There Was No Money Used In
This Traffic, And, After A Time, All Payment In Spirituous
Liquors Was Prohibited, In Consequence Of The Frantic And
Frightful Excesses And Bloody Brawls Which They Were Apt To
Occasion.
Their wants and caprices being supplied, they would take leave of
the governor, strike their tents, launch their canoes, and ply
their way up the Ottawa to the lakes.
A new and anomalous class of men gradually grew out of this
trade. These were called coureurs des bois, rangers of the woods;
originally men who had accompanied the Indians in their hunting
expeditions, and made themselves acquainted with remote tracts
and tribes; and who now became, as it were, peddlers of the
wilderness. These men would set out from Montreal with canoes
well stocked with goods, with arms and ammunition, and would make
their way up the mazy and wandering rivers that interlace the
vast forests of the Canadas, coasting the most remote lakes, and
creating new wants and habitudes among the natives. Sometimes
they sojourned for months among them, assimilating to their
tastes and habits with the happy facility of Frenchmen, adopting
in some degree the Indian dress, and not unfrequently taking to
themselves Indian wives.
Twelve, fifteen, eighteen months would often elapse without any
tidings of them, when they would come sweeping their way down the
Ottawa in full glee, their canoes laden down with packs of beaver
skins. Now came their turn for revelry and extravagance. "You
would be amazed," says an old writer already quoted, "if you saw
how lewd these peddlers are when they return; how they feast and
game, and how prodigal they are, not only in their clothes, but
upon their sweethearts. Such of them as are married have the
wisdom to retire to their own houses; but the bachelors act just
as an East Indiaman and pirates are wont to do; for they lavish,
eat, drink, and play all away as long as the goods hold out; and
when these are gone, they even sell their embroidery, their lace,
and their clothes. This done, they are forced upon a new voyage
for subsistence."
Many of these coureurs des bois became so accustomed to the
Indian mode of living, and the perfect freedom of the wilderness,
that they lost relish for civilization, and identified themselves
with the savages among whom they dwelt, or could only be
distinguished from them by superior licentiousness. Their conduct
and example gradually corrupted the natives, and impeded the
works of the Catholic missionaries, who were at this time
prosecuting their pious labors in the wilds of Canada.
To check these abuses, and to protect the fur trade from various
irregularities practiced by these loose adventurers, an order was
issued by the French government prohibiting all persons, on pain
of death, from trading into the interior of the country without a
license.
These licenses were granted in writing by the governor-general,
and at first were given only to persons of respectability; to
gentlemen of broken fortunes; to old officers of the army who had
families to provide for; or to their widows.
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