JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIESINHISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor

 History is past Politics and Politics present History. --Freeman

NINTH SERIESXI-XII

The Character and Influence of theIndian Trade in Wisconsin

_A Study of the Trading Post as an Institution_

BY FREDERICK J. TURNER, PH. D. 

_Professor of History, University of Wisconsin_

BALTIMORETHE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESSPUBLISHED MONTHLYNovember and December, 1891

COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY N. MURRAY. 

ISAAC FRIEDENWALD CO. , PRINTERS, BALTIMORE. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

 PAGE. I. INTRODUCTION 7 II. PRIMITIVE INTER-TRIBAL TRADE 10 III. PLACE OF THE INDIAN TRADE IN THE SETTLEMENT OF AMERICA 11 1. Early Trade along the Atlantic Coast 11 2. In New England 12 3. In the Middle Region 18 4. In the South 16 5. In the Far West 18 IV. THE RIVER AND LAKE SYSTEMS OF THE NORTHWEST 19 V. WISCONSIN INDIANS 22 VI. PERIODS OF THE WISCONSIN INDIAN TRADE 25 VII. FRENCH EXPLORATION IN WISCONSIN 26VIII. FRENCH POSTS IN WISCONSIN 33 IX. THE FOX WARS 34 X. FRENCH SETTLEMENT IN WISCONSIN 38 XI. THE TRADERS' STRUGGLE TO RETAIN THEIR TRADE 40 XII. THE ENGLISH AND THE NORTHWEST. INFLUENCE OF THE INDIAN TRADE ON DIPLOMACY 42XIII. THE NORTHWEST COMPANY 51 XIV. AMERICAN INFLUENCES 51 XV. GOVERNMENT TRADING HOUSES 58 XVI. WISCONSIN TRADE IN 1820 61XVII. EFFECTS OF THE TRADING POST 67

THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF THE INDIAN TRADE IN WISCONSIN. 

INTRODUCTION. [1]

The trading post is an old and influential institution. Established inthe midst of an undeveloped society by a more advanced people, it is acenter not only of new economic influences, but also of all thetransforming forces that accompany the intercourse of a higher with alower civilization. The Phoenicians developed the institution into agreat historic agency. Closely associated with piracy at first, theircommerce gradually freed itself from this and spread throughout theMediterranean lands. A passage in the Odyssey (Book XV. ) enables us totrace the genesis of the Phoenician trading post:

"Thither came the Phoenicians, mariners renowned, greedy merchant-menwith countless trinkets in a black ship. .. . They abode among us a wholeyear, and got together much wealth in their hollow ship. And when theirhollow ship was now laden to depart, they sent a messenger. .. . Therecame a man versed in craft to my father's house with a golden chainstrung here and there with amber beads. Now, the maidens in the hall andmy lady mother were handling the chain and gazing on it and offering himtheir price. "

It would appear that the traders at first sailed from port to port, bartering as they went. After a time they stayed at certain profitableplaces a twelvemonth, still trading from their ships. Then came thefixed factory, and about it grew the trading colony. [2] The Phoeniciantrading post wove together the fabric of oriental civilization, broughtarts and the alphabet to Greece, brought the elements of civilization tonorthern Africa, and disseminated eastern culture through theMediterranean system of lands. It blended races and customs, developedcommercial confidence, fostered the custom of depending on outsidenations for certain supplies, and afforded a means of peacefulintercourse between societies naturally hostile. 

Carthaginian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman trading posts continued theprocess. By traffic in amber, tin, furs, etc. , with the tribes of thenorth of Europe, a continental commerce was developed. The routes ofthis trade have been ascertained. [3] For over a thousand years beforethe migration of the peoples Mediterranean commerce had flowed along theinterlacing river valleys of Europe, and trading posts had beenestablished. Museums show how important an effect was produced upon theeconomic life of northern Europe by this intercourse. It is asignificant fact that the routes of the migration of the peoples were toa considerable extent the routes of Roman trade, and it is well worthinquiry whether this commerce did not leave more traces upon Teutonicsociety than we have heretofore considered, and whether one cause of themigrations of the peoples has not been neglected. [4]

That stage in the development of society when a primitive people comesinto contact with a more advanced people deserves more study than hasbeen given to it. As a factor in breaking the "cake of custom" themeeting of two such societies is of great importance; and if, withStarcke, [5] we trace the origin of the family to economicconsiderations, and, with Schrader, [6] the institution of guestfriendship to the same source, we may certainly expect to find importantinfluences upon primitive society arising from commerce with a higherpeople. The extent to which such commerce has affected all peoples isremarkable. One may study the process from the days of Phoenicia tothe days of England in Africa, [7] but nowhere is the material moreabundant than in the history of the relations of the Europeans and theAmerican Indians. The Phoenician factory, it is true, fostered thedevelopment of the Mediterranean civilization, while in America thetrading post exploited the natives. The explanation of this differenceis to be sought partly in race differences, partly in the greater gulfthat separated the civilization of the European from the civilization ofthe American Indian as compared with that which parted the early Greeksand the Phoenicians. But the study of the destructive effect of thetrading post is valuable as well as the study of its elevatinginfluences; in both cases the effects are important and worthinvestigation and comparison. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: In this paper I have rewritten and enlarged an addressbefore the State Historical Society of Wisconsin on the Character andInfluence of the Fur Trade in Wisconsin, published in the Proceedings ofthe Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting, 1889. I am under obligations to Mr. Reuben G. Thwaites, Secretary of this society, for his generousassistance in procuring material for my work, and to Professor CharlesH. Haskins, my colleague, who kindly read both manuscript and proof andmade helpful suggestions. The reader will notice that throughout thepaper I have used the word _Northwest_ in a limited sense as referringto the region included between the Great Lakes and the Ohio andMississippi rivers. ]

[Footnote 2: On the trading colony, see Roscher und Jannasch, Colonien, p. 12. ]

[Footnote 3: Consult: Müllenhoff, Altertumskunde I. , 212; Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, New York, 1890, pp. 348ff. ; Pliny, Naturalis Historia, xxvii. , 11; Montelius, Civilization ofSweden in Heathen Times, 98-99; Du Chaillu, Viking Age; and thecitations in Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, 466-7; Keary, Vikings inWestern Christendom, 23. ]

[Footnote 4: In illustration it may be noted that the early Scandinavianpower in Russia seized upon the trade route by the Dnieper and the Duna. Keary, Vikings, 173. See also _post_, pp. 36, 38. ]

[Footnote 5: Starcke, Primitive Family. ]

[Footnote 6: Schrader, l. C. ; see also Ihring, in _Deutsche Rundschau_, III. , 357, 420; Kulischer, Der Handel auf primitiven Kulturstufen, in_Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_, X. , 378. _Vide post_, p. 10. ]

[Footnote 7: W. Bosworth Smith, in a suggestive article in the_Nineteenth Century_, December, 1887, shows the influence of theMohammedan trade in Africa. ]

PRIMITIVE INTER-TRIBAL TRADE. 

Long before the advent of the white trader, inter-tribal commercialintercourse existed. Mr. Charles Rau[8] and Sir Daniel Wilson[9] haveshown that inter-tribal trade and division of labor were common amongthe mound-builders and in the stone age generally. In historic timesthere is ample evidence of inter-tribal trade. Were positive evidencelacking, Indian institutions would disclose the fact. Differences inlanguage were obviated by the sign language, [10] a fixed system ofcommunication, intelligible to all the western tribes at least. Thepeace pipe, [11] or calumet, was used for settling disputes, strengthening alliances, and speaking to strangers--a sanctity attachedto it. Wampum belts served in New England and the middle region as moneyand as symbols in the ratification of treaties. [12] The Chippeways hadan institution called by a term signifying "to enter one another'slodges, "[13] whereby a truce was made between them and the Sioux at thewinter hunting season. During these seasons of peace it was not uncommonfor a member of one tribe to adopt a member of another as his brother, atie which was respected even after the expiration of the truce. Theanalogy of this custom to the classical "guest-friendship" needs nocomment; and the economic cause of the institution is worth remark, asone of the means by which the rigor of primitive inter-tribal hostilitywas mitigated. 

But it is not necessary to depend upon indirect evidence. The earliesttravellers testify to the existence of a wide inter-tribal commerce. Thehistorians of De Soto's expedition mention Indian merchants who soldsalt to the inland tribes. "In 1565 and for some years previous bisonskins were brought by the Indians down the Potomac, and thence carriedalong-shore in canoes to the French about the Gulf of St. Lawrence. During two years six thousand skins were thus obtained. "[14] AnAlgonquin brought to Champlain at Quebec a piece of copper a foot long, which he said came from a tributary of the Great Lakes. [15] Champlainalso reports that among the Canadian Indians village councils were heldto determine what number of men might go to trade with other tribes inthe summer. [16] Morton in 1632 describes similar inter-tribal trade inNew England, and adds that certain utensils are "but in certain parts ofthe country made, where the severall trades are appropriated to theinhabitants of those parts onely. "[17] Marquette relates that theIllinois bought firearms of the Indians who traded directly with theFrench, and that they went to the south and west to carry off slaves, which they sold at a high price to other nations. [18] It was on thefoundation, therefore, of an extensive inter-tribal trade that the whiteman built up the forest commerce. [19]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 8: Smithsonian Report, 1872. ]

[Footnote 9: Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 1889, VII. , 59. See also Thruston, Antiquities of Tennessee, 79 ff. ]

[Footnote 10: Mallery, in Bureau of Ethnology, I. , 324; Clark, IndianSign Language. ]

[Footnote 11: Shea, Discovery of the Mississippi, 34. Catilinite pipeswere widely used, even along the Atlantic slope, Thruston, 80-81. ]

[Footnote 12: Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, I. , ch. Ii. ]

[Footnote 13: Minnesota Historical Collections, V. , 267. ]

[Footnote 14: Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, 230, citingMenendez. ]

[Footnote 15: Neill, in Narrative and Critical History of America, IV. , 164. ]

[Footnote 16: Champlain's Voyages (Prince Society), III. , 183. ]

[Footnote 17: Morton, New English Canaan (Prince Society), 159. ]

[Footnote 18: Shea, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, 32. ]

[Footnote 19: For additional evidence see Radisson, Voyages (PrinceSociety), 91, 173; Massachusetts Historical Collections, I. , 151;Smithsonian Contributions, XVI. , 30; Jesuit Relations, 1671, 41;Thruston, Antiquities, etc. , 79-82; Carr, Mounds of the MississippiValley, 25, 27; and _post_ pp. 26-7, 36. ]

EARLY TRADE ALONG THE ATLANTIC COAST. 

The chroniclers of the earliest voyages to the Atlantic coast abound inreferences to this traffic. First of Europeans to purchase native fursin America appear to have been the Norsemen who settled Vinland. In thesaga of Eric the Red[20] we find this interesting account: "ThereuponKarlsefni and his people displayed their shields, and when they cametogether they began to barter with each other. Especially did thestrangers wish to buy red cloth, for which they offered in exchangepeltries and quite grey skins. They also desired to buy swords andspears, but Karlsefni and Snorri forbade this. In exchange for perfectunsullied skins the Skrellings would take red stuff a span in length, which they would bind around their heads. So their trade went on for atime, until Karlsefni and his people began to grow short of cloth, whenthey divided it into such narrow pieces that it was not more than afinger's breadth wide, but the Skrellings still continued to give justas much for this as before, or more. "[21]

The account of Verrazano's voyage mentions his Indian trade. CaptainJohn Smith, exploring New England in 1614, brought back a cargo of fishand 11, 000 beaver skins. [22] These examples could be multiplied; inshort, a way was prepared for colonization by the creation of a demandfor European goods, and thus the opportunity for a lodgement wasafforded. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 20: Reeves, Finding of Wineland the Good, 47. ]

[Footnote 21: N. Y. Hist. Colls. , I. , 54-55, 59. ]

[Footnote 22: Smith, Generall Historie (Richmond, 1819), I. , 87-8, 182, 199; Strachey's Travaile into Virginia, 157 (Hakluyt Soc. VI. ); Parkman, Pioneers, 230. ]

NEW ENGLAND INDIAN TRADE. 

The Indian trade has a place in the early history of the New Englandcolonies. The Plymouth settlers "found divers corn fields and littlerunning brooks, a place . .. Fit for situation, "[23] and settled downcuckoo-like in Indian clearings. Mr. Weeden has shown that the Indiantrade furnished a currency (wampum) to New England, and that it affordedthe beginnings of her commerce. In September of their first year thePlymouth men sent out a shallop to trade with the Indians, and when aship arrived from England in 1621 they speedily loaded her with areturn cargo of beaver and lumber. [24] By frequent legislation thecolonies regulated and fostered the trade. [25] Bradford reports that ina single year twenty hhd. Of furs were shipped from Plymouth, and thatbetween 1631 and 1636 their shipments amounted to 12, 150 _li_. Beaverand 1156 _li_. Otter. [26] Morton in his 'New English Canaan' allegesthat a servant of his was "thought to have a thousand pounds in readygold gotten by the beaver when he died. "[27] In the pursuit of thistrade men passed continually farther into the wilderness, and theirtrading posts "generally became the pioneers of new settlements. "[28]For example, the posts of Oldham, a Puritan trader, led the way for thesettlements on the Connecticut river, [29] and in their early days thesetowns were partly sustained by the Indian trade. [30]

Not only did the New England traders expel the Dutch from this valley;they contended with them on the Hudson. [31]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: Bradford, Plymouth Plantation. ]

[Footnote 24: Bradford, 104. ]

[Footnote 25: _E. G. _, Plymouth Records, I. , 50, 54, 62, 119; II. , 10;Massachusetts Colonial Records, I. , 55, 81, 96, 100, 322; II. , 86, 138;III. , 424; V. , 180; Hazard, Historical Collections, II. , 19 (theCommissioners of the United Colonies propose giving the monopoly of thefur trade to a corporation). On public truck-houses, _vide post_, p. 58. ]

[Footnote 26: Bradford, 108, gives the proceeds of the sale of thesefurs. ]

[Footnote 27: Force, Collections, Vol. I. , No. 5, p. 53. ]

[Footnote 28: Weeden, I. , 132, 160-1. ]

[Footnote 29: Winthrop, History of New England, I. , 111, 131. ]

[Footnote 30: Connecticut Colonial Records, 1637, pp. 11, 18. ]

[Footnote 31: Weeden, I. , 126. ]

INDIAN TRADE IN THE MIDDLE COLONIES. 

