Social Studies
Coureur De Bois and The Fur Trade
Patrick Sikora
Imagine a country called Canada, with lots of development, religions, and backgrounds. Well this is were coureur de bois and the fur trade comes in.
The Coureur de bois and the fur trade, were small parts, that helped our country, called Canada to develop. The fur trade helped the First Nations, to discover new things to make improved items, like we have now, such as technology. The coureur de bois helped the First nations in a unpradictable way. They traded European items, on there way through the forest, but they did something else. Some of the Coureur De Bois had relastionships with the Native woman. Yes, it may seem different, but it is true. The woman that were wives with
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It all started when the fur trade began, in the late 17th century and in the early 18th century. When the fur trade began clothing also started. Animals would be hunted for there food, and also for there fur. There furs would be traded for tools such as axes, and weapons such as muskets. The First Nations would barter to find the best deals since they didn 't know each other 's languages. Most trading posts were lead by European traders, because there was not much of tree land left in Europe, so there was less fur in the area and that lead to trading in Canada. Beaver fur was the most valuable, because it was the best fur for making felt. To trade, groups such as the First Nations and the Inuits, would bring there furs to the trading posts, and trade for there goods. Later a group of men at the trading posts, decided to go look for there own furs, and they were called the coureur de bois. The coureur de bois were french-Canadian’s that traveled through New France and North America. The coureur de bois, were people that would usually travel by themselves, or in small groups, because of the weather or just because of the danger in that area. They would usually travel by canoe, but sometimes they would use snowshoes to walk through the snow in the winter, or in the spring they would usually walk through the forest on there feet. The coureur de bois learned from the aboriginals. They learned
Another point was the disunity between the different Indian groups based on the needed fur trade. The book displays the tenuous relationships between
The fur trade started off as a supplement to the fishing industry. When a wide-brimmed felted furry hat came into fashion in the seventeenth century. There was an insatiable demand for beaver pelts. The beaver fur assured that it would make the perfect felters and hatters. Beaver fur was made up of two different kinds of hairs or filaments.
By the 1500s, Europe had destroyed almost their source of fur. The occurrence of the “little ice age” resulted in panic from European countries and a ridiculously high demand for furs. This made fur prices rise and Merchants hungry to sell them. This is similar to when China began to use silver as their national currency, which made merchants eager to trade with them. Different from one another, the fur trade was incredibly competitive in the Americas.
The French would pay Indians for the furs with things like clothing, alcohol, guns, ammunition, glass beads and pots. The two created a very lucrative partnership, the natives were dependent on the French and the French were dependent on the natives. The French was responsible for
Introduction In the 1500s were there were only 13 colonies, they traded many items that soon became the center of there region, but, trading these days is isn’t as important as it was those days. The most important things is getting resources from other countries. If we can go back at that time when trading was important, there would be a lot of merchants in the ports trading many things. There were many farmers in the southern colonies that grow many things.
The fur trade first established the Pacific Northwest as a hinterland by encouraging settlers and traders from The competition vigorously grew between Europe, the United States, Spanish cultures, and other participants beyond the coastal region. However, throughout the progression of the Pacific Northwest as a hinterland ships and agricultural merchandise become about, so there was more than farming to offer. Thus, resulting in the everyday reliance of these trading goods. In addition, The fur trade first established the Pacific Northwest as a hinterland due to the fact that the fur trades satisfied the economic aspect that the hinterlands required, by supplying raw materials and resources to further the growth of the markets and generating dependency upon the fur.
The story told is that upon returning to Montreal, Canada, following his exploration of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River 1673-1674, with Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette, Louis Joliet lost all of his records when his boat overturned in the St. Lawrence River, and shortly afterwards, at the request of French officials, he drew from memory the “Nouvelle decouverte de plusieurs nations dans la Nouvelle France en l'année 1673 et 1674”, translated “New Discovery of Several Nations in New France in the Years 1673 and 1674”. Louis Joliet was a Canadian explorer, who, despite his philosophical and religious studies, renounced his clerical vocation in 1667 and pursued fur trading at the age of 23 instead. Did you know that Joliet’s exploration in search of the Northwest Passage was not sanctioned by the French Crown? It was Jean Baptiste Talon, Louis XIV’s intendant, who sent him and his company west, where he failed to find the elusive passage, but claimed the Louisiana Territory for the French. He became the first prominent French Canadian explorer to play a vital role in the opening-up of North America
CIV 102: Essay Outline Name: Dawar Fuad Section: 2 Question: Compare and contrast the fur trade in North America with the fur trade in Siberia. Context: In the early modern era, the process of global commerce started to gradually appear between the prominent empires and states. The merchants had focused on only some specific types of materials to trade with, and one of the most profitable materials was the “soft gold” fur. Europeans and Russians were at the top of this trade process because they had a giant access to a numerous number of fur-bearing animals in their colonies in North America and Siberia.
The First Nations taught the Europeans different methods of transportation. They taught the how to build small boats, canoes and other types of transportation. Canoes and small boats are an excellent source of transportation because they are strong, lightweight, and buoyant which makes travelling easier. The aboriginals also introduced snowshoes and toboggans to the Europeans, which are the only ways. This helped the Europeans because they are constantly travelling.
Gender as a tool of analysis has been effective when analyzing Native societies. Gender roles in Native society inevitably shaped the tribe or band in which Natives lived in. Matrilineal or patrilineal Native societies controlled the daily operations, social hierarchy, religious influence, and the effects colonization had on that particular society based on the foundation. Using gender as a tool of analysis in Native societies, scholars are able to learn more about Natives because of the affects gender had in the characteristics and foundation of each society. In “Ranging Foresters and Women-Like Men”, A Nation of Women, and “To Live Among Us”, different scholars are able to use gender as a tool of analysis to understand the ways in which
The Mi’kmaqs attempted to profit from the fur trade with the new settlers but failed. The Mi’kmaqs than tried to exploit a military alliance with the French but than backfired. They would now be subject to the government and alter their life style, so they changed their employment to farming, crafts and lumber
In “furs, Rivers and black Robe” it refutes the film’s deception of life in the great Lakers region. The quote on page 89 says “In the following document, neighbors of the Iroquois, the Cree, explain their traditional beliefs about the beaver and describe how those beliefs changed after the arrival of the Europeans.” This quote explains how before the Europeans arrived the natives looked at the beavers as something secret. Europeans made the natives change the way they thought about the beavers and made them think about the profit. Europeans were trading things that were very useful to the natives such as: knifes, guns, tools and other useful things.
Amongst Europeans, fur clothing was popular, and the new abundance of fur bearing animals in North America fed their desires. The fur trade did however destroy the beliefs of Native American culture. The European fur trade upset the balance of the American ecosystem, enticing Native Americans to over hunt their land and go against the traditions that kept their land abundant for centuries. European traders came to America and traded with Natives for the pelts of animals. This resulted in beaver fur traders’ supply getting so low that they “could flatly declare that they had none,” The beaver, along with other fur bearing animals, had been hunted so extensively that the species became scarce.
The Cree Indians originated in North America. This very large tribe lived in many locations. Some including the Rocky Mountains and throughout Atlantic Coast. Some even resided and hunted Canada, heavily populating the provinces of Quebec and Saskatchewan (indians.org pg.n) Cree Indians ate many different foods.
Instead of trading food, clothes, fur, etc, they actually used coins. Their coins were made out of metal, and most of them had a hole in the middle. This was designed to string it together so you won’t lose them. They also invented iron. Which is much stronger than