La Prairie Voyageurs and the Fur Trade
Presentation for the French-Canadian Heritage Society of California
October 27, 2019
III. — VOYAGEURS OR COUREURS DES BOIS
 |
|
La Vérendrye, Explores Western Canada in 1732
|
These two terms have had broad and overlapping uses, but their meanings in the context of the fur trade were more distinct.
Voyageurs were the canoe transportation workers in organized, licensed long-distance transportation of furs and trade goods in the interior of the continent.
Another name sometimes given to voyageurs is engagés, indicating that they were wage-earning canoeman.
Coureurs des bois, on the other hand, were entrepreneur woodsman engaged in all aspects of fur trading rather than being focused on just the transportation of fur trade goods.
Understanding the Coureurs des Bois
The coureur de bois enjoyed the adventure, money, the beauty of nature, and a life free of conformity and the harsh work of farming.
Living closely with the Indians, they adapted to Indian ways and dress, and soon were as skilled as the Indians in the ways of the forest. Most cared little for tomorrow.
This lifestyle appealed more strongly to the French temperament than to that of any other European race.
One coureurs des bois reported that, “there is no life so happy, none so independent, no place where a man enjoys so much variety and freedom as in the Indian country.”
These wandering coureurs des bois were perplexing to the authorities.
In 1681, the French authorities decided these traders had to be controlled if the fur trade was to remain profitable for the merchants.
 |
|
Edict of the King of France in 1681
|
The market at Montreal was being oversupplied with furs and was hurting the local merchants who supplied the clothing, muskets and copper pots for the trade.
The authorities offered amnesty to the coureurs des bois involved in the illegal trade, and set up a system of permits for those voyageurs who either had a permit or were allied with a Montreal merchant.
These permits or licenses authorized outfitting a canoe with goods and three paddlers to go for trade in the Indian villages but only 25 permits were to be granted annually.
Lists of the trips, destinations to be visited, and names of the voyageurs had to be registered with the notaries.
In 1680, Intendant Jacques Duchesneau, estimated that there were more than 800 men out of a population of 9,700 now in the woods.
He wrote that “there is not a family of any account but has sons, brothers, uncles, and nephews among these ‘Coureurs des bois.’
This was certainly true for La Prairie, where the seigneury developed about the same time as the vagabond traders, and was ideally located for trade with both the Montreal merchants and the English at Albany.
Many of the coureurs des bois were persons of good birth, with some military training and education, who felt a magnetic pull to roam the forest.
One governor in French Canada wrote that “I cannot tell you how attractive this life is to all our youth.
It consists of doing nothing, caring nothing, following every inclination, and getting out of the way of all restraint.”
Estimates in 1700 put the number of voyageurs at 400 to 500 each year and the coureurs des bois at 2500 to 3000.
Without the coureurs des bois the fur trade would not have continued successfully for almost 200 years.
Many of my ancestors were — at one time or another — both Voyageurs (working for others) and Coureurs des Bois (working for themselves), so I tend to use the term Voyageur as a catch-all for either or both.
Continued Part 4... https://voyageur-legacy.blogspot.com/2019/10/presentation-for-fchsc-part-4-voyageurs.html
No comments:
Post a Comment