colonists. In half a century of efforts to build a colony, only about 6,000
Frenchmen managed to establish themselves. They could never displace
the Indians, as the Spaniards did and the English were to do, but had to
work with one part of the natives against another. Moreover, the French did
not take Indians’ land; they did not need it. With a vast area available and
few people to work it, French colonists were never driven by the hunger for
land that permeated “British America.” Their major thrust was toward
trade, and trade meant fur. Since they could not catch fur-bearing animals
themselves, the French had no incentive to plunder the Indians as the
Spaniards did in the Caribbean and La Florida. Rather, they distributed
what to them were cheap trade goods in exchange for fur. This exchange
soon gave rise to a new kind of Frenchmen, the coureurs de bois.
The coureurs de boiswere counterparts of the English and Scots
“Indian traders,” who later established themselves in Indian villages to
swap guns, cloth, and liquor for furs. Dressed in Indian clothing, living in
Indian houses, speaking Indian dialects, they often “married” Indian
women and begat half-breed children. More than any other group, they
would be the interface of Europeans and Native Americans.
Fish, Fur, and Piracy 63