Sagard,[79] whose work was published in 1636, tells us that the Hurons,
who traded with the French, visited the Winnebagoes and the Fire Nation
(Mascoutins),[80] bartering goods for peltries. Champlain, the famous
fur-trader, who represented the Company of the Hundred Associates,[81]
formed by Richelieu to monopolize the fur trade of New France and govern
the country, sent an agent named Jean Nicolet, in 1634,[82] to Green bay
and Fox river to make a peace between the Hurons and the Winnebagoes in
the interests of inter-tribal commerce. The importance of this phase of
the trade as late as 1681 may be inferred from these words of Du
Chesneau, speaking of the Ottawas, and including under the term the
Petun Hurons and the Chippeways also: "Through them we obtain beaver,
and although they, for the most part, do not hunt, and have but a small
portion of peltry in their country, they go in search of it to the most
distant places, and exchange for it our merchandise which they procure
at Montreal." Among the tribes enumerated as dealing with the Ottawas
are the Sioux, Satiks, Pottawattomies, Winnebagoes, Menomonees and
Mascoutins--all Wisconsin Indians at this time. He adds: "Some of these
tribes occasionally come down to Montreal, but usually they do not do so
in very great numbers because they are too far distant, are not expert
at managing canoes, and because the other Indians intimidate them, in
order to be the carriers of their merchandise and to profit
thereby."[83]
It was the aim of the authorities to attract the Indians to Montreal, or
to develop the inter-tribal communication, and thus to centralize the
trade and prevent the dissipation of the energies of the colony; but the
temptations of the free forest traffic were too strong. In a memoir of
1697, Aubert de la Chesnaye says:
"At first, the French went only among the Hurons, and since then to
Missilimakinak, where they sold their goods to the savages of the
places, who in turn went to exchange them with other savages in the
depths of the woods, lands and rivers. But at present the French, having
licenses, in order to secure greater profit surreptitiously, pass all
the 'Ottawas and savages of Missilimakinak in order to go themselves to
seek the most distant tribes, which is very displeasing to the former.
_It is they, also, who have made excellent discoveries;_ and four or
five hundred young men, the best men of Canada, are engaged in this
business.... They have given us knowledge of many names of savages that
we did not know; and four or five hundred leagues more remote are others
who are unknown to us."[84]
Two of the most noteworthy of these _coureurs de bois_, or wood-rangers,
were Radisson and Groseilliers.[85] In 1660 they returned to Montreal
with 300 Algonquins and sixty canoes laden with furs, after a voyage in
which they visited, among other tribes, the Pottawattomies, Mascoutins,
Sioux, and Hurons, in Wisconsin. From the Hurons they learned of the
Mississippi, and probably visited the river. They soon returned from
Montreal to the northern Wisconsin region. In the course of their
wanderings they had a post at Chequamegon bay, and they ascended the
Pigeon river, thus opening the Grand Portage route to the heart of
Canada. Among their exploits they induced England to enter the Hudson
Bay trade, and gave the impetus that led to the organization of the
Hudson Bay Company. The reports which these traders brought back had a
most important effect in fostering exploration in the Northwest, and led
to the visit of Menard, who was succeeded by Allouez, the pioneers of
the Jesuits in Wisconsin.[86] Radisson gives us a good account of the
early Wisconsin trade. Of his visit to the Ottawas he says:
"We weare wellcomed & made of saying that we weare the Gods and devils
of the earth; that we should fournish them, & that they would bring us
to their enemy to destroy them. We tould them [we] were very well
content. We persuaded them first to come peaceably, not to distroy them
presently, and if they would not condescend then would wee throw away
the hatchett and make use of our thunders. We sent ambassadors to them
wth guifts. That nation called Pontonatemick[87] without more adoe
comes and meets us with the rest, and peace was concluded." "The
savages," he writes, "love knives better than we serve God, which should
make us blush for shame." In another place, "We went away free from any
burden whilst those poore miserable thought themselves happy to carry
our Equipage for the hope that they had that we should give them a
brasse ring, or an awle, or an needle."[88] We find them using this
influence in various places to make peace between hostile tribes, whom
they threatened with punishment. This early commerce was carried on
under the fiction of an exchange of presents. For example, Radisson
says: "We gave them severall gifts and received many. They bestowed upon
us above 300 robs of castors out of wch we brought not five to the
ffrench being far in the country."[89] Among the articles used by
Radisson in this trade were kettles, hatchets, knives, graters, awls,
needles, tin looking-glasses, little bells, ivory combs, vermilion,
sword blades, necklaces and bracelets. The sale of guns and blankets was
at this time exceptional, nor does it appear that Radisson carried
brandy in this voyage.[90]
More and more the young men of Canada continued to visit the savages at
their villages. By 1660 the _coureurs de bois_ formed a distinct
class,[91] who, despite the laws against it, pushed from
Michillimackinac into the wilderness. Wisconsin was a favorite resort of
these adventurers. By the time of the arrival of the Jesuits they had
made themselves entirely at home upon our lakes. They had preceded
Allouez at Chequamegon bay, and when he established his mission at Green
