During the seventeenth century, four European countries—France, England, Netherlands, and Spain–established permanent colonies in the Americas. The European colonists invaded North America driven by dreams of wealth: wealth from gold, silver, and perhaps rare gems; wealth from farmlands; wealth from trade with the indigenous nations; and, finally, wealth from slaves. As the European colonies expanded, the conflicts with the Native Americans over land increased in frequency and intensity. The French, unlike the English and the Spanish, saw Indians as trading partners. The French saw that their best opportunity for economic gain was to be found in the fur trade in which their Native American trading partners would retain their autonomy and provide them with furs. The French explorers quickly established trading relations with the Native nations.
From the beginning, the French were willing to learn from their Indian trading partners. In his chapter on French exploration in North American Exploration. Volume 2: A Continent Defined, Conrad Heidenreich writes:
“The French obtained geographical information from natives, hired them as guides, traveled with natives, lived among them, and learned from them.”
Conrad Heidenreich also writes:
“Whether or not the immediate aim of an expedition was narrowly defined—such as a military expedition into hostile lands or the establishment of trading and diplomatic relations with a remote native group—all French exploration had at its roots four general aims: (1) staking territorial claims against other European powers, (2) discovering major passages to the west, north, and south across the continent, (3) missionizing native groups, and (4) searching for exploitable natural resources, especially furs and minerals.”
In her book Chain Her by One Foot: The Subjugation of Native Women in Seventeenth-Century New France, Karen Anderson reports:
“By the charter of the Company of New France, Christian natives were to be accorded the benefits of French citizenship, and to be given the same trading privileges as the French.”
The French Compared to other Europeans
The French viewed the land, the resources, and the people of the Americas very differently than did other European cultures. Mason Wade, in his chapter in Attitudes of Colonial Powers Toward the American Indian, writes:
“The French, unlike the Spaniards and the English, did not try to exterminate the relatively sparse Indian population in their region of exploration because they needed their aid in the fur trade and in war against their more numerous white rivals.”
They were the only Europeans who did not insist that the Indians assimilate into European culture.
The French willingness to accept Indians as partners, to intermarry, and to learn Indian languages was quite different from other Europeans. Other European colonists, explorers, and missionaries made little attempt at understanding Indian cultures. Some, like the Spanish, sought to remake the Indians into Christian serfs and slaves, while others, such as the English, sought to exterminate them.
In his book The Smithsonian Book of North American Indians: Before the Coming of the Europeans, Philip Kopper writes:
“The French, in contrast to the Spanish, are usually credited with a special understanding of the Indians and an ability to adapt to native ways even while encouraging an appreciation of French culture.”
In Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian, R.G. Robertson reports:
“In contrast with England, which held sway over her colonial territory by sheer numbers, France, with fewer colonists, maintained control of New France by making a partner of the Indians. Frenchmen, unlike their Dutch and English counterparts, readily married into Indian families, gaining tribal loyalty for the French crown.”
In noting the differences between the French and the English, historian Francis Jennings, in his book The Creation of America: Through Revolution to Empire, writes:
“French traders penetrated more deeply than the British into Indian territories; and they often settled and intermarried in Indian communities whereas racial segregation was more often the norm for the British.”
Francis Jennings also writes:
“Not strangely, the French thus acquired much more influence with Indians than the English could hope for.”
Regarding the differences between the French and the English, David Edmunds, in an article in Chronicles of Oklahoma, writes:
“Unlike the British or American settlers, who were primarily interested in agriculture, the coureur de bois and the French Creole population who later supplanted them were primarily merchants, occasionally farming on a limited scale, but much more interested in the fur trade and other commercial ventures.”
While the British favored strict segregation between the English colonists and American Indians, including discouraging intermarriage, the French were closely associated with their Indian partners. The French colonial policy encouraged intermarriage with the Indians and the exchange of children to be raised in the other’s society. Sioux writer Vine Deloria, Jr., in his chapter in Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes, writes:
“The French sought to create a new kind of society of mixed Euro-Indian genetic background that would and could hold the lands claimed by the French king under the Doctrine of Discovery by appealing to their common ancestry.”
The result of this policy was the creation of Métis culture, which is recognized today as a Canadian First Nation.
Fur Trade
To create Indian partners in the fur trade, the French engaged in diplomacy with Indian nations. Unlike other Europeans, the French did not insist upon European protocols for diplomacy but learned the Indian ways. Thus, French traders participated in the ceremonial pipe ceremonies and gift-giving that were a part of traditional Indian negotiations.
Regarding the trading relationships between the French and the Indians, John Jennings, in his book Bark Canoes: The Art and Obsession of Tappan Adney, writes:
“Trading partners were expected to demonstrate generosity in the exchange of gifts and in military assistance; their enemies became your enemies.”
Using Indian bark canoes, the French moved inland, engaging in a highly ritualized diplomacy and asking permission to establish their trading posts on Native land. In his book Indians, William Brandon summarizes it this way:
“The Indians wanted the wonderful kettles and hatchets of the foreigners, but the French wanted even more the help and good will of the Indians, their woodland skills, their knowledge of winter snowshoe traveling, their birch-bark canoes (up to forty feet in length) and the paddlers to man them, their familiarity with the river-and-lake waterways to still more treasures of fur, and above all the French wanted to maintain in working condition the tribal channels of trade.”
With regard to the French adoption of the birch bark canoes, Mason Wade writes:
“This prompt French recognition of the superiority of the light birch bark Indian canoe was as epoch making as the introduction of European tools, utensils, and weapons into North America. With the aid of the canoe, the French were able to explore the waterways of the continent during the next century and trace out the routes which were later used by Frenchmen who had mastered, as well as any Indian, the use of the canoe for trade, exploration, and warfare.”
Conrad Heidenreich reports:
“The adoption of the canoe enabled them to leave their ships and coastal settlements, unlike the Dutch and the English, who virtually never used this mode of transportation.”
Indians 101
Twice each week—on Tuesdays and Thursdays—this series explores many different American Indian topics. More seventeenth-century histories from this series:
Indians 101: The Dutch and American Indians in the 17th century
Indians 101: The English and Indian land in the 17th century
Indians 101: English religion and American Indians in the 17th century
Indians 101: The Spanish and the Indians in the Seventeenth century
Indians 101: The Timucua and the Spanish
Indians 101: Jesuit Relations in New France, 1632-1635
Indians 101: New Amsterdam and the Indians
Indians 101: New Sweden and the Indians