The french settlers were often engaged in what type of economic activity

The French Settlers were often engaged in "the Fur trade".

Explanation:

Over this large stretch of the North American landmass, the French involved in an enthusiastic business enterprise intended to meet European requests for fur.

This company – identified by the deceptively simplistic word the fur commerce.

French immigrants were usually included in the production of gardening commodities, mainly sugarcane.

for this case we have the following equation:

we apply distributive property to the terms within parentheses.

subtracting 2 on both sides of the equation: