In 1669, Patoulet writes to Colbert concerning La Salle's voyage to explore a passage to Japan: "The enterprise is difficult and dangerous, but the good thing about it is that the King will be at no expense for this pretended discovery."[104]
The king's instructions to Governor De la Barre in 1682 say that, "Several inhabitants of Canada, excited by the hope of the profit to be realized from the trade with the Indians for furs, have undertaken at various periods discoveries in the countries of the Nadoussioux, the river Mississipy, and other parts of America."[105]
2. The early traders were regarded as quasi-supernatural beings by the Indians.[106] They alone could supply the coveted iron implements, the trinkets that tickled the savage's fancy, the "fire-water," and the guns that gave such increased power over game and the enemy. In the course of a few years the Wisconsin savages passed from the use of the implements of the stone age to the use of such an important product of the iron age as firearms. They passed also from the economic stage in which their hunting was for food and clothing simply, to that stage in which their hunting was made systematic and stimulated by the European demand for furs. The trade tended to perpetuate the hunter stage by making it profitable, and it tended to reduce the Indian to economic dependence[107] upon the Europeans, for while he learned to use the white man's gun he did not learn to make it or even to mend it. In this transition stage from their primitive condition the influence of the trader over the Indians was all-powerful. The pre-eminence of the individual Indian who owned a gun made all the warriors of the tribe eager to possess like power. The tribe thus armed placed their enemies at such a disadvantage that they too must have like weapons or lose their homes.[108] No wonder that La Salle was able to say: "The savages take better care of us French than of their own children. From us only can they get guns and goods."[109] This was the power that France used to support her in the struggle with England for the Northwest.
3. The trader used his influence to promote peace between the Northwestern Indians.[110]
FRENCH POSTS IN WISCONSIN.
In the governorship of Dongan of New York, as has been noted, the English were endeavoring to secure the trade of the Northwest. As early as 1685, English traders had reached Michillimackinac, the depot of supplies for the coureur de bois, where they were cordially received by the Indians, owing to their cheaper goods[111]. At the same time the English on Hudson Bay were drawing trade to their posts in that region. The French were thoroughly alarmed. They saw the necessity of holding the Indians by trading posts in their midst, lest they should go to the English, for as Begon declared, the savages "always take the part of those with whom they trade."[112] It is at this time that the French occupation of the Northwest begins to assume a new phase. Stockaded trading posts were established at such key-points as a strait, a portage, a river-mouth, or an important lake, where also were Indian villages. In 1685 the celebrated Nicholas Perrot was given command of Green Bay and its dependencies[113]. He had trading posts near Trempealeau and at Fort St. Antoine on the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepin where he traded with the Sioux, and for a time he had a post and worked the lead-mines above the Des Moines river. Both these and Fort St. Nicholas at the mouth of the Wisconsin[114] were dependencies of Green Bay. Du Lhut probably established Fort St. Croix at the portage between the Bois Brulé river and the St. Croix.[115] In 1695 Le Sueur built a fort on the largest island above Lake Pepin, and he also asked the command of the post of Chequamegon.[116]
These official posts were supported by the profits of Indian commerce,[117] and were designed to keep the northwestern tribes at peace, and to prevent the English and Iroquois influence from getting the fur trade.