^ m V in n cp cg Quebec Montreal + F r e n c h : □ fo rt o r p o s t m is s io n Albany • to w n — p rin cip a l tr a d e r o u te New York E n g l i s h : 3 fo rt o r p o s t riv e rs 0 miles 200
F ig u re 3.3 F ren ch an d E nglish fu r tra d e , circa 1750
Source: Cole Harris, France in North America, in Robert D M itchell and Paul A Groves (eds), N orth America: the historical geography o f a changing continent. (Hutchinson, London 1987) 88
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num ber o f animals was necessary to the support o f each fam ily, and increased exertion was required to procure them. W e need not pursue this subject further. It is easy to see the consequences both to the Indians and their game."^^
D iscussion o f Indian resource use and environm ental beliefs focuses on two questions: w hether native people abandoned a pre-contact conservation ethic or w hether at any time in the past they deliberately practised m ethods o f conserving gam e populations at levels that habitats could sustain. Jeanne Kay thinks that "many tribes did not change their beliefs and historical evidence indicates that they considered they w ere taking from nature only enough to satisfy their essential wants." In effect, European traders substituted costly m anufactured products for In dians’ hom e-m ade utensils and garments. This change in m aterial consum ption required m ore animal pelts to supply equivalent goods and led to a depletion o f w ildlife w ithout a shift in basic environm ental attitudes.^^
A nother reason why Indians becam e m ore deeply dependent on the fur trade was that their population was increasing at a faster rate than traditional m eans o f subsistence w ould support. The fur trade created new w ork for Indians: grow ing food for trading post personnel and their livestock, acting as guides, gathering firew ood, perform ing many kinds o f dom estic service. Indian craftsm en found new em ploym ent building and repairing canoes, m ending nets, curing skins, tanning, m aking leather goods. Indian settlem ents grew up alongside trading posts and forts. M any children w ere born out o f unions betw een European men and Indian w om en and these children "remained in alm ost all cases within Indian s o c i e t y I n addition, "throughout the colonial period, m uch to the horror o f the leaders o f w hite society, colonists ran away to Indian settlem ents, or, w hen they w ere captured in w ar and had lived with a tribe for a few years, often refused to return to w hite s o c i e t y . T h e m ovem ent was invariably tow ards increasing Indian populations; no Indian or child of m ixed blood was ever recorded as com ing to join w hite society. Throughout the seventeenth century a stream of displaced tribes from the A tlantic colonies sw elled the Indian population in the M idwest.
The fur trade was articulated along w aterw ays o f the upper lakes country. The earliest trading posts w ere situated on the shores o f the G reat Lakes close to Indian villages near Detroit, St Ignace, Sault Ste M arie, Green Bay, M ilw aukee, C hicago and other lake ports. Traders carried their canoes inland over portages betw een the Fox and W isconsin rivers and from Chicago to the headw aters o f the Illinois R iver and so reached the upper M ississippi. French place-nam es along the banks o f the great river from St Cloud, St Anthony, St Paul, St Croix, La Crosse, P rairie du Chien, D ubuque, M oline down to St Louis, Baton Rouge and N ew Orleans m ark the consolidation o f French pow er over the principal w aterw ay through the interior o f the continent from the late seventeenth to the eighteenth century. B ritish and A m ericans also entered the region by water. Indian settlem ents likew ise w ere aligned along w aterw ays and w inter hunting expeditions followed rivers and stream s, parties of hunters carrying their equipm ent to hunting grounds by canoe.^^ The gam e itself was pursued across frozen ground. Hunters on snow shoes stalked m oose and deer; beaver w ere speared through holes in the ice and deer w ere driven over the snow tow ards prepared positions for ambush.^^ From M arch or A pril, w hen fish began to run up rivers to spawn and ducks and geese arrived from the south to begin nesting, until Septem ber, when eels were at their best, hunters lived m ainly on fish and fowl.^* (Figure 3.4)
O pen w ater and wetlands were habitats not only for w ild rice, berries, fish and w ildfow l but for a great majority o f gam e animals. Open w ater w as an essential elem ent in the habitat for beaver, m uskrat and was o f some im portance for w hite tailed deer.^^ Beavers were more abundant in headw ater stream s and m uskrat in low land swam ps and marshes, the richest feeding grounds being provided by large river basins. In addition, mink, otter and raccoon were either sem i-aquatic or frequent foragers on lake shores and in wetlands. D eer and elk had to have regular access to lakes and stream s for w ater and cover.^° Very few o f the highly valued fur-bearing anim als w ere m ore num erous outside wetlands; m arten, fisher and lynx lived in coniferous forests, bison on the prairies but they all had to visit w atering places. (Table 3.2) The most prolific species and also one o f the m ost valuable furbearers was m uskrat that stocked w etlands from Ohio to northern M innesota and survived the m ost intensive hunting in the early nineteenth century. Jeanne Kay
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