians; they were also used as
rallying points for the traders and other white inhabitants of the
district, in times of Indian attack. They would have been of slight
avail against an enemy with cannon, but afforded sufficient protection
against the arrows, spears, and muskets of savages.
The French Canadians who lived in these waterside hamlets were an
easy-going folk. Nearly all of them were engaged in the fur trade at
certain seasons of the year. The _bourgeois_, or masters, were the
chiefs. The _voyageurs_ were men of all work, propelling the canoes and
bateaux when afloat, carrying the craft and their contents over
portages, transporting packs of goods and furs along the forest trails,
caring for the camps, and acting as guards for the persons and property
of their employers. The _coureurs de bois_, or wood rangers, were
everywhere; they were devoted to a life in the woods, for the fun and
excitement in it; they conducted trade on their own account, far off in
the most inaccessible places, and were men of great daring. Then there
were the _habitants_, or permanent villagers; sometimes these worked as
_voyageurs_, but for the most part they were farmers in a small way,
cultivating long, narrow "claims" running at right angles to the river
bank; one can still find at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien, traces of
some of these old "French claims." The object of having them so narrow
was, that the _habitants_ could live close to one another, along the
waterside.
They were of a very social nature, these French _habitants_. They liked
to meet frequently, enjoy their pipes, and tell stories of the hunt or
of old days on the St. Lawrence. They were famous fiddlers, too. No
wilderness so far away that the little French fiddle had not been there;
the Indians recognized it as a part of the furniture of every fur
trader's camp. Music appealed strongly to these warm natures, and the
songs of the _voyageurs_, as they propelled their canoes along the
Wisconsin rivers, always greatly interested travelers. French Canadians
are still living in Wisconsin, who remember those gay melodies which
echoed through our forests a hundred years ago.
The old French life continued in Wisconsin until well into the
nineteenth century. Although New France fell in 1760, and the British
came into control, they never succeeded in Anglicizing Wisconsin.
English fur companies succeeded the French, and British soldiers
occupied the Wisconsin forts; but the fur trade itself had still to be
conducted through French residents, who alone had the confidence of the
Indians. Great Britain was supposed to surrender all this country to the
United States in 1796; but it was really 1816 before the American flag
floated over Green Bay, and the American Fur Company came into power.
But, even under this company, most of the actual trading was done
through the French; so we may say that as long as the fur trade remained
the chief industry of Wisconsin, about to the year 1835, the old French
life was still maintained, and French methods were everywhere in
evidence.
It is surprising how strongly marked upon our Wisconsin are the memories
of the old French days. A quiet, unobtrusive people, were those early
French, without high ambitions, and simple in their tastes; yet they and
theirs have displayed remarkable tenacity of life, and doubtless their
effect upon us of to-day will never be effaced. Our map is sprinkled all
over with the French names which they gave to our hills and lakes and
streams, and early towns. We may here mention a few only, at random:
Lakes Flambeau, Court Oreilles, Pepin, Vieux Desert; the rivers Bois
Brule, Eau Claire, Eau Pleine, Embarrass, St. Croix; the counties Eau
Claire, Fond du Lac, La Crosse, Langlade, Marquette, Portage, Racine,
St. Croix, Trempealeau; the towns of Racine, La Crosse, Prairie du
Chien, Butte des Morts. Scores of others can readily be found in the
atlas. In the cities of Green Bay, Kaukauna, Portage, and Prairie du
Chien, and the dreamy little Fox River hamlet of Grand Butte des Morts,
are still to be found little closely-knit colonies of French Creoles,
descendants of those who lived and ruled under the old French regime.
The time must come, in the molding of all the foreign elements in our
midst into the American of the future, when the French element will no
longer exist among us as an element, but merely as a memory. If our
posterity can inherit from those early French occupants of our soil
their simple tastes, their warm hearts, their happy temperament, their
social virtues, then the old French regime will have brought a blessing
to Wisconsin, and not merely a halo of historical romance.