Each year, in early summer, the Indians came to the trading posts to
meet with the fur traders.
Trading scene at Quebec,
1628
Illustration by Francis Back
Collection of the Canadian Museum of Civilization
. . . On the tenth of . . . [July 1624] . . . the
savages came and
encamped near the settlement. On the following day de Caen arrived with two
pinnaces laden with merchandise. The next day the trading with the savages
began; other Canadians arrived at the same time with some shallops. On the
fourteenth of the said month the trading with the savages was finished, and
they left the same day to go back to their own country, one Frenchman [Jean
Richer, their interpreter] going with the Bisserains [Nipissings] . . .
On the sixteenth, Brother Gabriel [Sagard] arrived with seven canoes, to our
great joy. He told us all that had happened during the winter he had spent
with the savages, and the bad life which most of the Frenchmen had led in
the country of the Hurons; amongst others the interpreter
Brûlé, who was receiving a hundred pistoles a year to incite
the savages to come down and trade. And the influence of example was very
bad in sending out such evil-livers, who ought instead to have been severely
chastised; for this man was recognized as being very vicious in character,
and much addicted to women. But what will not the expectation of gain make
men do, a passion which tramples under foot all other considerations?
On the nineteenth, de Caen left us to go to Three Rivers with the pinnaces,
to trade with other savages if he should meet with any.
Champlain, The Voyages, 1632
Native traders came to Tadoussac, Quebec, Trois-Rivières and
the Saint-Louis rapids to meet with traders from the companies that held the
trade monopoly.
