In early Canadian history, the Cree are associated with the fur trade. They trapped the animals of the northern forests, especially the beaver; then they exchanged the animal pelts for French trade goods, such as tools, cloth, beads, and, most valued of all, guns. With firearms, the Cree could hunt more efficiently. They could also gain the upper hand over other Indians who did not yet possess firearms, such as their traditional enemies to the west, the ATHAPASCANS.
Cree knife for skinning animals Many of the French fur traders chose to live and raise families among the Cree. The traders and canoemen who worked for fur companies were called voyageurs (the French word for “traveler”) because they traveled through the network of rivers and lakes in search of furs. Their offspring—the Cree-French mixed-bloods, or METIS—carried on this tradition. The unlicensed backwoods traders, who did not work for fur companies, were known as coureurs de bois, or “runners of the woods.” Like the voyageurs, some of them were mixed-bloods.
Both the voyageurs and the coureurs de bois were a rugged breed. They usually dressed in buckskin shirts, breechcloths, and leggings, like full-blooded Cree, and they knew native survival techniques. Yet they also practiced European customs such as the Catholic religion. Those who wanted to prove their courage might even undergo the Cree custom of tattooing, a painful process in which needles were run under the skin, followed by leather threads dipped in water and pigment.
The most far-reaching fur companies in the 1700s and 1800s were the British-run Hudson’s Bay Company, formed in 1670, and the North West Company, formed in 1779. Fur-trading posts came to dot the Canadian wilderness, places where Indians, whites, and mixed-bloods would come together to barter their goods. The two big trading companies united in 1821 under the Hudson’s Bay Company name. The Hudson’s Bay Company helped bring about the exploration of Canada and at one time it claimed much of the Canadian West and Northwest as its own property.
The Indians and mixed-bloods were the most skilled scouts and made it possible for the non-Indian traders to find their way through the wilderness. Many of the later fur traders were Scots, and they too mixed with the Cree. As a result, some of the Metis were Cree-Scots. Like the Cree-French, the Cree-Scots knew how to live off the land Indian-style, but this group practiced Protestantism, not Catholicism.
World History
