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There they, in turn, erected their little posts and trading-stations, laid out their beads and blankets, their strouds and cottons, and exchanged their long-carried goods for the beaver and marten and fisher skins of the Nadow, Sioux, Kinistineau, and Osinipoilles.
It must appear marvellous to the English reader how it happened that these traders obtained so much and such good information to the northward of the equator, and especially of the White Nile traders. The reasons are these: For several years these Arabs have not only traded with Karague, Uganda, and Usoga, but they have had trading-stations in Uddu-Uganda and in Karague.
B says that there was formerly a tradition that the Indians used to go up this brook, and return, after a brief absence, with large masses of lead, which they sold at the trading-stations in Augusta; whence there has always been an idea that there is a lead-mine hereabouts. Great toadstools were under the trees, and some small ones as yellow and almost the size of a half-broiled yolk of an egg.
Although her Indian empire was not yet begun, the vast superiority of her navy would enable her to control the communications of other nations with those rich and distant regions, and to assert her will in any disputes arising among the trading-stations of the different nationalities.
When the mother-country, under the guidance of an ignorant king and short-sighted ministers, undertook to act upon the antiquated theory that the new communities were merely groups of trading-stations, the political bond of connection was severed; yet the war which ensued was not like the war which had but just now been so gloriously ended by the victory of Wolfe.
It soon became a most important point, because, until Fort Stanwix, on the Mohawk, was built, it was the nearest white man's post to which the Indians of the great Iroquois confederacy might bring their peltries. We hear much of it in the early history. The great trading-stations were always on big rivers, because these drained a wide territory, and the supply of furs lasted long.
Along the route full observations were directed to be made concerning the face of the country, the contour of the land; the character and course of streams, their suitability as avenues of commerce, and the means of communication between them; and also the points best adapted to the establishment of trading-stations and fortifications.
The original structure was built in the usual style of all Indian trading-stations of that day, of adobes, or sun-dried bricks. It was enclosed by walls twenty feet high and four feet thick, encompassing an area two hundred and fifty feet long by two hundred wide. At the diagonal northwest and southwest corners, adobe bastions were erected, commanding every approach to the place.
Pere Marquette and the Sieur de la Salle traced out the courses of the Ohio and the Mississippi; French trading-stations began to arise among the scattered Indian tribes who alone occupied the vast central plain; and a strong French claim was established to the possession of this vital area, which was not only the most valuable part of the American continent, but would have shut off the English coastal settlements from any possibility of westward expansion.
The only other agriculturist in the colony was Louis Hebert, who had come to Canada in 1617 with a wife and three children, and who made a house for himself on the rock, at a little distance from Champlain's fort. Besides Quebec, there were the three trading-stations of Montreal, Three Rivers, and Tadoussac, occupied during a part of the year. Of these, Tadoussac was still the most important.
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