Morton, in the work already referred to, protested against allowing "theGreat Lake of the Erocoise" (Champlain) to the Dutch, saying that it isexcellent for the fur trade, and that the Dutch have gained by beaver20, 000 pounds a year. Exaggerated though the statement is, it is truethat the energies of the Dutch were devoted to this trade, rather thanto agricultural settlement. As in the case of New France the settlersdispersed themselves in the Indian trade; so general did this becomethat laws had to be passed to compel the raising of crops. [32] New YorkCity (New Amsterdam) was founded and for a time sustained by the furtrade. In their search for peltries the Dutch were drawn up the Hudson, up the Connecticut, and down the Delaware, where they had Swedes fortheir rivals. By way of the Hudson the Dutch traders had access to LakeChamplain, and to the Mohawk, the headwaters of which connected throughthe lakes of western New York with Lake Ontario. This region, which wassupplied by the trading post of Orange (Albany), was the seat of theIroquois confederacy. The results of the trade upon Indian societybecame apparent in a short time in the most decisive way. Furnished witharms by the Dutch, the Iroquois turned upon the neighboring Indians, whom the French had at first refrained from supplying with guns. [33] In1649 they completely ruined the Hurons, [34] a part of whom fled to thewoods of northern Wisconsin. In the years immediately following, theNeutral Nation and the Eries fell under their power; they overawed theNew England Indians and the Southern tribes, and their hunting and warparties visited Illinois and drove Indians of those plains intoWisconsin. Thus by priority in securing firearms, as well as by theirremarkable civil organization, [35] the Iroquois secured possession ofthe St. Lawrence and Lakes Ontario and Erie. The French had accepted thealliance of the Algonquins and the Hurons, as the Dutch, and afterwardthe English, had that of the Iroquois; so these victories of theIroquois cut the French off from the entrance to the Great Lakes by wayof the upper St. Lawrence. As early as 1629 the Dutch trade wasestimated at 50, 000 guilders per annum, and the Delaware trade aloneproduced 10, 000 skins yearly in 1663. [36] The English succeeded to thistrade, and under Governor Dongan they made particular efforts to extendtheir operations to the Northwest, using the Iroquois as middlemen. Although the French were in possession of the trade with the Algonquinsof the Northwest, the English had an economic advantage in competing forthis trade in the fact that Albany traders, whose situation enabled themto import their goods more easily than Montreal traders could, and whowere burdened with fewer governmental restrictions, were able to payfifty per cent more for beaver and give better goods. French tradersfrequently received their supplies from Albany, a practice against whichthe English authorities legislated in 1720; and the _coureurs de bois_smuggled their furs to the same place. [37] As early as 1666 Talonproposed that the king of France should purchase New York, "whereby hewould have two entrances to Canada and by which he would give to theFrench all the peltries of the north, of which the English share theprofit by the communication which they have with the Iroquois byManhattan and Orange. "[38] It is a characteristic of the fur trade thatit continually recedes from the original center, and so it happened thatthe English traders before long attempted to work their way into theIllinois country. [39] The wars between the French and English andIroquois must be read in the light of this fact. At the outbreak of thelast French and Indian war, however, it was rather Pennsylvania andVirginia traders who visited the Ohio Valley. It is said that some threehundred of them came over the mountains yearly, following theSusquehanna and the Juniata and the headwaters of the Potomac to thetributaries of the Ohio, and visiting with their pack-horses the Indianvillages along the valley. The center of the English trade wasPickawillani on the Great Miami. In 1749 Celoron de Bienville, who hadbeen sent out to vindicate French authority in the valley, reported thateach village along the Ohio and its branches "has one or more Englishtraders, and each of these has hired men to carry his furs. "[40]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 32: New York Colonial Documents, I. , 181, 389, §7. ]

[Footnote 33: _Ibid. _ 182; Collection de manuscrits relatifs à laNouvelle-France, I. , 254; Radisson, 93. ]

[Footnote 34: Parkman, Jesuits in North America; Radisson; Margry, Découvertes et Établissemens, etc. , IV. , 586-598; Tailhan, NicholasPerrot. ]

[Footnote 35: Morgan, League of the Iroquois. ]

[Footnote 36: N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 408-9; V. , 687, 726; Histoire etCommerce des Colonies Angloises, 154. ]

[Footnote 37: N. Y. Col. Docs. , III. , 471, 474; IX. , 298, 319. ]

[Footnote 38: _Ibid. _ IX. , 57. The same proposal was made in 1681 by DuChesneau, _ibid. _ IX. , 165. ]

[Footnote 39: Parkman's works; N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 165; Shea'sCharlevoix, IV. , 16: "The English, indeed, as already remarked, fromthat time shared with the French in the fur trade; and this was thechief motive of their fomenting war between us and the Iroquois, inasmuch as they could get no good furs, which come from the northerndistricts, except by means of these Indians, who could scarcely effect areconciliation with us without precluding them from this preciousmine. "]

[Footnote 40: Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I. , 50. ]

INDIAN TRADE IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES. 

The Indian trade of the Virginians was not limited to the Ohio country. As in the case of Massachusetts Bay, the trade had been provided forbefore the colony left England, [41] and in times of need it hadpreserved the infant settlement. Bacon's rebellion was in part due tothe opposition to the governor's trading relations with the savages. After a time the nearer Indians were exploited, and as early as theclose of the seventeenth century Virginia traders sought the Indianswest of the Alleghanies. [42] The Cherokees lived among the mountains, "where the present states of Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and theCarolinas join one another. "[43] To the west, on the Mississippi, werethe Chickasaws, south of whom lived the Choctaws, while to the south ofthe Cherokees were the Creeks. The Catawbas had their villages on theborder of North and South Carolina, about the headwaters of the Santeeriver. Shawnese Indians had formerly lived on the Cumberland river, andFrench traders had been among them, as well as along theMississippi;[44] but by the time of the English traders, Tennessee andKentucky were for the most part uninhabited. The Virginia tradersreached the Catawbas, and for a time the Cherokees, by a trading routethrough the southwest of the colony to the Santee. By 1712 this tradewas a well-established one, [45] and caravans of one hundred pack-horsespassed along the trail. [46]

The Carolinas had early been interested in the fur trade. In 1663 theLords Proprietors proposed to pay the governor's salary from theproceeds of the traffic. Charleston traders were the rivals of theVirginians in the southwest. They passed even to the Choctaws andChickasaws, crossing the rivers by portable boats of skin, and sometimestaking up a permanent abode among the Indians. Virginia and Carolinatraders were not on good terms with each other, and Governor Spottswoodfrequently made complaints of the actions of the Carolinians. Hisexpedition across the mountains in 1716, if his statement is to betrusted, opened a new way to the transmontane Indians, and soonafterwards a trading company was formed under his patronage to availthemselves of this new route. [47] It passed across the Blue Ridge intothe Shenandoah valley, and down the old Indian trail to the Cherokees, who lived along the upper Tennessee. Below the bend at the Muscle Shoalsthe Virginians met the competition of the French traders from NewOrleans and Mobile. [48]

The settlement of Augusta, Georgia, was another important trading post. Here in 1740 was an English garrison of fifteen or twenty soldiers, anda little band of traders, who annually took about five hundredpack-horses into the Indian country. In the spring the furs were floateddown the river in large boats. [49] The Spaniards and the French alsovisited the Indians, and the rivalry over this trade was an importantfactor in causing diplomatic embroilment. [50]

The occupation of the back-lands of the South affords a prototype of theprocess by which the plains of the far West were settled, and alsofurnishes an exemplification of all the stages of economic developmentexisting contemporaneously. After a time the traders were accompanied tothe Indian grounds by _hunters_, and sometimes the two callings werecombined. [51] When Boone entered Kentucky he went with an Indian traderwhose posts were on the Red river in Kentucky. [52] After the gamedecreased the hunter's clearing was occupied by the _cattle-raiser_, andhis home, as settlement grew, became the property of the _cultivator ofthe soil_;[53] the _manufacturing era_ belongs to our own time. 

In the South, the Middle Colonies and New England the trade opened thewater-courses, the trading post grew into the palisaded town, and rivalnations sought to possess the trade for themselves. Throughout thecolonial frontier the effects, as well as the methods, of Indian trafficwere strikingly alike. The trader was the pathfinder for civilization. Nor was the process limited to the east of the Mississippi. Theexpeditions of Verenderye led to the discovery of the RockyMountains. [54] French traders passed up the Missouri; and when the Lewisand Clarke expedition ascended that river and crossed the continent, itwent with traders and voyageurs as guides and interpreters. Indeed, Jefferson first conceived the idea of such an expedition[55] fromcontact with Ledyard, who was organizing a fur trading company inFrance, and it was proposed to Congress as a means of fostering ourwestern Indian trade. [56] The first immigrant train to California wasincited by the representations of an Indian trader who had visited theregion, and it was guided by trappers. [57]

St. Louis was the center of the fur trade of the far West, and SenatorBenton was intimate with leading traders like Chouteau. [58] He urged theoccupation of the Oregon country, where in 1810 an establishment had fora time been made by the celebrated John Jacob Astor; and he fosteredlegislation opening the road to the southwestern Mexican settlementslong in use by the traders. The expedition of his son-in-law Frémont wasmade with French voyageurs, and guided to the passes by traders who hadused them before. [59] Benton was also one of the stoutest of the earlyadvocates of a Pacific railway. 

But the Northwest[60] was particularly the home of the fur trade, andhaving seen that this traffic was not an isolated or unimportant matter, we may now proceed to study it in detail with Wisconsin as the field ofinvestigation. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 41: Charter of 1606. ]

[Footnote 42: Ramsay, Tennessee, 63. ]

[Footnote 43: On the Southwestern Indians see Adair, American Indians. ]

[Footnote 44: Ramsay, 75. ]

[Footnote 45: Spottswood's Letters, Virginia Hist. Colls. , N. S. , I. , 67. ]

[Footnote 46: Byrd Manuscripts, I. , 180. The reader will find aconvenient map for the southern region in Roosevelt, Winning of theWest, I. ]

[Footnote 47: Spottswood's Letters, I. , 40; II. , 149, 150. ]

[Footnote 48: Ramsay, 64. Note the bearing of this route on the Holstonsettlement. ]

[Footnote 49: Georgia Historical Collections, I. , 180; II. , 123-7. ]

[Footnote 50: Spottswood. II. , 331, for example. ]

[Footnote 51: Ramsay, 65. ]

[Footnote 52: Boone, Life and Adventures. ]

[Footnote 53: Observations on the North American Land Co. , pp. Xv. , 144, London, 1796. ]

[Footnote 54: Margry, VI. ]

[Footnote 55: Allen, Lewis and Clarke Expedition, I. , ix. ; _vide post_, pp. 70-71. ]

[Footnote 56: _Vide post_, p. 71. ]

[Footnote 57: _Century Magazine_, XLI. , 759. ]

[Footnote 58: Jessie Benton Frémont in _Century Magazine_, XLI. , 766-7. ]

[Footnote 59: _Century Magazine_, XLI. , p. 759; _vide post_, p. 74. ]

[Footnote 60: Parkman's works, particularly Old Régime, make anydiscussion of the importance of the fur trade to Canada properunnecessary. La Hontan says: "For you must know that Canada subsistsonly upon the trade of skins or furs, three-fourths of which come fromthe people that live around the Great Lakes. " La Hontan, I. , 53, London, 1703. ]

NORTHWESTERN RIVER SYSTEMS IN THEIR RELATION TO THE FUR TRADE. 

The importance of physical conditions is nowhere more manifest than inthe exploration of the Northwest, and we cannot properly appreciateWisconsin's relation to the history of the time without firstconsidering her situation as regards the lake and river systems of NorthAmerica. 

When the Breton sailors, steering their fishing smacks almost in thewake of Cabot, began to fish in the St. Lawrence gulf, and to trafficwith the natives of the mainland for peltries, the problem of how theinterior of North America was to be explored was solved. Thewater-system composed of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes is the keyto the continent. The early explorations in a wilderness must be bywater-courses--they are nature's highways. The St. Lawrence leads to theGreat Lakes; the headwaters of the tributaries of these lakes lie sonear the headwaters of the rivers that join the Mississippi that canoescan be portaged from the one to the other. The Mississippi affordspassage to the Gulf of Mexico; or by the Missouri to the passes of theRocky Mountains, where rise the headwaters of the Columbia, which bringsthe voyageur to the Pacific. But if the explorer follows Lake Superiorto the present boundary line between Minnesota and Canada, and takes thechain of lakes and rivers extending from Pigeon river to Rainy lake andLake of the Woods, he will be led to the Winnipeg river and to the lakeof the same name. From this, by streams and portages, he may reachHudson bay; or he may go by way of Elk river and Lake Athabasca to Slaveriver and Slave lake, which will take him to Mackenzie river and to theArctic sea. But Lake Winnipeg also receives the waters of theSaskatchewan river, from which one may pass to the highlands near thePacific where rise the northern branches of the Columbia. And from thelakes of Canada there are still other routes to the Oregon country. [61]At a later day these two routes to the Columbia became an importantfactor in bringing British and Americans into conflict over thatterritory. 

In these water-systems Wisconsin was the link that joined the GreatLakes and the Mississippi; and along her northern shore the firstexplorers passed to the Pigeon river, or, as it was called later, theGrand Portage route, along the boundary line between Minnesota andCanada into the heart of Canada. 

It was possible to reach the Mississippi from the Great Lakes by thefollowing principal routes:[62]

1. By the Miami (Maumee) river from the west end of Lake Erie to theWabash, thence to the Ohio and the Mississippi. 

2. By the St. Joseph's river to the Wabash, thence to the Ohio. 

3. By the St. Joseph's river to the Kankakee, and thence to the Illinoisand the Mississippi. 

4. By the Chicago river to the Illinois. 

5. By Green bay, Fox river, and the Wisconsin river. 

6. By the Bois Brulé river to the St. Croix river. 

Of these routes, the first two were not at first available, owing to thehostility of the Iroquois. 

Of all the colonies that fell to the English, as we have seen, New Yorkalone had a water-system that favored communication with the interior, tapping the St. Lawrence and opening a way to Lake Ontario. Prevented bythe Iroquois friends of the Dutch and English from reaching theNorthwest by way of the lower lakes, the French ascended the Ottawa, reached Lake Nipissing, and passed by way of Georgian Bay to the islandsof Lake Huron. As late as the nineteenth century this was the commonroute of the fur trade, for it was more certain for the birch canoesthan the tempestuous route of the lakes. At the Huron islands two waysopened before their canoes. The straits of Michillimackinac[63]permitted them to enter Lake Michigan, and from this led the two routesto the Mississippi: one by way of Green bay and the Fox and Wisconsin, and the other by way of the lake to the Chicago river. But if the traderchose to go from the Huron islands through Sault Ste. Marie into LakeSuperior, the necessities of his frail craft required him to hug theshore, and the rumors of copper mines induced the first traders to takethe south shore, and here the lakes of northern Wisconsin and Minnesotaafford connecting links between the streams that seek Lake Superior andthose that seek the Mississippi, [64] a fact which made northernWisconsin more important in this epoch than the southern portion of thestate. 

We are now able to see how the river-courses of the Northwest permitteda complete exploration of the country, and that in these coursesWisconsin held a commanding situation, [65] But these rivers not onlypermitted exploration; they also furnished a motive to exploration bythe fact that their valleys teemed with fur-bearing animals. This is themain fact in connection with Northwestern exploration. The hope of aroute to China was always influential, as was also the search for mines, but the practical inducements were the profitable trade with the Indiansfor beaver and buffaloes and the wild life that accompanied it. Sopowerful was the combined influence of these far-stretching rivers, andthe "hardy, adventurous, lawless, fascinating fur trade, " that thescanty population of Canada was irresistibly drawn from agriculturalsettlements into the interminable recesses of the continent; and hereinis a leading explanation of the lack of permanent French influence inAmerica. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 61: Narr. And Crit. Hist. Amer. , VIII. , 10-11. ]

[Footnote 62: Narr. And Crit. Hist. Amer. , IV. , 224, n. 1; Margry, V. See also Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I. , map and pp. 38-9, 128. ]

[Footnote 63: Mackinaw. ]

[Footnote 64: See Doty's enumeration, Wis. Hist. Colls. , VII. , 202. ]

[Footnote 65: Jes. Rels. , 1672, p. 37; La Hontan, I. , 105 (1703). ]

WISCONSIN INDIANS. [66]

"All that relates to the Indian tribes of Wisconsin, " says Dr. Shea, "their antiquities, their ethnology, their history, is deeplyinteresting from the fact that it is the area of the first meeting ofthe Algic and Dakota tribes. Here clans of both these wide-spreadfamilies met and mingled at a very early period; here they first met inbattle and mutually checked each other's advance. " The Winnebagoesattracted the attention of the French even before they were visited. They were located about Green bay. Their later location at the entranceof Lake Winnebago was unoccupied, at least in the time of Allouez, because of the hostility of the Sioux. Early authorities representedthem as numbering about one hundred warriors. [67] The Pottawattomies wefind in 1641 at Sault Ste. Marie, [68] whither they had just fled fromtheir enemies. Their proper home was probably about the southeasternshore and islands of Green bay, where as early as 1670 they were againlocated. Of their numbers in Wisconsin at this time we can say butlittle. Allouez, at Chequamegon bay, was visited by 300 of theirwarriors, and he mentions some of their Green bay villages, one of whichhad 300 souls. [69] The Menomonees were found chiefly on the river thatbears their name, and the western tributaries of Green bay seem to havebeen their territory. On the estimates of early authorities we may saythat they had about 100 warriors. [70] The Sauks and Foxes were closelyallied tribes. The Sauks were found by Allouez[71] four leagues[72] upthe Fox from its mouth, and the Foxes at a place reached by a four days'ascent of the Wolf river from its mouth. Later we find them at theconfluence of the Wolf and the Fox. According to their early visitorsthese two tribes must have had something over 1000 warriors. [73] TheMiamis and Mascoutins were located about a league from the Fox river, probably within the limits of what is now Green Lake county, [74] andfour leagues away were their friends the Kickapoos. In 1670 the Miamisand Mascoutins were estimated at 800 warriors, and this may haveincluded the Kickapoos. The Sioux held possession of the UpperMississippi, and in Wisconsin hunted on its northeastern tributaries. Their villages were in later times all on the west of the Mississippi, and of their early numbers no estimate can be given. The Chippeways werealong the southern shore of Lake Superior. Their numbers also are indoubt, but were very considerable. [75] In northwestern Wisconsin, withChequamegon bay as their rendezvous, were the Ottawas and Hurons, [76]who had fled here to escape the Iroquois. In 1670 they were back againto their homes at Mackinaw and the Huron islands. But in 1666, asAllouez tells us, they were situated at the bottom of this beautifulbay, planting their Indian corn and leading a stationary life. "They arethere, " he says, "to the number of eight hundred men bearing arms, butcollected from seven different nations who dwell in peace with eachother thus mingled together. "[77] And the Jesuit Relations of 1670 addthat the Illinois "come here from time to time in great numbers asmerchants to procure hatchets, cooking utensils, guns, and other thingsof which they stand in need. " Here, too, came Pottawattomies, as we haveseen, and Sauks. 

