United States or Belgium ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I expressed my surprise that he should, if what he told me was true, have gained such a reputation as a warrior; whereupon he informed me that many years previous, when he was a young man, and before he had ever been in battle, he, with about twenty white men and four Delawares, were at one of the Fur Company's trading-posts upon the Upper Missouri, engaged in trapping beaver.
Sometimes the prices in Paris dwindled to nothing because the market was glutted. At other times the Indians brought no furs at all to the trading-posts. With its export trade dependent upon the caprice of the savages, the colony often seemed not worth the keeping. In these years of worst discouragement the existence of the mission was a great prop.
These few villages or trading-posts, which were defended by forts, were scattered here and there at convenient places along the river courses, the three strongest forts being at Vincennes, on the Wabash, at Kaskaskia, and at Detroit. Over all the rest of the wild territory roamed hostile Indian tribes, hunting and fighting against one another as well as against the frontiersmen.
It exercised virtually sovereign powers. It made and enforced its own laws, it maintained its own fleet and army, it negotiated treaties with Japan and China, it dethroned sultans and rajahs, it established trading-posts and factories at the Cape of Good Hope, in the Persian Gulf, on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, and in Bengal; it waged war against the Portuguese, the Spaniards and the English in turn.
The reprimand, however, did not reach Canada till the summer of 1673, so that for some months Frontenac was permitted to view his work with satisfaction. His next move likewise involved a new departure. Hitherto the king had discouraged the establishment of forts or trading-posts at points remote from the zone of settlement.
Fort William was the Mecca of the traders and voyageurs who served the North-West Company. It was the divisional point and the warehousing centre of sixty trading-posts. No less than five thousand persons were engaged in the trade which centred at Fort William. During the season from May to September the traffic carried on at the fort was of the most active character.
The fate of the Pueblo, where the trappers and hunters had such good times in the halcyon days of the border, like that which befell nearly all the trading-posts and ranches on the Old Santa Fe Trail, was to be partially destroyed by the savages.
Being immortal, undoubtedly they are still disporting themselves in the Indian Ocean. For this story the writer is indebted to Professor George F. Moore, D.D., of the Harvard Divinity School. How the Cod-fishery led to the Fur-trade. Disastrous Failure of the First Trading-posts. Champlain's First Visit to the New World. His Second, and the Determination to which it led. The Bitter Winter at St.
He was here cordially welcomed by the chiefs, but instead of going into the interior and assuming the reins of government, he remained on the coast for the purpose of establishing trading-posts where his goods might be disposed of. He had captured one port from the French, and was engaged in repairing a fort built by them, when a body of troops landing from a French frigate attacked him.
Yet, from whatever cause, the number of inhabitants, exclusive of a few factors or agents at the trading-posts, and the Frenchmen who from choice had taken up their abodes among the Indian tribes, remained less than sixty.
Word Of The Day