Even before the colony contained more than a handful
of settlers, the profit-making possibilities of this trade were
recognized. It grew rapidly even in the early days, and for more than
a hundred and fifty years furnished New France with its sinews of war
and peace. Beginning on the St. Lawrence, this trade moved westward
along the Great Lakes, until toward the end of the seventeenth century
it passed to the headwaters of the Mississippi. During the two
administrations of Frontenac the fur traffic grew to large
proportions, nor did it show much sign of shrinking for a generation
thereafter. With the ebb-tide of French military power, however, the
trader's hold on these western lands began to relax, and before the
final overthrow of New France it had become greatly weakened.
In establishing commercial relations with the Indians, the French
voyageur on the St. Lawrence had several marked advantages over his
English and Dutch neighbors. By temperament he was better adapted than
they to be a pioneer of trade. No race was more supple than his own in
conforming its ways to the varied demands of place and time. When he
was among the Indians, the Frenchman tried to act like one of them,
and he soon developed in all the arts of forest life a skill which
rivaled that of the Indian himself. The fascination of life in the
untamed wilderness with its hair-raising experiences, its romance, its
free abandon, appealed more strongly to the French temperament than to
that of any other European race.
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