At the mouth of Fox river[78] we find another mixed village ofPottawattomies, Sauks, Foxes, and Winnebagoes, and at a later periodMilwaukee was the site of a similar heterogeneous community. Leaving outthe Hurons, the tribes of Wisconsin were, with two exceptions, of theAlgic stock. The exceptions are the Winnebagoes and the Sioux, whobelong to the Dakota family. Of these Wisconsin tribes it is probablethat the Sauks and Foxes, the Pottawattomies, the Hurons and Ottawas andthe Mascoutins, and Miamis and Kickapoos, were driven into Wisconsin bythe attacks of eastern enemies. The Iroquois even made incursions as faras the home of the Mascoutins on Fox river. On the other side of thestate were the Sioux, "the Iroquois of the West, " as the missionariescall them, who had once claimed all the region, and whose invasions, Allouez says, rendered Lake Winnebago uninhabited. There was therefore apressure on both sides of Wisconsin which tended to mass together thedivergent tribes. And the Green bay and Fox and Wisconsin route was theline of least resistance, as well as a region abounding in wild rice, fish and game, for these early fugitives. In this movement we have twofacts that are not devoid of significance in institutional history:first, the welding together of separate tribes, as the Sauks and Foxes, and the Miamis, Mascoutins and Kickapoos; and second, a commingling ofdetached families from various tribes at peculiarly favorablelocalities. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 66: On these early locations, consult the authorities cited byShea in Wis. Hist. Colls. , III. , 125 _et seq. _, and by Branson in hiscriticism on Shea, _ibid. _ IV. , 223. See also Butterfield's Discovery ofthe Northwest in 1634, and _Mag. West. Hist. _, V. , 468, 630; and Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. ]

[Footnote 67: Some early estimates were as follows: 1640, "Greatnumbers" (Margry, I. , 48); 1718, 80 to 100 warriors (N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 889); 1728, 60 or 80 warriors (Margry, VI. , 553); 1736, 90 warriors(Chaurignerie, cited in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, III. , 282); 1761, 150 warriors (Gorrell, Wis. Hist. Colls. , I. , 32). ]

[Footnote 68: Margry, I. , 46. ]

[Footnote 69: Jes. Rels. , 1667, 1670. ]

[Footnote 70: 1718, estimated at 80 to 100 warriors (N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 889); 1762, estimated at 150 warriors (Gorrell, Wis. Hist. Colls. , I. , 32). ]

[Footnote 71: Jes. Rels. , 1670. ]

[Footnote 72: French leagues. ]

[Footnote 73: 1670, Foxes estimated at 400 warriors (Jes. Rels. , 1670);1667, Foxes, 1000 warriors (Jes. Rels. , 1667); 1695, Foxes andMascoutins, 1200 warriors (N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 633); 1718, Sauks 100or 120, Foxes 500 warriors (2 Penn. Archives, VI. , 54); 1728, Foxes, 200warriors (Margry, V. ); 1762, Sauks and Foxes, 700 warriors (Gorrell, Wis. Hist. Colls. , I. , 32). This, it must be observed, was after the Foxwars. ]

[Footnote 74: Jes. Rels. , 1670; Butterfield's Discovery of theNorthwest. ]

[Footnote 75: In 1820 those in Wisconsin numbered about 600 hunters. ]

[Footnote 76: On these Indians consult, besides authorities alreadycited, Shea's Discovery, etc. Lx. ; Jes. Rels. ; Narr. And Crit. Hist. OfAmer. , IV. , 168-170, 175; Radisson's Voyages; Margry, IV. , 586-598. ]

[Footnote 77: Jes. Rels. , 1666-7. ]

[Footnote 78: Jes. Rels. , 1670. ]

PERIODS OF THE WISCONSIN INDIAN TRADE. 

The Indian trade was almost the sole interest in Wisconsin during thetwo centuries that elapsed from the visit of Nicolet in 1634 to about1834, when lead-mining had superseded it in the southwest and landoffices were opened at Green Bay and Mineral Point; when the port ofMilwaukee received an influx of settlers to the lands made known by theso-called Black Hawk war; and when Astor retired from the American FurCompany. These two centuries may be divided into three periods of thetrade: 1. French, from 1634 to 1763; 2. English, from 1763 to 1816; 3. American, from 1816 to 1834. 

FRENCH EXPLORATION IN WISCONSIN. 

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 famousfur-trader, who represented the Company of the Hundred Associates, [81]formed by Richelieu to monopolize the fur trade of New France and governthe country, sent an agent named Jean Nicolet, in 1634, [82] to Green bayand Fox river to make a peace between the Hurons and the Winnebagoes inthe interests of inter-tribal commerce. The importance of this phase ofthe trade as late as 1681 may be inferred from these words of DuChesneau, speaking of the Ottawas, and including under the term thePetun Hurons and the Chippeways also: "Through them we obtain beaver, and although they, for the most part, do not hunt, and have but a smallportion of peltry in their country, they go in search of it to the mostdistant places, and exchange for it our merchandise which they procureat Montreal. " Among the tribes enumerated as dealing with the Ottawasare the Sioux, Satiks, Pottawattomies, Winnebagoes, Menomonees andMascoutins--all Wisconsin Indians at this time. He adds: "Some of thesetribes occasionally come down to Montreal, but usually they do not do soin very great numbers because they are too far distant, are not expertat managing canoes, and because the other Indians intimidate them, inorder to be the carriers of their merchandise and to profitthereby. "[83]

It was the aim of the authorities to attract the Indians to Montreal, orto develop the inter-tribal communication, and thus to centralize thetrade and prevent the dissipation of the energies of the colony; but thetemptations of the free forest traffic were too strong. In a memoir of1697, Aubert de la Chesnaye says:

"At first, the French went only among the Hurons, and since then toMissilimakinak, where they sold their goods to the savages of theplaces, who in turn went to exchange them with other savages in thedepths of the woods, lands and rivers. But at present the French, havinglicenses, in order to secure greater profit surreptitiously, pass allthe 'Ottawas and savages of Missilimakinak in order to go themselves toseek the most distant tribes, which is very displeasing to the former. _It is they, also, who have made excellent discoveries;_ and four orfive hundred young men, the best men of Canada, are engaged in thisbusiness. .. . They have given us knowledge of many names of savages thatwe did not know; and four or five hundred leagues more remote are otherswho 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 Montrealwith 300 Algonquins and sixty canoes laden with furs, after a voyage inwhich they visited, among other tribes, the Pottawattomies, Mascoutins, Sioux, and Hurons, in Wisconsin. From the Hurons they learned of theMississippi, and probably visited the river. They soon returned fromMontreal to the northern Wisconsin region. In the course of theirwanderings they had a post at Chequamegon bay, and they ascended thePigeon river, thus opening the Grand Portage route to the heart ofCanada. Among their exploits they induced England to enter the HudsonBay trade, and gave the impetus that led to the organization of theHudson Bay Company. The reports which these traders brought back had amost important effect in fostering exploration in the Northwest, and ledto the visit of Menard, who was succeeded by Allouez, the pioneers ofthe Jesuits in Wisconsin. [86] Radisson gives us a good account of theearly Wisconsin trade. Of his visit to the Ottawas he says:

"We weare wellcomed & made of saying that we weare the Gods and devilsof the earth; that we should fournish them, & that they would bring usto their enemy to destroy them. We tould them [we] were very wellcontent. We persuaded them first to come peaceably, not to distroy thempresently, and if they would not condescend then would wee throw awaythe hatchett and make use of our thunders. We sent ambassadors to themwth guifts. That nation called Pontonatemick[87] without more adoecomes and meets us with the rest, and peace was concluded. " "Thesavages, " he writes, "love knives better than we serve God, which shouldmake us blush for shame. " In another place, "We went away free from anyburden whilst those poore miserable thought themselves happy to carryour Equipage for the hope that they had that we should give them abrasse ring, or an awle, or an needle. "[88] We find them using thisinfluence in various places to make peace between hostile tribes, whomthey threatened with punishment. This early commerce was carried onunder the fiction of an exchange of presents. For example, Radissonsays: "We gave them severall gifts and received many. They bestowed uponus above 300 robs of castors out of wch we brought not five to theffrench being far in the country. "[89] Among the articles used byRadisson 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 wasat this time exceptional, nor does it appear that Radisson carriedbrandy in this voyage. [90]

More and more the young men of Canada continued to visit the savages attheir villages. By 1660 the _coureurs de bois_ formed a distinctclass, [91] who, despite the laws against it, pushed fromMichillimackinac into the wilderness. Wisconsin was a favorite resort ofthese adventurers. By the time of the arrival of the Jesuits they hadmade themselves entirely at home upon our lakes. They had precededAllouez at Chequamegon bay, and when he established his mission at Greenbay he came at the invitation of the Pottawattomies, who wished him to"mollify some young Frenchmen who were among them for the purpose oftrading and who threatened and ill-treated them. "[92] He found furtraders before him on the Fox and the Wolf. Bancroft's assertion[93]that "religious enthusiasm took possession of the wilderness on theupper lakes and explored the Mississippi, " is misleading. It is not truethat "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 Jesuitsfollowed the traders;[94] their missions were on the sites of tradingposts, and they themselves often traded. [95]

When St. Lusson, with the _coureur de bois_, Nicholas Perrot, tookofficial possession of the Northwest for France at the Sault Ste. Mariein 1671, the cost of the expedition was defrayed by trade in beaver. [96]Joliet, who, accompanied by Marquette, descended the Mississippi by theFox and Wisconsin route in 1673, was an experienced fur trader. While DuLhut, chief of the _coureurs de bois_, was trading on Lake Superior, LaSalle, [97] the greatest of these merchants, was preparing hisfar-reaching scheme for colonizing the Indians in the Illinois regionunder the direction of the French, so that they might act as a check onthe inroads of the Iroquois, and aid in his plan of securing an exit forthe furs of the Northwest, particularly buffalo hides, by way of theMississippi and the Gulf. La Salle's "Griffen, " the earliest ship tosail the Great Lakes, was built for this trade, and received her onlycargo 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 theBois Brulé and St. Croix, in 1680. Du Lhut's trade awakened the jealousyof 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 Ihave commenced an establishment, they will ruin the trade on which aloneI rely, on account of the great number of buffalo which are taken thereevery year, almost beyond belief. "[98] Speaking of the Jesuits at GreenBay, he declares that they "have in truth the key to the beaver country, where a brother blacksmith that they have and two companions convertmore iron into beaver than the fathers convert savages intoChristians. "[99] Perrot says that the beaver north of the mouth of theWisconsin were better than those of the Illinois country, and the chasewas carried on in this region for a longer period;[100] and we know fromDablon that the Wisconsin savages were not compelled to separate byfamilies during the hunting season, as was common among other tribes, because the game here was so abundant. [101] Aside from its importance asa key to the Northwestern trade, Wisconsin seems to have been a richfield of traffic itself. 

With such extensive operations as the foregoing in the region reached byWisconsin rivers, it is obvious that the government could not keep the_coureurs de bois_ from the woods. Even governors like Frontenacconnived at the traffic and shared its profits. In 1681 the governmentdecided to issue annual licenses, [102] and messengers were dispatched toannounce amnesty to the _coureurs de bois_ about Green Bay and the southshore of Lake Superior. [103]

We may now offer some conclusions upon the connection of the fur tradewith French explorations:

1. The explorations were generally induced and almost always renderedprofitable by the fur trade. In addition to what has been presented onthis point, note the following:

In 1669, Patoulet writes to Colbert concerning La Salle's voyage toexplore 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 forthis 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 berealized from the trade with the Indians for furs, have undertaken atvarious periods discoveries in the countries of the Nadoussioux, theriver Mississipy, and other parts of America. "[105]

2. The early traders were regarded as quasi-supernatural beings by theIndians. [106] They alone could supply the coveted iron implements, thetrinkets that tickled the savage's fancy, the "fire-water, " and the gunsthat gave such increased power over game and the enemy. In the course ofa few years the Wisconsin savages passed from the use of the implementsof the stone age to the use of such an important product of the iron ageas firearms. They passed also from the economic stage in which theirhunting was for food and clothing simply, to that stage in which theirhunting was made systematic and stimulated by the European demand forfurs. The trade tended to perpetuate the hunter stage by making itprofitable, and it tended to reduce the Indian to economicdependence[107] upon the Europeans, for while he learned to use thewhite man's gun he did not learn to make it or even to mend it. In thistransition stage from their primitive condition the influence of thetrader over the Indians was all-powerful. The pre-eminence of theindividual Indian who owned a gun made all the warriors of the tribeeager to possess like power. The tribe thus armed placed their enemiesat such a disadvantage that they too must have like weapons or losetheir homes. [108] No wonder that La Salle was able to say: "The savagestake better care of us French than of their own children. From us onlycan they get guns and goods. "[109] This was the power that France usedto support her in the struggle with England for the Northwest. 

3. The trader used his influence to promote peace between theNorthwestern Indians. [110]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 79: Histoire du Canada, 193-4 (edition of 1866). ]

[Footnote 80: Dablon, Jesuit Relations, 1671. ]

[Footnote 81: See Parkman, Pioneers, 429 ff. (1890). ]

[Footnote 82: Margry, I. , 50. The date rests on inference; seeBibliography of Nicolet in Wis. Hist. Colls. , XI. , and cf. Hebberd, Wisconsin under French Dominion, 14. ]

[Footnote 83: N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 160. ]

[Footnote 84: Margry, VI. , 3; Coll. De Mamiscrits, I. , 255, where thedate is wrongly given as 1676. The italics are ours. ]

[Footnote 85: Radisson, Voyages (Prince Soc. Pubs. ); Margry, I. , 53-55, 83; Jes. Rels. , 1660; Wis. Hist. Colls. , X. , XI; Narrative and CriticalHist. Amer. , IV. , 168-173. ]

[Footnote 86: Cf. Radisson, 173-5, and Jes. Rels. , 1660, pp. 12, 30;1663, pp. 17 ff. ]

[Footnote 87: Pottawattomies in the region of Green Bay. ]

[Footnote 88: Wis. Hist. Colls. , XI. , 67-8. ]

[Footnote 89: _Ibid. _ XI. , 90. ]

[Footnote 90: Radisson, 200, 217, 219. ]

[Footnote 91: Suite, in Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy ofScience, Arts and Letters, V. , 141; N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 153, 140, 152;Margry, VI. , 3; Parkman, Old Régime, 310-315. ]

[Footnote 92: Cf. Jes. Rels. , 1670, p. 92. ]

[Footnote 93: History of United States, II. , 138 (1884). ]

[Footnote 94: Harrisse, Notes sur la Nouvelle France, 174-181. ]

[Footnote 95: Parkman, Old Régime, 328 ff. , and La Salle, 98; Margry, II. , 251; Radisson, 173. ]

[Footnote 96: See Talon's report quoted in Narr. And Crit. Hist. Amer. , IV. , 175. ]

[Footnote 97: Margry abounds in evidences of La Salle's commercialactivity, as does Parkman's La Salle. See also Dunn, Indiana, 20-1. ]

[Footnote 98: Margry, II. , 254. ]

[Footnote 99: Margry, II. , 251. ]

[Footnote 100: Tailhan's Perrot, 57. ]

[Footnote 101: Jes. Rels. , 1670. ]

[Footnote 102: La Hontan, I. , 53; N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 159; Parkman, Old Régime, 305. ]

[Footnote 103: Margry, VI. , 45. ]

[Footnote 104: Margry, I. , 81. ]

[Footnote 105: N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 187. On the cost of suchexpeditions, see documents in Margry, I. , 293-296; VI. , 503-507. On theprofits of the trade, see La Salle in 2 Penna. Archives, VI. , 18-19. ]

[Footnote 106: See Radisson, _ante_, p. 28. ]

[Footnote 107: _Vide post_, p. 62. ]

[Footnote 108: _Vide ante_, p. 14; Radisson, 154; Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 427. Compare the effects of the introduction of bronze weapons intoEurope. ]

[Footnote 109: Margry, II. , 234. On the power possessed by the Frenchthrough this trade consult also D'Iberville's plan for locatingWisconsin Indians on the Illinois by changing their trading posts; seeMargry, IV. , 586-598. ]

[Footnote 110: Wis. Hist. Colls. , XI. , 67-8, 90; Narr. And Crit. Hist. Amer. , IV. , 182; Perrot, 327; Margry, VI. , 507-509, 653-4. ]

FRENCH POSTS IN WISCONSIN. 