bay he came at the invitation of the Pottawattomies, who wished him to
"mollify some young Frenchmen who were among them for the purpose of
trading and who threatened and ill-treated them."[92] He found fur
traders before him on the Fox and the Wolf. Bancroft's assertion[93]
that "religious enthusiasm took possession of the wilderness on the
upper lakes and explored the Mississippi," is misleading. It is not true
that "not a cape was turned, nor a mission founded, nor a river entered,
nor a settlement begun, but a Jesuit led the way." In fact the Jesuits
followed the traders;[94] their missions were on the sites of trading
posts, and they themselves often traded.[95]
When St. Lusson, with the _coureur de bois_, Nicholas Perrot, took
official possession of the Northwest for France at the Sault Ste. Marie
in 1671, the cost of the expedition was defrayed by trade in beaver.[96]
Joliet, who, accompanied by Marquette, descended the Mississippi by the
Fox and Wisconsin route in 1673, was an experienced fur trader. While Du
Lhut, chief of the _coureurs de bois_, was trading on Lake Superior, La
Salle,[97] the greatest of these merchants, was preparing his
far-reaching scheme for colonizing the Indians in the Illinois region
under the direction of the French, so that they might act as a check on
the inroads of the Iroquois, and aid in his plan of securing an exit for
the furs of the Northwest, particularly buffalo hides, by way of the
Mississippi and the Gulf. La Salle's "Griffen," the earliest ship to
sail the Great Lakes, was built for this trade, and received her only
cargo at Green Bay. Accault, one of La Salle's traders, with Hennepin,
met Du Lhut on the upper Mississippi, which he had reached by way of the
Bois Brulé and St. Croix, in 1680. Du Lhut's trade awakened the jealousy
of La Salle, who writes in 1682: "If they go by way of the Ouisconsing,
where for the present the chase of the buffalo is carried on and where I
have commenced an establishment, they will ruin the trade on which alone
I rely, on account of the great number of buffalo which are taken there
every year, almost beyond belief."[98] Speaking of the Jesuits at Green
Bay, he declares that they "have in truth the key to the beaver country,
where a brother blacksmith that they have and two companions convert
more iron into beaver than the fathers convert savages into
Christians."[99] Perrot says that the beaver north of the mouth of the
Wisconsin were better than those of the Illinois country, and the chase
was carried on in this region for a longer period;[100] and we know from
Dablon that the Wisconsin savages were not compelled to separate by
families during the hunting season, as was common among other tribes,
because the game here was so abundant.[101] Aside from its importance as
a key to the Northwestern trade, Wisconsin seems to have been a rich
field of traffic itself.
With such extensive operations as the foregoing in the region reached by
Wisconsin rivers, it is obvious that the government could not keep the
_coureurs de bois_ from the woods. Even governors like Frontenac
connived at the traffic and shared its profits. In 1681 the government
decided to issue annual licenses,[102] and messengers were dispatched to
announce amnesty to the _coureurs de bois_ about Green Bay and the south
shore of Lake Superior.[103]
We may now offer some conclusions upon the connection of the fur trade
with French explorations:
1. The explorations were generally induced and almost always rendered
profitable by the fur trade. In addition to what has been presented on
this point, note the following:
In 1669, Patoulet writes to Colbert concerning La Salle's voyage to
explore a passage to Japan: "The enterprise is difficult and dangerous,
but the good thing about it is that the King will be at no expense for
this pretended discovery."[104]
The king's instructions to Governor De la Barre in 1682 say that,
"Several inhabitants of Canada, excited by the hope of the profit to be
realized from the trade with the Indians for furs, have undertaken at
various periods discoveries in the countries of the Nadoussioux, the
river Mississipy, and other parts of America."[105]
2. The early traders were regarded as quasi-supernatural beings by the
Indians.[106] They alone could supply the coveted iron implements, the
trinkets that tickled the savage's fancy, the "fire-water," and the guns
that gave such increased power over game and the enemy. In the course of
a few years the Wisconsin savages passed from the use of the implements
of the stone age to the use of such an important product of the iron age
as firearms. They passed also from the economic stage in which their
hunting was for food and clothing simply, to that stage in which their
hunting was made systematic and stimulated by the European demand for
furs. The trade tended to perpetuate the hunter stage by making it
profitable, and it tended to reduce the Indian to economic
dependence[107] upon the Europeans, for while he learned to use the
white man's gun he did not learn to make it or even to mend it. In this
transition stage from their primitive condition the influence of the
trader over the Indians was all-powerful. The pre-eminence of the
individual Indian who owned a gun made all the warriors of the tribe
eager to possess like power. The tribe thus armed placed their enemies
at such a disadvantage that they too must have like weapons or lose
their homes.[108] No wonder that La Salle was able to say: "The savages
take better care of us French than of their own children. From us only
can they get guns and goods."[109] This was the power that France used
to support her in the struggle with England for the Northwest.
3. The trader used his influence to promote peace between the
Northwestern Indians.[110]