The fur trade was a vast commercial enterprise across the wild, forested expanse of what is now Canada. It was at its peak for nearly 250 years, from the early 17th to the mid-19th centuries. It was sustained primarily by the trapping of beavers to satisfy the European demand for felt hats. The intensely competitive trade opened the continent to exploration and settlement. It financed missionary work, established social, economic and colonial relationships between Europeans and Indigenous people, and played a formative role in the creation and development of Canada.
(This is the full-length entry about the fur trade. For a plain-language summary, please see Fur Trade in Canada (Plain Language Summary).)
Beaver
Beaver
(© Mirage3/Dreamstime)
Fishing, Furs and Christianity: Early Euro-Indigenous Relations (1608–63)
The fur trade began as an adjunct to the fishing industry. Early in the 16th century, fishermen from northwest Europe were taking rich catches of cod on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Drying their fish onshore took several weeks. During that time, good relations had to be maintained with Indigenous people, who were eager to obtain metal and cloth goods from the Europeans. What they had to offer in exchange were furs and fresh meat. The fishermen found an eager and profitable market in Europe for the furs.
When the wide-brimmed felt hat came into fashion later in the 16th century, the demand for beaver pelts increased tremendously. The best material for hat felt was the soft underfur of the beaver. Its strands have tiny barbs that make them mat together tightly.
To exploit the trade more effectively, the first French traders established permanent shore bases in Acadia, a post at Tadoussac. They also founded a base at Quebec in 1608. The following year, the Dutch began trading up the Hudson River. In 1614, they established permanent trading posts at Manhattan and upriver at Orange (now Albany, New York). This activity marked the beginning of an intense rivalry between the two commercial empires of the Dutch and the French. It also involved their respective Indigenous allies, the Huron-Wendat and the Haudenosaunee, both of whom were supplied with guns by their European allies. (See also: Indigenous-French Relations.)
Indigenous peoples were important partners in this growing fur trade economy. From roughly 1600 to 1650, the French forged alliances of kinship and trade with the Huron-Wendat, Algonquin and Innu. These peoples helped the French collect and process beaver furs and distribute them to other Indigenous groups throughout their vast trade network, which was established well before the arrival of Europeans. The fur trade provided Indigenous peoples with European goods that they could use for gift-giving ceremonies, to improve their social status and to go to war. The French forged military alliances with their Indigenous allies in order to maintain good trade and social relations. In the 17th century, the French fought against the Haudenosaunee in the struggle for control over resources. This was known as the Beaver Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars.
During the first half of the 17th century, the number of traders flooding into the St. Lawrence River region, and cutthroat competition among them, greatly reduced profits. In an attempt to impose order, the French Crown granted monopolies of the trade to certain individuals. In return, the monopoly holders had to maintain French claims to the new lands and assist in the attempts of the Roman Catholic Church to convert Indigenous people to Christianity.
In 1627, Cardinal Richelieu, first minister of Louis XIII, organized the Compagnie des Cent-Associés to put French territorial claims and the missionary drive on a firmer footing. Four Récollets missionaries were sent to Québec in 1615. They were followed in 1625 by the first members of the powerful Society of Jesus (Jesuits). A mission base, Ste Marie Among the Hurons, was established among the Huron-Wendat near Georgian Bay. However, the Huron-Wendat were more interested in the trade goods of the French than in their religion. And it was fur-trade profits that sustained the missionaries and allowed the company to send hundreds of settlers to the colony. In 1642, Ville-Marie (now Montreal) was founded as a mission centre. In 1645, the company ceded control of the fur trade and the colony’s administration to the colonists. (See also: Communauté des habitants.) Unfortunately, they proved to be inept administrators, and fur-trade returns fluctuated wildly. Finally, after a desperate appeal by the colonial authorities to Louis XIV, the Crown took over the colony in 1663.