In the governorship of Dongan of New York, as has been noted, theEnglish were endeavoring to secure the trade of the Northwest. As earlyas 1685, English traders had reached Michillimackinac, the depot ofsupplies for the _coureur de bois_, where they were cordially receivedby the Indians, owing to their cheaper goods[111]. At the same time theEnglish on Hudson Bay were drawing trade to their posts in that region. The French were thoroughly alarmed. They saw the necessity of holdingthe Indians by trading posts in their midst, lest they should go to theEnglish, for as Begon declared, the savages "always take the part ofthose with whom they trade. "[112] It is at this time that the Frenchoccupation of the Northwest begins to assume a new phase. Stockadedtrading posts were established at such key-points as a strait, aportage, a river-mouth, or an important lake, where also were Indianvillages. In 1685 the celebrated Nicholas Perrot was given command ofGreen Bay and its dependencies[113]. He had trading posts nearTrempealeau and at Fort St. Antoine on the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepinwhere he traded with the Sioux, and for a time he had a post and workedthe lead-mines above the Des Moines river. Both these and Fort St. Nicholas at the mouth of the Wisconsin[114] were dependencies of GreenBay. Du Lhut probably established Fort St. Croix at the portage betweenthe Bois Brulé river and the St. Croix. [115] In 1695 Le Sueur built afort on the largest island above Lake Pepin, and he also asked thecommand of the post of Chequamegon. [116]

These official posts were supported by the profits of Indiancommerce, [117] and were designed to keep the northwestern tribes atpeace, and to prevent the English and Iroquois influence from gettingthe fur trade. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 111: N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 296, 308; IV. , 735. ]

[Footnote 112: Quoted in Sheldon, Early History of Michigan, 310. ]

[Footnote 113: Tailhan's Perrot, 156. ]

[Footnote 114: Wis. Hist. Colls. , X. , 54, 300-302, 307, 321. ]

[Footnote 115: Narr. And Crit. Hist. Amer. , IV. , 186. ]

[Footnote 116: Margry, VI. , 60. Near Ashland, Wis. ]

[Footnote 117: Consult French MSS. , 3d series, VI. , Parl. Library, Ottawa, cited in Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 422; Id. , V. , 425. In 1731 M. La Ronde, having constructed at his own expense a bark of forty tons onLake Superior, received the post of La Pointe de Chagouamigon as agratuity to defray his expenses. See also the story of Verenderye'sposts, in Parkman's article in _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1887, andMargry, VI. See also 2 Penna. Archives, VI. , 18; La Hontan, I. , 53; N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 159; Tailhan, Perrot, 302. ]

THE FOX WARS. 

In 1683 Perrot had collected Wisconsin Indians for an attack on theIroquois, and again in 1686 he led them against the same enemy. But theefforts of the Iroquois and the English to enter the region with theircheaper and better goods, and the natural tendency of savages to plunderwhen assured of supplies from other sources, now overcame the controlwhich the French had exercised. The Sauks and Foxes, the Mascoutins, Kickapoos and Miamis, as has been described, held the Fox and Wisconsinroute to the West, the natural and easy highway to the Mississippi, asLa Hontan calls it. [118] Green Bay commanded this route, as La Pointe deChagouamigon[119] commanded the Lake Superior route to the Bois Bruléand the St. Croix. One of Perrot's main objects was to supply the Siouxon the other side of the Mississippi, and these were the routes to them. To the Illinois region, also, the Fox route was the natural one. TheIndians of this waterway therefore held the key to the French position, and might attempt to prevent the passage of French goods and supportEnglish influence and trade, or they might try to monopolize theintermediate trade themselves, or they might try to combine bothpolicies. 

As early as 1687 the Foxes, Mascoutins and Kickapoos, animatedapparently by hostility to the trade carried on by Perrot with theSioux, their enemy at that time, threatened to pillage the post at GreenBay. [120] The closing of the Ottawa to the northern fur trade by theIroquois for three years, a blow which nearly ruined Canada in the daysof Frontenac, as Parkman has described, [121] not only kept vast storesof furs from coming down from Michillimackinac; it must, also, have keptgoods from reaching the northwestern Indians. In 1692 the Mascoutins, who attributed the death of some of their men to Perrot, plundered hisgoods, and the Foxes soon entered into negotiation with theIroquois. [122] Frontenac expressed great apprehension lest with theirallies on the Fox and Wisconsin route they should remove eastward andcome into connection with the Iroquois and the English, a grave dangerto New France. [123] Nor was this apprehension without reason. [124] Evensuch docile allies as the Ottawas and Pottawattomies threatened to leavethe French if goods were not sent to them wherewith to oppose theirenemies. "They have powder and iron, " complained an Ottawa deputy; "howcan we sustain ourselves? Have compassion, then, on us, and considerthat it is no easy matter to kill men with clubs. "[125] By the end ofthe seventeenth century the disaffected Indians closed the Fox andWisconsin route against French trade. [126] In 1699 an order was issuedrecalling the French from the Northwest, it being the design toconcentrate French power at the nearer posts. [127] Detroit was foundedin 1701 as a place to which to attract the northwestern trade andintercept the English. In 1702 the priest at St. Joseph reported thatthe English were sending presents to the Miamis about that post anddesiring to form an establishment in their country. [128] At the samedate we find D'Iberville, of Louisiana, proposing a scheme for drawingthe Miamis, Mascoutins and Kickapoos from the Wisconsin streams to theIllinois, by changing their trading posts from Green Bay to the latterregion, and drawing the Illinois by trading posts to the lowerOhio. [129] It was shortly after this that the Miamis and Kickapoospassed south under either the French or English influence, [130] and thehostility of the Foxes became more pronounced. A part of the scheme ofLa Motte Cadillac at Detroit was to colonize Indians about thatpost, [131] and in 1712 Foxes, Sauks, Mascoutins, Kickapoos, Pottawattomies, Hurons, Ottawas, Illinois, Menomonees and others weregathered there under the influence of trade. But soon, whether by designof the French and their allies or otherwise, hostilities broke outagainst the Foxes and their allies. The animus of the combat appears inthe cries of the Foxes as they raised red blankets for flags and shouted"We have no father but the English!" while the allies of the Frenchreplied, "The English are cowards; they destroy the Indians with brandyand are enemies of the true God!" The Foxes were defeated with greatslaughter and driven back to Wisconsin. [132] From this time until 1734the French waged war against the Foxes with but short intermissions. TheFoxes allied themselves with the Iroquois and the Sioux, and acted asmiddlemen between the latter and the traders, refusing passage to goodson the ground that it would damage their own trade to allow this. [133]They fostered hostilities between their old foes the Chippeways andtheir new allies the Sioux, and thus they cut off English intercoursewith the latter by way of the north. This trade between the Chippewaysand the Sioux was important to the French, and commandants wererepeatedly sent to La Pointe de Chagouamigon and the upper Mississippito make peace between the two tribes. [134] While the wars were inprogress the English took pains to enforce their laws against furnishingIndian goods to French traders. The English had for a time permittedthis, and their own Indian trade had suffered because the French wereable to make use of the cheap English goods. By their change in policythe English now brought home to the savages the fact that French goodswere dearer. [135] Moreover, English traders were sent to Niagara to dealdirectly with "the far Indians, " and the Foxes visited the English andIroquois, and secured a promise that they might take up their abode withthe latter and form an additional member of the confederacy in case ofneed. [136] As a counter policy the French attempted to exterminate theFoxes, and detached the Sioux from their alliance with the Foxes byestablishing Fort Beauharnois, a trading post on the Minnesota side ofLake Pepin. [137]

The results of these wars were as follows:

1. They spread the feeling of defection among the Northwestern Indians, who could no longer be restrained, as at first, by the threat of cuttingoff their trade, there being now rivals in the shape of the English, andthe French traders from Louisiana. [138]

2. They caused a readjustment of the Indian map of Wisconsin. TheMascoutins and the Pottawattomies had already moved southward to theIllinois country. Now the Foxes, driven from their river, passed firstto Prairie du Chien and then down the Mississippi. The Sauks went atfirst to the Wisconsin, near Sauk Prairie, and then joined the Foxes. The Winnebagoes gradually extended themselves along the Fox andWisconsin. The Chippeways, [139] freed from their fear of the Foxes, towhom the Wolf and the Wisconsin had given access to the northern portionof the state, now passed south to Lac du Flambeau, [140] to theheadwaters of the Wisconsin, and to Lac Court Oreilles. [141]

3. The closing of the Fox and Wisconsin route fostered that movement oftrade and exploration which at this time began to turn to the farNorthwest along the Pigeon river route into central British America, insearch of the Sea of the West, [142] whereby the Rocky Mountains werediscovered; and it may have aided in turning settlement into theIllinois country. 

4. These wars were a part of a connected series, including the Iroquoiswars, the Fox wars, the attack of the Wisconsin trader, Charles deLanglade, upon the center of English trade at Pickawillany, [143] Ohio, and the French and Indian war that followed. All were successive stagesof the struggle against English trade in the French possessions. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 118: La Hontan, I. , 105. ]

[Footnote 119: Near Ashland, Wis. ]

[Footnote 120: Tailhan, Perrot, 139, 302. ]

[Footnote 121: Frontenac, 315-316. Cf. Perrot, 302. ]

[Footnote 122: Perrot, 331; N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 633. ]

[Footnote 123: _Ibid. _]

[Footnote 124: N. Y. Col. Docs. , IV. , 732-7. ]

[Footnote 125: N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 673. ]

[Footnote 126: Shea, Early Voyages, 49. ]

[Footnote 127: Kingsford, Canada, II. , 394; N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 635. ]

[Footnote 128: Margry, V. , 219. ]

[Footnote 129: _Ibid. _ IV. , 597. ]

[Footnote 130: Wis. Hist. Colls. , III. , 149; Smith, Wisconsin, II. , 315. ]

[Footnote 131: Coll. De Manus. , III. , 622. ]

[Footnote 132: See Hebberd's account, Wisconsin under French Dominion;Coll. De Manus. , I. , 623; Smith, Wisconsin, II. , 315. ]

[Footnote 133: Margry, VI. , 543. ]

[Footnote 134: Tailhan, Perrot, _passim_; N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 570, 619, 621; Margry, VI. , 507-509, 553, 653-4; Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 422, 425; Wis. Hist. Colls. , III. , 154. ]

[Footnote 135: N. Y. Col. Docs. , V. , 726 ff. ]

[Footnote 136: _Ibid. _ IV. , 732, 735, 796-7; V. , 687, 911. ]

[Footnote 137: Margry, VI. , 553, 563, 575-580; Neill in _Mag. WesternHistory_, November, 1887. ]

[Footnote 138: Perrot, 148; Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I. , 42;Hebberd, Wisconsin under French Dominion, chapters on the Fox wars. ]

[Footnote 139: Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 190-1. ]

[Footnote 140: Oneida county. ]

[Footnote 141: Sawyer county. ]

[Footnote 142: Margry, VI. ]

[Footnote 143: Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I. , 84, and citations; _videpost_, p. 41. ]

FRENCH SETTLEMENT IN WISCONSIN. 

Settlement was not the object of the French in the Northwest. Theauthorities saw as clearly as do we that the field was too vast for theresources of the colony, and they desired to hold the region as a sourceof peltries, and contract their settlements. The only towns worthy ofthe name in the Northwest were Detroit and the settlements in Indianaand Illinois, all of which depended largely on the fur trade. [144] Butin spite of the government the traffic also produced the beginnings ofsettlement in Wisconsin. About the middle of the century, Augustin deLanglade had made Green Bay his trading post. After Pontiac's war, [145]Charles de Langlade[146] made the place his permanent residence, and alittle settlement grew up. At Prairie du Chien French traders annuallymet the Indians, and at this time there may have been a stockadedtrading post there, but it was not a permanent settlement until theclose of the Revolutionary war. Chequamegon bay was deserted[147] at theoutbreak of the French war. There may have been a regular trading postat Milwaukee in this period, but the first trader recorded is not until1762. [148] Doubtless wintering posts existed at other points inWisconsin. 

The characteristic feature of French occupancy of the Northwest was thetrading post, and in illustration of it, and of the centralizedadministration of the French, the following account of De Repentigny'sfort at Sault Ste. Marie (Michigan) is given in the words of Governor LaJonquière to the minister for the colonies in 1751:[149]

"He arrived too late last year at the Sault Ste. Marie to fortifyhimself well; however, he secured himself in a sort of fort large enoughto receive the traders of Missilimakinac. .. . He employed his hired menduring the whole winter in cutting 1100 pickets of fifteen feet for hisfort, with the doublings, and the timber necessary for the constructionof three houses, one of them thirty feet long by twenty wide, and twoothers twenty-five feet long and the same width as the first. His fortis entirely furnished with the exception of a redoubt of oak, which heis to have made twelve feet square, and which shall reach the samedistance above the gate of the fort. His fort is 110 feet square. 

"As for the cultivation of the lands, the Sieur de Repentigny has abull, two bullocks, three cows, two heifers, one horse and a mare fromMissilimakinac. .. . He has engaged a Frenchman who married at Sault Ste. Marie an Indian woman to take a farm; they have cleared it and sowed it, and without a frost they will gather 30 to 35 sacks of corn. The saidSieur de Repentigny so much feels it his duty to devote himself to thecultivation of these lands that he has already entered into a bargainfor two slaves[150] whom he will employ to take care of the corn[151]that he will gather upon these lands. "

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 144: Fergus, Historical Series, No. 12; Breese, Early Historyof Illinois; Dunn, Indiana; Hubbard, Memorials of a Half Century;Monette, History of the Valley of the Mississippi, I. , ch. Iv. ]

[Footnote 145: Henry, Travels, ch. X. ]

[Footnote 146: See Memoir in Wis. Hist. Colls. , VII. ; III. , 224; VII. , 127, 152, 166. ]

[Footnote 147: Henry, Travels. ]

[Footnote 148: Wis. Hist. Colls. , I. , 35. ]

[Footnote 149: Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 435-6. ]

[Footnote 150: Indians. Compare Wis. Hist. Colls. , III. , 256; VII. , 158, 117, 179. ]

[Footnote 151: The French minister for the colonies expressing approvalof this post writes in 1752: "As it can hardly be expected that anyother grain than corn will grow there, it is necessary at least for awhile to stick to it, and not to persevere stubbornly in trying to raisewheat. " On this Dr. E. D. Neill comments: "Millions of bushels of wheatfrom the region west and north of Lake Superior pass every year . .. Through the ship canal at Sault Ste. Marie. " The corn was for supplyingthe voyageurs. ]

THE TRADERS' STRUGGLE TO RETAIN THEIR TRADE. 

While they had been securing the trade of the far Northwest and theIllinois country, the French had allowed the English to gain the tradeof the upper Ohio, [152] and were now brought face to face with thedanger of losing the entire Northwest, and thus the connection of Canadaand Louisiana. The commandants of the western posts were financially aswell as patriotically interested. In 1754, Green Bay, then garrisoned byan officer, a sergeant and four soldiers, required for the Indian tradeof its department thirteen canoes of goods annually, costing about 7000livres each, making a total of nearly $18, 000. [153] Bougainvilleasserts that Marin, the commandant of the department of the Bay, wasassociated in trade with the governor and intendant, and that his partnetted him annually 15, 000 francs. 

When it became necessary for the French to open hostilities with theEnglish traders in the Ohio country, it was the Wisconsin trader, Charles de Langlade, with his Chippeway Indians, who in 1752 fell uponthe English trading post at Pickawillany and destroyed the center ofEnglish trade in the Ohio region. [154] The leaders in the opening of thewar that ensued were Northwestern traders. St. Pierre, who commanded atFort Le Boeuf when Washington appeared with his demands from theGovernor of Virginia that the French should evacuate the Ohio country, had formerly been the trader in command at Lake Pepin on the upperMississippi. [155] Coulon de Villiers, who captured Washington at FortNecessity, was the son of the former commandant at Green Bay. [156]Beaujeau, who led the French troops to the defeat of Braddock, had beenan officer in the Fox wars. [157] It was Charles de Langlade whocommanded the Indians and was chiefly responsible for the success of theambuscade. [158] Wisconsin Indians, representing almost all the tribes, took part with the French in the war. [159] Traders passed to and fromtheir business to the battlefields of the East. For example, DeRepentigny, whose post at Sault Ste. Marie has been described, was atMichillimackinac in January, 1755, took part in the battle of LakeGeorge in the fall of that year, formed a partnership to continue thetrade with a trader of Michillimackinac in 1756, was at that place in1758, and in 1759 fought with Montcalm on the heights of Abraham. [160]It was not without a struggle that the traders yielded their beavercountry. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 152: Margry, VI. , 758. ]

[Footnote 153: Canadian Archives, 1886, clxxii. ]

[Footnote 154: Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I. , 84. ]

[Footnote 155: Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 433. Washington was guided to thefort along an old trading route by traders; the trail was improved bythe Ohio Company, and was used by Braddock in his march (Sparks, Washington's Works, II. , 302). ]

[Footnote 156: Wis. Hist. Colls. , V. , 117. ]

[Footnote 157: _Ibid. _, 115. ]

[Footnote 158: Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, II. , 425-6. He wasprominently engaged in other battles; see Wis. Hist. Colls. , VII. , 123-187. ]

[Footnote 159: Wis. Hist. Colls. , V. , 117. ]

[Footnote 160: Neill, in _Mag. West. Hist. _, VII. , 17, and Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 434-436. For other examples see Wis. Hist. Colls. , V. , 113-118; Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 430-1. ]

THE ENGLISH AND THE NORTHWEST. INFLUENCE OF THE INDIAN TRADE ONDIPLOMACY. 

In the meantime what was the attitude of the English toward theNorthwest? In 1720 Governor Spotswood of Virginia wrote:[161] "Thedanger which threatens these, his Maj'ty's Plantations, from this newSettlement is also very considerable, for by the communication which theFrench may maintain between Canada and Mississippi by the conveniency ofthe Lakes, they do in a manner surround all the British Plantations. They have it in their power by these Lakes and the many Rivers runninginto them and into the Mississippi to engross all the Trade of theIndian Nations w'ch are now supplied from hence. "

Cadwallader Colden, Surveyor-General of New York, says in 1724: "NewFrance (as the French now claim) extends from the mouth of theMississippi to the mouth of the River St. Lawrence, by which the Frenchplainly shew their intention of enclosing the British Settlements andcutting us off from all Commerce with the numerous Nations of Indiansthat are everywhere settled over the vast continent of NorthAmerica. "[162] As time passed, as population increased, and as thereports of the traders extolled the fertility of the country, both theEnglish and the French, but particularly the Americans, began toconsider it from the standpoint of colonization as well as from that ofthe fur trade. [163] The Ohio Company had both settlement and the furtrade in mind, [164] and the French Governor, Galissonière, at the sameperiod urged that France ought to plant a colony in the Ohioregion. [165] After the conquest of New France by England there was stillthe question whether she should keep Canada and the Northwest. [166]Franklin, urging her to do so, offered as one argument the value of thefur trade, intrinsically and as a means of holding the Indians in check. Discussing the question whether the interior regions of America wouldever be accessible to English settlement and so to English manufactures, he pointed out the vastness of our river and lake system, and the factthat Indian trade already permeated the interior. In interestingcomparison he called their attention to the fact that English commercereached along river systems into the remote parts of Europe, and that inancient times the Levant had carried on a trade with the distantinterior. [167]

That the value of the fur trade was an important element in inducing theEnglish to retain Canada is shown by the fact that Great Britain nosooner came into the possession of the country than she availed herselfof the fields for which she had so long intrigued. Among the westernposts she occupied Green Bay, and with the garrison came traders;[168]but the fort was abandoned on the outbreak of Pontiac's war. [169] Thiswar was due to the revolt of the Indians of the Northwest against thetransfer of authority, and was fostered by the French traders. [170] Itconcerned Wisconsin but slightly, and at its close we find Green Bay alittle trading community along the Fox, where a few families livedcomfortably[171] under the quasi-patriarchal rule of Langlade. [172] In1765 trade was re-established at Chequamegon Bay by an English tradernamed Henry, and here he found the Chippeways dressed in deerskins, thewars having deprived them of a trader. [173]

As early as 1766 some Scotch merchants more extensively reopened the furtrade, using Michillimackinac as the basis of their operations andemploying French voyageurs. [174] By the proclamation of the King in 1763the Northwest was left without political organization, it being reservedas crown lands and exempt from purchase or settlement, the design beingto give up to the Indian trade all the lands "westward of the sources ofthe rivers which fall into the sea from the West and Northwest asaforesaid. " In a report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade andPlantations in 1772 we find the attitude of the English governmentclearly set forth in these words:[175]

"The great object of colonization upon the continent of North Americahas been to improve and extend the commerce and manufactures of thiskingdom. .. . It does appear to us that the extension of the fur tradedepends entirely upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession oftheir hunting grounds, and that all colonization does in its nature andmust in its consequence operate to the prejudice of that branch ofcommerce. .. . Let the savages enjoy their deserts in quiet. Were theydriven from their forests the peltry trade would decrease. "

In a word, the English government attempted to adopt the western policyof the French. From one point of view it was a successful policy. TheFrench traders took service under the English, and in the Revolutionarywar Charles de Langlade led the Wisconsin Indians to the aid of Hamiltonagainst George Rogers Clark, [176] as he had before against the British, and in the War of 1812 the British trader Robert Dickson repeated thismovement. [177] As in the days of Begon, "the savages took the part ofthose with whom they traded. " The secret proposition of Vergennes, inthe negotiations preceding the treaty of 1783, to limit the UnitedStates by the Alleghanies and to give the Northwest to England, whilereserving the rest of the region between the mountains and theMississippi as Indian territory under Spanish protection, [178] wouldhave given the fur trade to these nations. [179] In the extensivediscussions over the diplomacy whereby the Northwest was included withinthe limits of the United States, it has been asserted that we won ourcase by the chartered claims of the colonies and by George RogersClark's conquest of the Illinois country. It appears, however, that infact Franklin, who had been a prominent member and champion of the OhioCompany, and who knew the West from personal acquaintance, had persuadedShelburne to cede it to us as a part of a liberal peace that shouldeffect a reconciliation between the two countries. Shelburne himselflooked upon the region from the point of view of the fur trade simply, and was more willing to make this concession than he was some others. Inthe discussion over the treaty in Parliament in 1783, the Northwesternboundary was treated almost solely from the point of view of the furtrade and of the desertion of the Indians. The question was one ofprofit and loss in this traffic. One member attacked Shelburne on theground that, "not thinking the naked independence a sufficient proof ofhis liberality to the United States, he had clothed it with the warmcovering of our fur trade. " Shelburne defended his cession "on the fairrule of the value of the district ceded, "[180] and comparing exports andimports and the cost of administration, he concluded that the fur tradeof the Northwest was not of sufficient value to warrant continuing thewar. The most valuable trade, he argued, was north of the line, and thetreaty merely applied sound economic principles and gave America "ashare in the trade. " The retention of her Northwestern posts by GreatBritain at the close of the war, in contravention of the treaty, has anobvious relation to the fur trade. In his negotiations with Hammond, theBritish ambassador in 1791, Secretary of State Jefferson said: "By theseproceedings we have been intercepted entirely from the commerce of furswith the Indian nations to the northward--a commerce which had ever beenof great importance to the United States, not only for its intrinsicvalue, but as it was the means of cherishing peace with these Indians, and of superseding the necessity of that expensive warfare which we havebeen obliged to carry on with them during the time that these posts havebeen in other hands. "[181]

In discussing the evacuation of the posts in 1794 Jay was met by ademand that complete freedom of the Northwestern Indian trade should begranted to British subjects. It was furthermore proposed by LordGrenville[182] that, "Whereas it is now understood that the riverMississippi would at no point thereof be intersected by such westwardline as is described in the said treaty [1783]; and whereas it wasstipulated in the said treaty that the navigation of the Mississippishould be free to both parties"--one of two new propositions should beaccepted regarding the northwestern boundary. The maps in American StatePapers, Foreign Relations, I. , 492, show that both these proposalsextended Great Britain's territory so as to embrace the Grand Portageand the lake region of northern Minnesota, one of the best of theNorthwest Company's fur-trading regions south of the line, and inconnection by the Red river with the Canadian river systems. [183] Theywere rejected by Jay. Secretary Randolph urged him to hasten the removalof the British, stating that the delay asked for, to allow the tradersto collect their Indian debts, etc. , would have a bad effect upon theIndians, and protesting that free communication for the British wouldstrike deep into our Indian trade. [184] The definitive treaty includedthe following provisions:[185] The posts were to be evacuated beforeJune 1, 1796. "All settlers and traders, within the precincts orjurisdiction of the said posts, shall continue to enjoy, unmolested, alltheir property of every kind, and shall be protected therein. They shallbe at full liberty to remain there, or to remove with all or any part oftheir effects; and it shall also be free to them to sell their lands, houses, or effects, or to retain the property thereof, at theirdiscretion; such of them as shall continue to reside within the saidboundary lines shall not be compelled to become citizens of the UnitedStates, or to take any oath of allegiance to the government thereof; butthey shall be at full liberty to do so if they think proper, and theyshall make and declare their election within one year after theevacuation aforesaid. And all persons who shall continue there after theexpiration of the said year without having declared their intention ofremaining subjects of his British Majesty shall be considered as havingelected to become citizens of the United States. " "It is agreed that itshall at all times be free to His Majesty's subjects, and to the Indiansdwelling on either side of the said boundary line, freely to pass andrepass by land or inland navigation into the respective territories andcountries of the two parties on the continent of America (the countrywithin the limits of the Hudson's Bay Company only excepted), and tonavigate all the lakes, rivers and waters thereof, and freely to carryon trade and commerce with each other. "

In his elaborate defence of Jay's treaty, Alexander Hamilton paid muchattention to the question of the fur trade. Defending Jay for permittingso long a delay in evacuation and for granting right of entry into ourfields, he minimized the value of the trade. So far from being worth$800, 000 annually, he asserted the trade within our limits would not beworth $100, 000, seven-eighths of the traffic being north of the line. This estimate of the value of the northwestern trade was too low. In thecourse of his paper he made this observation:[186]

"In proportion as the article is viewed on an enlarged plan andpermanent scale, its importance to us magnifies. Who can say how farBritish colonization may spread southward and down the west side of theMississippi, northward and westward into the vast interior regionstowards the Pacific ocean?. .. In this large view of the subject, the furtrade, which has made a very prominent figure in the discussion, becomesa point scarcely visible. Objects of great variety and magnitude startup in perspective, eclipsing the little atoms of the day, and promisingto grow and mature with time. "

Such was not the attitude of Great Britain. To her the Northwest wasdesirable on account of its Indian commerce. By a statement of theProvince of Upper Canada, sent with the approbation ofLieutenant-General Hunter to the Duke of Kent, Commander-in-Chief ofBritish North America, in the year 1800, we are enabled to see thesituation through Canadian eyes:[187]

"The Indians, who had loudly and Justly complained of a treaty [1783] inwhich they were sacrificed by a cession of their country contrary torepeated promises, were with difficulty appeased, however finding thePosts retained and some Assurances given they ceased to murmur andresolved to defend their country extending from the Ohio Northward tothe Great Lakes and westward to the Mississippi, an immense tract, inwhich they found the deer, the bear, the wild wolf, game of all sorts inprofusion. They employed the Tomahawk and Scalping Knife against suchdeluded settlers who on the faith of the treaty to which they did notconsent, ventured to cross the Ohio, secretly encouraged by the Agentsof Government, supplied with Arms, Ammunition, and provisions theymaintained an obstinate & destructive war against the States, cut offtwo Corps sent against them. .. . The American Government, discouraged bythese disasters were desirous of peace on any terms, their deputies weresent to Detroit, they offered to confine their Pretensions withincertain limits far South of the Lakes. If this offer had been acceptedthe Indian Country would have been for ages an impassible Barrierbetween us. Twas unfortunately perhaps wantonly rejected, and the warcontinued. "

Acting under the privileges accorded to them by Jay's treaty, theBritish traders were in almost as complete possession of Wisconsin untilafter the war of 1812 as if Great Britain still owned it. When the warbroke out the keys of the region, Detroit and Michillimackinac, fellinto the British hands. Green Bay and Prairie du Chien were settlementsof French-British traders and voyageurs. Their leader was RobertDickson, who had traded at the latter settlement. Writing in 1814 fromhis camp at Winnebago Lake, he says: "I think that Bony [Bonaparte]must be knocked up as all Europe are now in Arms. The crisis is not faroff when I trust in God that the Tyrant will be humbled, & the ScoundrelAmerican Democrats be obliged to go down on their knees toBritain. "[188] Under him most of the Wisconsin traders of importancereceived British commissions. In the spring of 1814 the Americans tookPrairie du Chien, at the mouth of the Wisconsin river, whereupon Col. M'Douall, the British commandant at Michillimackinac, wrote to GeneralDrummond:[189] . .. "I saw at once the imperious necessity which existedof endeavoring by every means to dislodge the American Genl from his newconquest, and make him relinquish the immense tract of country he hadseized upon in consequence & which brought him into the very heart ofthat occupied by our friendly Indians, There was no alternative it musteither be done or there was an end to our connection with the Indiansfor if allowed to settle themselves by dint of threats bribes & sowingdivisions among them, tribe after tribe would be gained over or subdued, & thus would be destroyed the only barrier which protects the greattrading establishments of the North West and the Hudson's Bay Companys. Nothing could then prevent the enemy from gaining the source of theMississippi, gradually extending themselves by the Red river to LakeWinnipic, from whense the descent of Nelsons river to York Fort would intime be easy. "

The British traders, voyageurs and Indians[190] dislodged the Americans, and at the close of the war England was practically in possession of theIndian country of the Northwest. 

In the negotiations at Ghent the British commissioners asserted thesovereignty of the Indians over their lands, and their independence inrelation to the United States, and demanded that a barrier of Indianterritory should be established between the two countries, free to thetraffic of both nations but not open to purchase by either. [191] Theline of the Grenville treaty was suggested as a basis for determiningthis Indian region. The proposition would have removed from thesovereignty of the United States the territory of the Northwest with theexception of about two-thirds of Ohio, [192] and given it over to theBritish fur traders. The Americans declined to grant the terms, and theUnited States was finally left in possession of the Northwest. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 161: Va. Hist. Colls. , N. S. , II, 329. ]

[Footnote 162: N. Y. Col. Docs. , V. , 726. ]

[Footnote 163: Indian relations had a noteworthy influence upon colonialunion; see Lucas, Appendiculae Historicae, 161, and Frothingham, Rise ofthe Republic, ch. Iv. ]

[Footnote 164: Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I. , 59; Sparks, Washington'sWorks, II. , 302. ]

[Footnote 165: Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I. , 21. ]

[Footnote 166: _Ibid. _ II. , 403. ]

[Footnote 167: Bigelow, Franklin's Works, III. , 43, 83, 98-100. ]

[Footnote 168: Wis. Hist. Colls. , I. , 26-38. ]

[Footnote 169: Parkman, Pontiac, I. , 185. Consult N. Y. Col. Docs. , VI. , 635, 690, 788, 872, 974. ]

[Footnote 170: Wis. Hist. Colls. , I. , 26. ]

[Footnote 171: Carver, Travels. ]

[Footnote 172: Porlier Papers, Wis. Pur Trade MSS. , in possession ofWis. Hist. Soc. ; also Wis. Hist. Colls. , III. , 200-201. ]

[Footnote 173: Henry, Travels. ]

[Footnote 174: Canadian Archives, 1888, p. 61 ff. ]

[Footnote 175: Sparks, Franklin's Works, IV. , 303-323. ]

[Footnote 176: Wis. Hist. Colls. , XI. ]

[Footnote 177: _Ibid. _]

[Footnote 178: Jay, Address before the N. Y. Hist. Soc. On the TreatyNegotiations of 1782-3, appendix; map in Narr. And Crit. Hist. Amer. , VII. , 148. ]

[Footnote 179: But Vergennes had a just appreciation of the value of theregion for settlement as well. He recognized and feared the Americancapacity for expansion. ]

[Footnote 180: Hansard, XXIII. , 377-8, 381-3, 389, 398-9, 405, 409-10, 423, 450, 457, 465. ]

[Footnote 181: American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I. , 190. ]

[Footnote 182: _Ibid. _ 487. ]

[Footnote 183: As early as 1794 the company had established a stockadedfort at Sandy lake. After Jay's treaty conceding freedom of entry, thecompany dotted this region with posts and raised the British flag overthem. In 1805 the center of trade was changed from Grand Portage to FortWilliam Henry, on the Canada side. Neill, Minnesota, 239 (4th edn. ). Bancroft, Northwest Coast, I. , 560. _Vide ante_, p. 20, and _post_, p. 55. ]

[Footnote 184: Amer. State Papers, For. Rels. , I. , p. 509. ]

[Footnote 185: Treaties and Conventions, etc. , 1776-1887, p. 380. ]

[Footnote 186: Lodge, Hamilton's Works, IV. , 514. ]

[Footnote 187: Michigan Pioneer Colls. , XV. , 8; cf. 10, 12, 23 and XVI. , 67. ]

[Footnote 188: Wis. Fur Trade MSS. , 1814 (State Hist. Soc. ). ]

[Footnote 189: Wis. Hist. Colls. , XL, 260. Mich. Pioneer Colls. , XVI. , 103-104. ]

[Footnote 190: Wis. Hist. Colls. , XL, 255. Cf. Mich. Pioneer Colls. , XVI. , 67. Rolette, one of the Prairie du Chien traders, was tried by theBritish for treason to Great Britain. ]

[Footnote 191: Amer. State Papers, For. Rels. , III. , 705. ]

[Footnote 192: Amer. State Papers, Ind. Affs. , L, 562. See map inCollet's Travels, atlas. ]

THE NORTHWEST COMPANY. 

The most striking feature of the English period was the NorthwestCompany. [193] From a study of it one may learn the character of theEnglish occupation of the Northwest. [194] It was formed in 1783 andfully organized in 1787, with the design of contesting the field withthe Hudson Bay Company. Goods were brought from England to Montreal, theheadquarters of the company, and thence from the four emporiums, Detroit, Mackinaw, Sault Ste. Marie, and Grand Portage, they werescattered through the great Northwest, even to the Pacific ocean. 

Toward the end of the eighteenth century ships[195] began to take partin this commerce; a portion of the goods was sent from Montreal inboats to Kingston, thence in vessels to Niagara, thence overland to LakeErie, to be reshipped in vessels to Mackinaw and to Sault Ste. Marie, where another transfer was made to a Lake Superior vessel. These shipswere of about ninety-five tons burden and made four or five trips aseason. But in the year 1800 the primitive mode of trade was notmaterially changed. From the traffic along the main artery of commercebetween Grand Portage and Montreal may be learned the kind of trade thatflowed along such branches as that between the island of Mackinaw andthe Wisconsin posts. The visitor at La Chine rapids, near Montreal, might have seen a squadron of Northwestern trading canoes leaving forthe Grand Portage, at the west of Lake Superior. [196]

The boatmen, or "engagés, " having spent their season's gains incarousal, packed their blanket capotes and were ready for the wildernessagain. They made a picturesque crew in their gaudy turbans, or hatsadorned with plumes and tinsel, their brilliant handkerchiefs tiedsailor-fashion about swarthy necks, their calico shirts, and theirflaming worsted belts, which served to hold the knife and the tobaccopouch. Rough trousers, leggings, and cowhide shoes or gaily-workedmoccasins completed the costume. The trading birch canoe measured fortyfeet in length, with a depth of three and a width of five. It floatedfour tons of freight, and yet could be carried by four men overdifficult portages. Its crew of eight men was engaged at a salary[197]of from five to eight hundred livres, about $100 to $160 per annum, each, with a yearly outfit of coarse clothing and a daily food allowanceof a quart of hulled corn, or peas, seasoned with two ounces of tallow. 

The experienced voyageurs who spent the winters in the woods were called_hivernans_, or winterers, or sometimes _hommes du nord_; while theinexperienced, those who simply made the trip from Montreal to theoutlying depots and return, were contemptuously dubbed _mangeurs delard_, [198] "pork-eaters, " because their pampered appetites demandedpeas and pork rather than hulled corn and tallow. Two of the crew, oneat the bow and the other at the stern, being especially skilled in thecraft of handling the paddle in the rapids, received higher wages thanthe rest. Into the canoe was first placed the heavy freight, shot, axes, powder; next the dry goods, and, crowning all, filling the canoe tooverflowing, came the provisions--pork, peas or corn, and sea biscuits, sewed in canvas sacks. 

The lading completed, the voyageur hung his votive offerings in thechapel of Saint Anne, patron saint of voyageurs, the paddles struck thewaters of the St. Lawrence, and the fleet of canoes glided away on itssix weeks' journey to Grand Portage. There was the Ottawa to beascended, the rapids to be run, the portages where the canoe must beemptied and where each voyageur must bear his two packs of ninety poundsapiece, and there were the _décharges_, where the canoe was merelylightened and where the voyageurs, now on the land, now into the rushingwaters, dragged it forward till the rapids were passed. There was nostopping to dry, but on, until the time for the hasty meal, or theevening camp-fire underneath the pines. Every two miles there was a stopfor a three minutes' smoke, or "pipe, " and when a portage was made itwas reckoned in "pauses, " by which is meant the number of times the menmust stop to rest. Whenever a burial cross appeared, or a stream wasleft or entered, the voyageurs removed their hats, and made the sign ofthe cross while one of their number said a short prayer; and again thepaddles beat time to some rollicking song. [199]

 Dans mon chemin, j'ai rencontré Trois cavalières, bien montées; L'on, lon, laridon daine, Lon, ton, laridon dai. 

 Trois cavalières, bien montées, L'un à cheval, et l'autre à pied; L'on, lon, laridon daine, Lon, ton, laridon dai. 

Arrived at Sault Ste. Marie, the fleet was often doubled by newcomers, so that sometimes sixty canoes swept their way along the north shore, the paddles marking sixty strokes a minute, while the rocks gave backthe echoes of Canadian songs rolling out from five hundred lustythroats. And so they drew up at Grand Portage, near the presentnortheast boundary of Minnesota, now a sleepy, squalid little village, but then the general rendezvous where sometimes over a thousand men met;for, at this time, the company had fifty clerks, seventy interpreters, eighteen hundred and twenty canoe-men, and thirty-five guides. It sentannually to Montreal 106, 000 beaver-skins, to say nothing of otherpeltries. When the proprietors from Montreal met the proprietors fromthe northern posts, and with their clerks gathered at the banquet intheir large log hall to the number of a hundred, the walls hung withspoils of the chase, the rough tables furnished with abundance ofvenison, fish, bread, salt pork, butter, peas, corn, potatoes, tea, milk, wine and _eau de vie_, while, outside, the motley crowd of engagesfeasted on hulled corn and melted fat--was it not a truly baronialscene? Clerks and engagés of this company, or its rival, the Hudson BayCompany, might winter one season in Wisconsin and the next in the remotenorth. For example, Amable Grignon, a Green Bay trader, wintered in 1818at Lac qui Parle in Minnesota, the next year at Lake Athabasca, and thethird in the hyperborean regions of Great Slave Lake. In his engagementhe figures as Amable Grignon, _of the Parish of Green Bay, UpperCanada_, and he receives $400 "and found in tobacco and shoes and twodoges, " besides "the usual equipment given to clerks. " He afterwardsreturned to a post on the Wisconsin river. The attitude of Wisconsintraders toward the Canadian authorities and the Northwestern wilds isclearly shown in this document, which brings into a line Upper Canada, "the parish of Green Bay, " and the Hudson Bay Company's territoriesabout Great Slave Lake![200]

How widespread and how strong was the influence of these traders uponthe savages may be easily imagined, and this commercial control wasstrengthened by the annual presents made to the Indians by the Britishat their posts. At a time when our relations with Great Britain weregrowing strained, such a power in the Northwest was a seriousmenace. [201] In 1809 John Jacob Astor secured a charter from the Stateof New York, incorporating the American Fur Company. He proposed toconsolidate the fur trade of the United States, plant an establishmentin the contested Oregon territory, and link it with Michillimackinac(Mackinaw island) by way of the Missouri through a series of tradingposts. In 1810 two expeditions of his Pacific Fur Company set out forthe Columbia, the one around Cape Horn and the other by way of Greenbay and the Missouri. In 1811 he bought a half interest in the MackinawCompany, a rival of the Northwest Company and the one that had especialpower in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and this new organization he calledthe Southwest Company. But the war of 1812 came; Astoria, the Pacificpost, fell into the hands of the Northwest Company, while the SouthwestCompany's trade was ruined. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 193: On this company see Mackenzie, Voyages; Bancroft, Northwest Coast, I. , 378-616, and citations; _Hunt's Merch. Mag. _, III. , 185; Irving, Astoria; Ross, The Fur Hunters of the Far West; Harmon, Journal; Report on the Canadian Archives, 1881, p. 61 et seq. Thisfur-trading life still goes on in the more remote regions of BritishAmerica. See Robinson, Great Fur Land, ch. Xv. ]

[Footnote 194: Wis. Hist. Colls. , XI. , 123-5. ]

[Footnote 195: Mackenzie, Voyages, xxxix. Harmon, Journal, 36. In thefall of 1784, Haldimand granted permission to the Northwest Company tobuild a small vessel at Detroit, to be employed next year on LakeSuperior. Calendar of Canadian Archives, 1888, p. 72. ]

[Footnote 196: Besides the authorities cited above, see "Anderson'sNarrative, " in Wis. Hist. Colls. , IX. , 137-206. ]

[Footnote 197: An estimate of the cost of an expedition in 1717 is givenin Margry, VI. , 506. At that time the wages of a good voyageur for ayear amounted to about $50. Provisions for the two months' trip fromMontreal to Mackinaw cost about $1. 00 per month per man. Indian corn fora year cost $16; lard, $10; _eau de vie_, $1. 30; tobacco, 25 cents. Itcost, therefore, less than $80 to support a voyageur for one year's tripinto the woods. Gov. Ninian Edwards, writing at the time of the AmericanFur Company (_post_, p. 57), says: "The whole expense of transportingeight thousand weight of goods from Montreal to the Mississippi, wintering with the Indians, and returning with a load of furs andpeltries in the succeeding season, including the cost of provisions andportages and the hire of five engages for the whole time does not exceedfive hundred and twenty-five dollars, much of which is usually paid tothose engages when in the Indian country, in goods at an exorbitantprice. " American State Papers, VI. , 65. ]

[Footnote 198: This distinction goes back at least to 1681 (N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. , 152). Often the engagement was for five years, and thevoyageur might be transferred from one master to another, at themaster's will. 

The following is a translation of a typical printed engagement, one ofscores in the possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society, thewritten portions in brackets:

"Before a Notary residing at the post of Michilimakinac, Undersigned;Was Present [Joseph Lamarqueritte] who has voluntarily engaged and dothbind himself by these Presents to M[onsieur Louis Grignion] here presentand accepting, at [his] first requisition to set off from this Post [inthe capacity of Winterer] in one of [his] Canoes or Bateaux to make theVoyage [going as well as returning] and to winter for [two years at theBay]. 

"And to have due and fitting care on the route and while at the said[place] of the Merchandise, Provisions, Peltries, Utensils and ofeverything necessary for the Voyage; to serve, obey and executefaithfully all that the said Sieur [Bourgeois] or any other personrepresenting him to whom he may transport the present Engagement, commands him lawfully and honestly; to do [his] profit, to avoidanything to his damage, and to inform him of it if it come to hisknowledge, and generally to do all that a good [Winterer] ought and isobliged to do; without power to make any particular trade, to absenthimself, or to quit the said service, under pain of these Ordinances, and of loss of wages. This engagement is therefore made, for the sum of[Eight Hundred] livres or shillings, ancient currency of Quebec, that hepromises [and] binds himself to deliver and pay to the said [Wintererone month] after his return to this Post, and at his departure [anEquipment each year of 2 Shirts, 1 Blanket of 3 point, 1 Carot ofTobacco, 1 Cloth Blanket, 1 Leather Shirt, 1 Pair of Leather Breeches, 5Pairs of Leather Shoes, and Six Pounds of Soap. ]

"For thus, etc. , promising, etc. , binding, etc. , renouncing, etc. 

"Done and passed at the said [Michilimackinac] in the year eighteenhundred [Seven] the [twenty-fourth] of [July before] twelve o'clock; &have signed with the exception of the said [Winterer] who, havingdeclared himself unable to do so, has made his ordinary mark after theengagement was read to him. 

 his "JOSEPH X LAMARQUERITTE. [SEAL] mark. Louis GEIGNON. [SEAL]"SAML. ABBOTT, Not. Pub. "

Endorsed--"Engagement of Joseph Lamarqueritte to Louis Grignon. "]

[Footnote 199: For Canadian boat-songs see _Hunt's Merch. Mag. _, III. , 189; Mrs. Kinzie, Wau Bun; Bela Hubbard, Memorials of a Half-Century;Robinson, Great Fur Land. ]

[Footnote 200: Wis. Fur Trade MSS. (Wis. Hist. Soc. ). Published inProceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the State Hist. Soc. Of Wis. 1889, pp. 81-82. ]

[Footnote 201: See Mich. Pioneer Colls. , XV. , XVI. , 67, 74. Thegovernment consulted the Northwest Company, who made particular effortsto "prevent the Americans from ever alienating the minds of theIndians. " To this end they drew up memoirs regarding the properfrontiers. ]

AMERICAN INFLUENCES. 

Although the Green Bay court of justice, such as it was, had beenadministered under American commissions since 1803, when Reaumedispensed a rude equity under a commission of Justice of the Peace fromGovernor Harrison, [202] neither Green Bay nor the rest of Wisconsin hadany proper appreciation of its American connections until the close ofthis war. But now occurred these significant events:

1. Astor's company was reorganized as the American Fur Company, withheadquarters at Mackinaw island. [203]

2. The United States enacted in 1816 that neither foreign fur traders, nor capital for that trade, should be admitted to this country. [204]This was designed to terminate English influence among the tribes, andit fostered Astor's company. The law was so interpreted as not toexclude British (that is generally, French) interpreters and boatmen, who were essential to the company; but this interpretation enabledBritish subjects to evade the law and trade on their own account byhaving their invoices made out to some Yankee clerk, while theyaccompanied the clerk in the guise of interpreters. [205] In this way anumber of Yankees came to the State. 

3. In the year 1816 United States garrisons were sent to Green Bay andPrairie du Chien. [206]

4. In 1814 the United States provided for locating government tradingposts at these two places. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 202: Reaume's petition in Wis. Fur Trade MSS. In possession ofWisconsin Historical Society. ]

[Footnote 203: On this company consult Irving, Astoria; Bancroft, Northwest Coast, I. , ch. Xvi. ; II. , chs. Vii-x; _Mag. Amer. Hist. _XIII. , 269; Franchere, Narrative; Ross, Adventures of the First Settlerson the Oregon, or Columbia River (1849); Wis. Fur Trade MSS. (StateHist. Sec. ). ]

[Footnote 204: U. S. Statutes at Large, III. , 332. Cf. Laws in 1802 and1822. ]

[Footnote 205: Wis. Hist. Colls. , I. , 103; Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 9. The Warren brothers, who came to Wisconsin in 1818, were descendants ofthe Pilgrims and related to Joseph Warren who fell at Bunker Hill; theycame from Berkshire, Mass. , and marrying the half-breed daughters ofMichael Cadotte, of La Pointe, succeeded to his trade. ]

[Footnote 206: See the objections of British traders, Mich. PioneerColls. , XVI. , 76 ff. The Northwest Company tried to induce the Britishgovernment to construe the treaty so as to prevent the United Statesfrom erecting the forts, urging that a fort at Prairie du Chien would"deprive the Indians of their 'rights and privileges'", guaranteed bythe treaty. ]

GOVERNMENT TRADING HOUSES. 

The system of public trading houses goes back to colonial days. At firstin Plymouth and Jamestown all industry was controlled by thecommonwealth, and in Massachusetts Bay the stock company had reservedthe trade in furs for themselves before leaving England. [207] The tradewas frequently farmed out, but public "truck houses" were established bythe latter colony as early as 1694-5. [208] Franklin, in his publicdealings with the Ohio Indians, saw the importance of regulation of thetrade, and in 1753 he wrote asking James Bowdoin of Massachusetts toprocure him a copy of the truckhouse law of that colony, saying that ifit had proved to work well he thought of proposing it forPennsylvania. [209] The reply of Bowdoin showed that Massachusettsfurnished goods to the Indians at wholesale prices and so drove out theFrench and the private traders. In 1757 Virginia adopted the system fora time, [210] and in 1776 the Continental Congress accepted a planpresented by a committee of which Franklin was a member, [211] whereby£140, 000 sterling was expended at the charge of the United Colonies forIndian goods to be sold at moderate prices by factors of thecongressional commissioners. [212] The bearing of this act upon thegovernmental powers of the Congress is worth noting. 

In his messages of 1791 and 1792 President Washington urged the need ofpromoting and regulating commerce with the Indians, and in 1793 headvocated government trading houses. Pickering, of Massachusetts, whowas his Secretary of War with the management of Indian affairs, may havestrengthened Washington in this design, for he was much interested inIndian improvement, but Washington's own experience had shown him thedesirability of some such plan, and he had written to this effect asearly as 1783. [213] The objects of Congressional policy in dealing withthe Indians were stated by speakers in 1794 as follows:[214] 1. Protection of the frontiersmen from the Indians, by means of the army. 2. Protection of the Indians from the frontiersmen, by laws regulatingsettlement. 3. Detachment of the Indians from foreign influence, bytrading houses where goods could be got cheaply. In 1795 a smallappropriation was made for trying the experiment of public tradinghouses, [215] and in 1796, the same year that the British evacuated theposts, the law which established the system was passed. [216] It was tobe temporary, but by re-enactments with alterations it was prolongeduntil 1822, new posts being added from time to time. In substance thelaws provided a certain capital for the Indian trade, the goods to besold by salaried United States factors, at posts in the Indian country, at such rates as would protect the savage from the extortions of theindividual trader, whose actions sometimes provoked hostilities, andwould supplant British influence over the Indian. At the same time itwas required that the capital stock should not be diminished. In thecourse of the debate over the law in 1796 considerable _laissez faire_sentiment was called out against the government's becoming a trader, notwithstanding that the purpose of the bill was benevolence andpolitical advantage rather than financial gain. [217] President Jeffersonand Secretary Calhoun were friends of the system. [218] It was a failure, however, and under the attacks of Senator Benton, the Indian agents andthe American Fur Company, it was brought to an end in 1822. The causesof its failure were chiefly these:[219] The private trader went to thehunting grounds of the savages, while the government's posts were fixed. The private traders gave credit to the Indians, which the government didnot. [220] The private trader understood the Indians, was related to themby marriage, and was energetic and not over-scrupulous. The governmenttrader was a salaried agent not trained to the work. The private tradersold whiskey and the government did not. The British trader's goods werebetter than those of the government. The best business principles werenot always followed by the superintendent. The system was far fromeffecting its object, for the Northwestern Indians had been accustomedto receive presents from the British authorities, and had small respectfor a government that traded. Upon Wisconsin trade from 1814 to 1822 itsinfluence was slight. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 207: Mass. Coll. Recs. , I. , 55: III. , 424. ]

[Footnote 208: Acts and Resolves of the Prov. Of Mass. Bay, I. , 172. ]

[Footnote 209: Bigelow, Franklin's Works, II. , 316, 221. A plan forpublic trading houses came before the British ministry while Franklinwas in England, and was commented upon by him for their benefit. ]

[Footnote 210: Hening, Statutes, VII. , 116. ]

[Footnote 211: Journals of Congress, 1775, pp. 162, 168, 247. ]

[Footnote 212: _Ibid. _, 1776, p. 41. ]

[Footnote 213: Ford's Washington's Writings, X. , 309. ]

[Footnote 214: Annals of Cong. , IV. , 1273; cf. _ibid. _, V. , 231. ]

[Footnote 215: Amer. State Papers, Ind. Affs. , I. , 583. ]

[Footnote 216: Annals of Cong. , VI. , 2889. ]

[Footnote 217: Annals of Congress, V. , 230 ff. , 283; Abridgment ofDebates, VII. , 187-8. ]

[Footnote 218: Amer. State Papers, Ind. Affs. , I. , 684; II. , 181. ]

[Footnote 219: Amer. State Papers, VI. , Ind. Affs. , II. , 203; Ind. Treaties, 399 _et seq. _; Wis. Hist. Colls. , VII. , 269; _WashingtonGazette_, 1821, 1822, articles by Ramsay Crooks under signature"Backwoodsman, " and speech of Tracy in House of Representatives, February 23, 1821; Benton, Thirty Years View; _id. _, Abr. Deb. , VII. , 1780. ]

[Footnote 220: To understand the importance of these two points see_post_, pp. 62-5. ]

WISCONSIN TRADE IN 1820. [221]

The goods used in the Indian trade remained much the same from thefirst, in all sections of the country. [222] They were chiefly blankets, coarse cloths, cheap jewelry and trinkets (including strings of wampum), fancy goods (like ribbons, shawls, etc. ), kettles, knives, hatchets, guns, powder, tobacco, and intoxicating liquor. [223] These goods, shipped from Mackinaw, at first came by canoes or bateaux, [224] and inthe later period by vessel, to a leading post, were there redivided[225]and sent to the various trading posts. The Indians, returning from thehunting grounds to their villages in the spring, [226] set the squaws tomaking maple sugar, [227] planting corn, watermelons, potatoes, squashes, etc. , and a little hunting was carried on. The summer was given over toenjoyment, and in the early period to wars. In the autumn they collectedtheir wild rice, or their corn, and again were ready to start for thehunting grounds, sometimes 300 miles distant. At this juncture thetrader, licensed by an Indian agent, arrived upon the scene with hisgoods, without which no family could subsist, much less collect anyquantity of furs. [228] These were bought on credit by the hunter, sincehe could not go on the hunt for the furs, whereby he paid for hissupplies, without having goods and ammunition advanced for the purpose. This system of credits, [229] dating back to the French period, hadbecome systematized so that books were kept, with each Indian's account. The amount to which the hunter was trusted was between $40 and $50, atcost prices, upon which the trader expected a gain of about 100 percent, so that the average annual value of furs brought in by each hunterto pay his credits should have been between $80 and $100. [230] Theamount of the credit varied with the reputation of the hunter forhonesty and ability in the chase. [231] Sometimes he was trusted to theamount of three hundred dollars. If one-half the credits were paid inthe spring the trader thought that he had done a fair business. Theimportance of this credit system can hardly be overestimated inconsidering the influence of the fur trade upon the Indians ofWisconsin, and especially in rendering them dependent upon the earliersettlements of the State. 

The system left the Indians at the mercy of the trader when one nationmonopolized the field, and it compelled them to espouse the cause of oneor other when two nations contended for supremacy over their territory. At the same time it rendered the trade peculiarly adapted to monopoly, for when rivals competed, the trade was demoralized, and the Indianfrequently sold to a new trader the furs which he had pledged in advancefor the goods of another. When the American Fur Company gained control, they systematized matters so that there was no competition between theirown agents, and private dealers cut into their trade but little for someyears. The unit of trade was at first the beaver skin, or, as the poundof beaver skin came to be called, the "plus. "[232] The beaver skin wasestimated at a pound and a half, though it sometimes weighed two, inwhich case an allowance was made. Wampum was used for ornament and intreaty-making, but not as currency. Other furs or Indian commodities, like maple sugar and wild rice, were bought in terms of beaver. As thisanimal grew scarcer the unit changed to money. By 1820, when few beaverwere marketed in Wisconsin, the term plus stood for one dollar. [233] Themuskrat skin was also used as the unit in the later days of thetrade. [234] In the southern colonies the pound of deer skin had answeredthe purpose of a unit. [235]

The goods being trusted to the Indians, the bands separated for thehunting grounds. Among the Chippeways, at least, each family or grouphad a particular stream or region where it exclusively hunted andtrapped. [236] Not only were the hunting grounds thus parcelled out;certain Indians were apportioned to certain traders, [237] so that theindustrial activities of Wisconsin at this date were remarkablysystematic and uniform. Sometimes the trader followed the Indians totheir hunting grounds. From time to time he sent his engagés (hiredmen), commonly five or six in number, to the various places where thehunting bands were to be found, to collect furs on the debts and to sellgoods to those who had not received too large credits, and to thecustomers of rival traders; this was called "running a deouine. "[238]The main wintering post had lesser ones, called "jack-knife posts, "[239]depending on it, where goods were left and the furs gathered in going toand from the main post. By these methods Wisconsin was thoroughlyvisited by the traders before the "pioneers" arrived. [240]

The kind and amount of furs brought in may be judged by the fact that in1836, long after the best days of the trade, a single Green Bay firm, Porlier and Grignon, shipped to the American Fur Company about 3600 deerskins, 6000 muskrats, 150 bears, 850 raccoons, besides beavers, otters, fishers, martens, lynxes, foxes, wolves, badgers, skunks, etc. , amounting to over $6000. 

None of these traders became wealthy; Astor's company absorbed theprofits. It required its clerks, or factors, to pay an advance of 81-1/2per cent on the sterling cost of the blankets, strouds, and otherEnglish goods, in order to cover the cost of importation and the expenseof transportation from New York to Mackinaw. Articles purchased in NewYork were charged with 15-1/3 per cent advance for transportation, andeach class of purchasers was charged with 33-1/3 per cent advance asprofit on the aggregate amount. [241]

I estimate, from the data given in the sources cited on page 63, note, that in 1820 between $60, 000 and $75, 000 worth of goods was broughtannually to Wisconsin for the Indian trade. An average outfit for asingle clerk at a main post was between $1500 and $2000, and for thedependent posts between $100 and $500. There were probably not over 2000Indian hunters in the State, and the total Indian population did notmuch exceed 10, 000. Comparing this number with the early estimates forthe same tribes, we find that, if the former are trustworthy, by 1820the Indian tribes that remained in Wisconsin had increased theirnumbers. But the material is too unsatisfactory to afford any valuableconclusion. 

After the sale of their lands and the receipt of money annuities, achange came over the Indian trade. The monopoly held by Astor was brokeninto, and as competition increased, the sales of whiskey were larger, and for money, which the savage could now pay. When the Indians went toMontreal in the days of the French, they confessed that they could notreturn with supplies because they wasted their furs upon brandy. Thesame process now went on at their doors. The traders were not dependentupon the Indian's success in hunting alone; they had his annuities tocount on, and so did not exert their previous influence in favor ofsteady hunting. Moreover, the game was now exploited to a considerabledegree, so that Wisconsin was no longer the hunter's paradise that ithad been in the days of Dablon and La Salle. The long-settled economiclife of the Indian being revolutionized, his business honesty declined, and credits were more frequently lost. The annuities fell into thetraders' hands for debts and whiskey. "There is no less than near$420, 000 of claims against the Winnebagoes, " writes a Green Bay traderat Prairie du Chien, in 1838, "so that if they are all just, thedividend will be but very small for each claimant, as there is only$150, 000 to pay that. "[242]

By this time the influence of the fur trader had so developed mining inthe region of Dubuque, Iowa, Galena, Ill. , and southwestern Wisconsin, as to cause an influx of American miners, and here began a new elementof progress for Wisconsin. The knowledge of these mines was possessed bythe early French explorers, and as the use of firearms spread they wereworked more and more by Indians, under the stimulus of the trader. In1810 Nicholas Boilvin, United States Indian agent at Prairie du Chien, reported that the Indians about the lead mines had mostly abandoned thechase and turned their attention to the manufacture of lead, which theysold to fur traders. In 1825 there were at least 100 white miners in theentire lead region, [243] and by 1829 they numbered in the thousands. 

Black Hawk's war came in 1832, and agricultural settlement sought thesouthwestern part of the State after that campaign. The traders openedcountry stores, and their establishments were nuclei of settlement. [244]In Wisconsin the Indian trading post was a thing of the past. 

The birch canoe and the pack-horse had had their day in western New Yorkand about Montreal. In Wisconsin the age of the voyageur continuednearly through the first third of this century. It went on in the FarNorthwest in substantially the same fashion that has been heredescribed, until quite recently; and in the great North Land tributaryto Hudson Bay the _chanson_ of the voyageur may still be heard, and thedog-sledge laden with furs jingles across the snowy plains from distantpost to distant post. [245]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 221: In an address before the State Historical Society ofWisconsin, on the Character and Influence of the Fur Trade in Wisconsin(Proceedings, 1889, pp. 86-98), I have given details as to Wisconsinsettlements, posts, routes of trade, and Indian location and populationin 1820. ]

[Footnote 222: Wis. Hist. Colls. , XI. , 377. Compare the articles used byRadisson, _ante_, p. 29. For La Salle's estimate of amount and kind ofgoods needed for a post, and the profits thereon, see Penna. Archives, 2d series, VI. , 18-19. Brandy was an important item, one beaver sellingfor a pint. For goods and cost in 1728 see a bill quoted by E. D. Neill, on p. 20, _Mag. West. Hist. _, Nov. , 1887, Cf. 4 Mass. Hist. Colls. , III. , 344; Byrd Manuscripts, I. , 180 ff. ; Minn. Hist. Colls. , II. , 46;Senate Doc. No. 90, 22d Cong. , 1st Sess. , II. , 42 ff. ]

[Footnote 223: Wis. Fur Trade MSS. Cf. Wis. Hist. Colls. , XI. , 377, andAmer. State Papers, Ind. Affs. , II. , 360. The amount of liquor taken tothe woods was very great. The French Jesuits had protested against itsuse in vain (Parkman's Old Régime); the United States prohibited it tono purpose. It was an indispensable part of a trader's outfit. RobertStuart, agent of the American Fur Company at Mackinaw, once wrote toJohn Lawe, one of the leading traders at Green Bay, that the 56 bbls. Ofwhiskey which he sends is "enough to last two years, and half drown allthe Indians he deals with. " See also Wis. Hist. Colls. , VII. , 282;McKenney's Tour to the Lakes, 169, 299-301; McKenney's Memoirs, I. , 19-21. An old trader assured me that it was the custom to give five orsix gallons of "grog"--one-fourth water--to the hunter when he paid hiscredits; he thought that only about one-eighth or one-ninth part of thewhole sales was in whiskey. ]

[Footnote 224: A light boat sometimes called a "Mackinaw boat, " about 32feet long, by 6-1/2 to 15 feet wide amidships, and sharp at the ends. ]

[Footnote 225: See Wis. Hist. Colls. , II. , 108. ]

[Footnote 226: Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 263. ]

[Footnote 227: See Wis. Hist. Colls. , VII. , 220, 286; III. , 235;McKenney's Tour, 194; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, II. , 55. Sometimes afamily made 1500 lbs. In a season. ]

[Footnote 228: Lewis Cass in Senate Docs. , No. 90, 22d Cong. , 1st Sess. , II. , 1. ]

[Footnote 229: See D'Iberville's plans for relocating Indian tribes bydenying them credit at certain posts, Margry, IV. , 597. The system wasused by the Dutch, and the Puritans also; see Weeden, Economic andSocial Hist. New Eng. , I. , 98. In 1765, after the French and Indian war, the Chippeways of Chequamegon Bay told Henry, a British trader, thatunless he advanced them goods on credit, "their wives and children wouldperish; for that there were neither ammunition nor clothing left amongthem. " He distributed goods worth 3000 beaver skins. Henry, Travels, 195-6. Cf. Neill, Minnesota, 225-6; N. Y. Col. Docs. , VII. , 543; Amer. State Papers, Ind. Affs. , II. , 64, 66, 329, 333-5; _North AmericanReview_, Jan. , 1826, p. 110. ]

[Footnote 230: Biddle, an Indian agent, testified in 1822 that while thecost of transporting 100 wt. From New York to Green Bay did not exceedfive dollars, which would produce a charge of less than 10 percent onthe original cost, the United States factor charged 50 per centadditional. The United States capital stock was diminished by thistrade, however. The private dealers charged much more. Schoolcraft in1831 estimated that $48. 34 in goods and provisions at cost prices wasthe average annual supply of each hunter, or $6. 90 to each soul. Thesubstantial accuracy of this is sustained by my data. See Sen. Doc. , No. 90, 22d Cong. , 1st Sess. , II. , 45; State Papers, No. 7, 18th Cong. , 1stSess. , I. ; State Papers, No. 54, 18th Cong. , 2d Sess. , III. ;Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, III. , 599; Invoice Book, Amer. Fur Co. , for1820, 1821; Wis. Fur Trade MSS. In possession of Wisconsin HistoricalSociety. ]

[Footnote 231: The following is a typical account, taken from the booksof Jacques Porlier, of Green Bay, for the year 1823: The Indian Michelbought on credit in the fall: $16 worth of cloth; a trap, $1. 00; two anda half yards of cotton, $3. 12-1/2; three measures of powder, $1. 50;lead, $1. 00; a bottle of whiskey, 50 cents, and some other articles, such as a gun worm, making in all a bill of about $25. This he paid infull by bringing in eighty-five muskrats, worth nearly $20; a fox, $1. 00, and a mocock of maple sugar, worth $4. 00. ]

[Footnote 232: A. J. Vieau, who traded in the thirties, gave me thisinformation. ]

[Footnote 233: For the value of the beaver at different periods andplaces consult indexes, under "beaver, " in N. Y. Col. Docs, ; Bancroft, Northwest Coast; Weeden, Economic and Social Hist. New Eng. ; and seeMorgan, American Beaver, 243-4; Henry, Travels, 192; 2 Penna. Archives, VI. , 18; Servent, in Paris Ex. Univ. 1867, Rapports, VI. , 117, 123;Proc. Wis. State Hist. Soc. , 1889, p. 86. ]

[Footnote 234: Minn. Hist. Colls. II. , 46, gives the following table for1836:

_St. Louis Prices. _ _Minn. Price. _ _Nett Gain. _Three pt. Blanket = $3 25 60 rat skins at 20 cents = $12 00 $8 751-1/2 yds. Stroud = 2 37 60 rat skins at 20 cents = 12 00 9 631 N. W. Gun = 6 50 100 rat skins at 20 cents = 20 00 13 501 lb. Lead = 06 2 rat skins at 20 cents = 40 341 lb. Powder = 28 10 rat skins at 20 cents = 2 00 1 721 tin kettle = 2 50 60 rat skins at 20 cents = 12 00 9 501 knife = 20 4 rat skins at 20 cents = 80 601 lb. Tobacco = 12 8 rat skins at 20 cents = 1 60 1 381 looking glass = 04 4 rat skins at 20 cents = 80 761-1/2 yd. Scarlet cloth = 3 00 60 rat skins at 20 cents = 12 00 9 00

See also the table of prices in Senate Docs. , No. 90, 22d Cong. , 1stSess. ; II. , 42 _et seq. _]

[Footnote 235: Douglass, Summary, I. , 176. ]

[Footnote 236: Morgan, American Beaver, 243. ]

[Footnote 237: Proc. Wis. Hist. Soc. , 1889, pp. 92-98. ]

[Footnote 238: Amer. State Papers, Ind. Affs. , II. , 66. ]

[Footnote 239: Wis. Hist. Colls. , XI. , 220, 223. ]

[Footnote 240: The centers of Wisconsin trade were Green Bay, Prairie duChien, and La Pointe (on Madelaine island, Chequamegon bay). Lesserpoints of distribution were Milwaukee and Portage. From these places, bymeans of the interlacing rivers and the numerous lakes of northernWisconsin, the whole region was visited by birch canoes or Mackinawboats. ]

[Footnote 241: Schoolcraft in Senate Doc. No. 90, 22d Cong. , 1st Sess. , II, . 43. ]

[Footnote 242: Lawe to Vieau, in Wis. Fur Trade MSS. See also U. S. Indian Treaties, and Wis. Hist. Colls. , V. , 236. ]

[Footnote 243: House Ex. Docs. , 19th Cong. , 2d Sess. , II. , No. 7. ]

[Footnote 244: For example see the Vieau Narrative in Wis. Hist. Colls. , XI. , and the Wis. Fur Trade MSS. ]

[Footnote 245: Butler, Wild North Land; Robinson, Great Fur Land, ch. Xv. ]

EFFECTS OF THE TRADING POST. 

We are now in a position to offer some conclusions as to the influenceof the Indian trading post. 

I. Upon the savage it had worked a transformation. It found him withoutiron, hunting merely for food and raiment. It put into his hands ironand guns, and made him a hunter for furs with which to purchase thegoods of civilization. Thus it tended to perpetuate the hunter stage;but it must also be noted that for a time it seemed likely to develop aclass of merchants who should act as intermediaries solely. Theinter-tribal trade between Montreal and the Northwest, and betweenAlbany and the Illinois and Ohio country, appears to have been commercein the proper sense of the term[246] (_Kauf zum Verkauf_). The tradingpost left the unarmed tribes at the mercy of those that had boughtfirearms, and this caused a relocation of the Indian tribes and anurgent demand for the trader by the remote and unvisited Indians. Itmade the Indian dependent on the white man's supplies. The stage ofcivilization that could make a gun and gunpowder was too far above thebow and arrow stage to be reached by the Indian. Instead of elevatinghim the trade exploited him. But at the same time, when one nation didnot monopolize the trade, or when it failed to regulate its own traders, the trading post gave to the Indians the means of resistance toagricultural settlement. The American settlers fought for their farms inKentucky and Tennessee at a serious disadvantage, because for over halfa century the Creeks and Cherokees had received arms and ammunition fromthe trading posts of the French, the Spanish and the English. InWisconsin the settlers came after the Indian had become thoroughlydependent on the American traders, and so late that no resistance wasmade. The trading post gradually exploited the Indian's hunting ground. By intermarriages with the French traders the purity of the stock wasdestroyed and a mixed race produced. [247] The trader broke down the oldtotemic divisions, and appointed chiefs regardless of the Indian socialorganization, to foster his trade. Indians and traders alike testifythat this destruction of Indian institutions was responsible for much ofthe difficulty in treating with them, the tribe being without arecognized head. [248] The sale of their lands, made less valuable by theextinction of game, gave them a new medium of exchange, at the same timethat, under the rivalry of trade, the sale of whiskey increased. 

II. Upon the white man the effect of the Indian trading post was alsovery considerable. The Indian trade gave both English and French afooting in America. But for the Indian supplies some of the mostimportant settlements would have perished. [249] It invited toexploration: the dream of a water route to India and of mines was alwayspresent in the more extensive expeditions, but the effective practicalinducement to opening the water systems of the interior, and the thingthat made exploration possible, was the fur trade. As has been shown, the Indian eagerly invited the trader. Up to a certain point also thetrade fostered the advance of settlements. As long as they were inextension of trade with the Indians they were welcomed. The tradingposts were the pioneers of many settlements along the entire colonialfrontier. In Wisconsin the sites of our principal cities are the sitesof old trading posts, and these earliest fur-trading settlementsfurnished supplies to the farming, mining and lumbering pioneers. Theywere centers about which settlement collected after the exploitation ofthe Indian. Although the efforts of the Indians and of the greattrading companies, whose profits depended upon keeping the primitivewilderness, were to obstruct agricultural settlement, as the history ofthe Northwest and of British America shows, nevertheless reports broughtback by the individual trader guided the steps of the agriculturalpioneer. The trader was the farmer's pathfinder into some of the richestregions of the continent. Both favorably and unfavorably the influenceof the Indian trade on settlement was very great. 

The trading post was the strategic point in the rivalry of France andEngland for the Northwest. The American colonists came to know that theland was worth more than the beaver that built in the streams, but themother country fought for the Northwest as the field of Indian trade inall the wars from 1689 to 1812. The management of the Indian trade ledthe government under the lead of Franklin and Washington into trading onits own account, a unique feature of its policy. It was even proposed bythe Indian Superintendent at one time that the government shouldmanufacture the goods for this trade. In providing a new field for theindividual trader, whom he expected the government trading houses todispossess, Jefferson proposed the Lewis and Clarke expedition, whichcrossed the continent by way of the Missouri and the Columbia, as theBritish trader, Mackenzie, had before crossed it by way of Canadianrivers. The genesis of this expedition illustrates at once thecomprehensive western schemes of Jefferson, and the importance of thepart played by the fur trade in opening the West. In 1786, while theAnnapolis convention was discussing the navigation of the Potomac, Jefferson wrote to Washington from Paris inquiring about the best placefor a canal between the Ohio and the Great Lakes. [250] This was inpromotion of the project of Ledyard, a Connecticut man, who was then inParis endeavoring to interest the wealthiest house there in the furtrade of the Far West. Jefferson took so great an interest in the planthat he secured from the house a promise that if they undertook thescheme the depot of supply should be at Alexandria, on the Potomacriver, which would be in connection with the Ohio, if the canal schemesof the time were carried out. After the failure of the negotiations ofLedyard, Jefferson proposed to him to cross Russia to Kamschatka, takeship to Nootka Sound, and thence return to the United States by way ofthe Missouri. [251] Ledyard was detained in Russia by the authorities inspite of Jefferson's good offices, and the scheme fell through. ButJefferson himself asserts that this suggested the idea of the Lewis andClarke expedition, which he proposed to Congress as a means of fosteringour Indian trade. [252] Bearing in mind his instructions to this party, that they should see whether the Oregon furs might not be shipped downthe Missouri instead of passing around Cape Horn, and the relation ofhis early canal schemes to this design, we see that he had conceived theproject of a transcontinental fur trade which should center in Virginia. Astor's subsequent attempt to push through a similar plan resulted inthe foundation of his short-lived post of Astoria at the mouth of theColumbia. This occupation greatly aided our claim to the Oregon countryas against the British traders, who had reached the region by way of thenorthern arm of the Columbia. 

In Wisconsin, at least, the traders' posts, placed at the carryingplaces around falls and rapids, pointed out the water powers of theState. The portages between rivers became canals, or called out canalschemes that influenced the early development of the State. WhenWashington, at the close of his military service, inspected the Mohawkvalley and the portages between the headwaters of the Potomac and theOhio, as the channels "of conveyance of the extensive and valuabletrade of a rising empire, "[253] he stood between two eras--the era withwhich he was personally familiar, when these routes had been followed bythe trader with the savage tribes, [254] and the era which he foresaw, when American settlement passed along the same ways to the fertile Westand called into being the great trunk-lines of the present day. [255] Thetrails became the early roads. An old Indian trader relates that "thepath between Green Bay and Milwaukee was originally an Indian trail, andvery crooked, but the whites would straighten it by cutting across lotseach winter with their jumpers, wearing bare streaks through the thincovering, to be followed in the summer by foot and horseback travelalong the shortened path. "[256] The process was typical of a greaterone. Along the lines that nature had drawn the Indians traded andwarred; along their trails and in their birch canoes the trader passed, bringing a new and a transforming life. These slender lines of easterninfluence stretched throughout all our vast and intricate water-system, even to the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific, and the Arctic seas, and theselines were in turn followed by agricultural and by manufacturingcivilization. 

In a speech upon the Pacific Railway delivered in the United StatesSenate in 1850, Senator Benton used these words: "There is an ideabecome current of late . .. That none but a man of science, bred in aschool, can lay off a road. That is a mistake. There is a class oftopographical engineers older than the schools, and more unerring thanthe mathematics. They are the wild animals--buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, bears, which traverse the forest, not by compass, but by aninstinct which leads them always the right way--to the lowest passes inthe mountains, the shallowest fords in the rivers, the richest pasturesin the forest, the best salt springs, and the shortest practicableroutes between remote points. They travel thousands of miles, have theirannual migrations backwards and forwards, and never miss the best andshortest route. These are the first engineers to lay out a road in a newcountry; the Indians follow them, and hence a buffalo-road becomes awar-path. The first white hunters follow the same trails in pursuingtheir game; and after that the buffalo-road becomes the wagon-road ofthe white man, and finally the macadamized or railroad of the scientificman. It all resolves itself into the same thing--into the samebuffalo-road; and thence the buffalo becomes the first and safestengineer. Thus it has been here in the countries which we inhabit andthe history of which is so familiar. The present national road fromCumberland over the Alleghanies was the military road of GeneralBraddock; which had been the buffalo-path of the wild animals. So of thetwo roads from western Virginia to Kentucky--one through the gap in theCumberland mountains, the other down the valley of the Kenhawa. Theywere both the war-path of the Indians and the travelling route of thebuffalo, and their first white acquaintances the early hunters. Buffaloes made them in going from the salt springs on the Holston to therich pastures and salt springs of Kentucky; Indians followed them first, white hunters afterwards--and that is the way Kentucky was discovered. In more than a hundred years no nearer or better routes have been found;and science now makes her improved roads exactly where the buffalo'sfoot first marked the way and the hunter's foot afterwards followed him. So all over Kentucky and the West; and so in the Rocky Mountains. Thefamous South Pass was no scientific discovery. Some people thinkFrémont discovered it. It had been discovered forty years before--longbefore he was born. He only described it and confirmed what the huntersand traders had reported and what they showed him. It was discovered, orrather first seen by white people, in 1808, two years after the returnof Lewis and Clark, and by the first company of hunters and traders thatwent out after their report laid open the prospect of the fur trade inthe Rocky Mountains. 

"An enterprising Spaniard of St. Louis, Manuel Lisa, sent out the party;an acquaintance and old friend of the Senator from Wisconsin who sits onmy left [General Henry Dodge] led the party--his name Andrew Henry. Hewas the first man that saw that pass; and he found it in the prosecutionof his business, that of a hunter and trader, and by following the gameand the road which they had made. And that is the way all passes arefound. But these traders do not write books and make maps, but theyenable other people to do it. "[257]

Benton errs in thinking that the hunter was the pioneer in Kentucky. AsI have shown, the trader opened the way. But Benton is at least validauthority upon the Great West, and his fundamental thesis has much truthin it. A continuously higher life flowed into the old channels, knittingthe United States together into a complex organism. It is a process notlimited to America. In every country the exploitation of the wildbeasts, [258] and of the raw products generally, causes the entry of thedisintegrating and transforming influences of a higher civilization. "The history of commerce is the history of the intercommunication ofpeoples. "

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 246: Notwithstanding Kulischer's assertion that there is noroom for this in primitive society. _Vide_ Der Handel auf den primitivenCulturstufen, in _Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie undSprachwissenschaft_, X. , No. 4, p. 378. Compare instances ofinter-tribal trade given _ante_, pp. 11, 26. ]

[Footnote 247: On the "_metis_, " _boís-brulés_, or half-breeds, consultSmithsonian Reports, 1879, p. 309, and Robinson, Great Fur Land, ch. Iii. ]

[Footnote 248: Minn. Hist. Colls. , V. , 135; Biddle to Atkinson, 1819, inInd. Pamphlets, Vol. I, No. 15 (Wis. Hist. Soc. Library). ]

[Footnote 249: Parkman, Pioneers of France, 230; Carr, Mounds of theMississippi, p. 8, n. 8; Smith's Generall Historie, I. , 88, 90, 155(Richmond, 1819). ]

[Footnote 250: Jefferson, Works, II. , 60, 250, 370. ]

[Footnote 251: Allen's Lewis and Clarke Expedition, p. Ix (edition of1814. The introduction is by Jefferson). ]

[Footnote 252: Jefferson's messages of January 18, 1803, and February19, 1806. See Amer. State Papers, Ind. Affs. , I. , 684. ]

[Footnote 253: See Adams, Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions toU. S. , J. H. U. Studies, 3d Series, No. I. , pp. 80-82. ]

[Footnote 254: _Ibid. _ _Vide ante_, p. 41. ]

[Footnote 255: Narr. And Crit. Hist. Amer. , VIII. , 10. Compare Adams, asabove. At Jefferson's desire, in January and February of 1788, Washington wrote various letters inquiring as to the feasibility of acanal between Lake Erie and the Ohio, "whereby the fur and peltry of theupper country can be transported"; saying: "Could a channel once beopened to convey the fur and peltry from the Lakes into the easterncountry, its advantages would be so obvious as to induce an opinion thatit would in a short time become the channel of conveyance for much thegreater part of the commodities brought from thence. " Sparks, Washington's Works, IX. , 303, 327. ]

[Footnote 256: Wis. Hist. Colls. , XI. , 230. ]

[Footnote 257: Cong. Rec. , XXIII. , 57. I found this interestingconfirmation of my views after this paper was written. Compare _Harper'sMagazine_, Sept. 1890, p. 565. ]

[Footnote 258: The traffic in furs in the Middle Ages was enormous, saysFriedlander, Sittengeschichte, III. , 62. Numerous cities in England andon the Continent, whose names are derived from the word "beaver" andwhose seals bear the beaver, testify to the former importance in Europeof this animal; see _Canadian Journal_, 1859, 359. See Du Chaillu, Viking Age, 209-10; Marco Polo, bk. Iv. , ch. Xxi. "Wattenbach, in_Historische Zeitschrift_, IX. , 391, shows that German traders wereknown in the lands about the Baltic at least as early as the knights. ]