Description 

 

A Wisconsin Fur-Trader's Journal. 1804-1805

by François Victor Malhiot
(Reprinted from the Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XIX, 1910) 

This volume presents a series of documents about the fur-trade in the Northwest during the years 1804 and 1805. "This commerce of the forest profoundly affected early Wisconsin life; indeed, during the first two centuries of our Commonwealth's history, collecting furs for the European market was the only industry that flourished within our bounds.  The trade developed a peculiar organism, which widely influenced the social development not only of Wisconsin but of the entire continental interior.  Its personal relationships were comparable, in some degree, with those of the Scotch Highlands, under which chieftain and retainer were joined by certain obligations, and an unwritten code of customs. Although this system reached its height of efficiency under the Scotch traders who officered the great trading companies during the most prosperous period of the Northwest fur-trade, it was directly inherited from the French - being a legacy of the semi-feudal seignoirial arrangements of French-Canadian agricultural life, modified by the necessities of wilderness service.  The chief trader was the bourgeois - governor of pack and train, master of the canoe-brigade, despot of the trading post. Under him were the commis, or clerks - gentlemen's sons, apprentices to the business, in arduous training for the responsibilities of a future bourgeois.  These youth shared the appointments of their chief, slept in his tent, partook of his food, kept his accounts, and rote his letters and at his dictation, took charge of subsidiary posts, or of side-expeditions to native villages supposedly rich in peltries.  If successful, the commis became in course of time a wintering partner in the great company to which he was apprenticed.  The third and lowest stratum of the hierarchy was composed of voyageurs - young, hardy French-Canadian peasants, or half-breeds, who, rather than work in the narrow paternal fields, volunteered for this free life of  the forests and waterways, or were apprenticed thereto by their parents and guardians. Their signed contracts (engagements) with the bourgeois bound them to obey the latter in all things, to do his will, seek his profit, avoid his damage, and refrain from trading on their own account.  
Their duties were to propel the canoe, portage the craft and its cargo, provide for the comfort of the bourgeois, pitch his tent, and prepare his meals; while at the trading post, they were to hunt, fish, cut wood, beat and pack furs, run the drouine, defend the post against hostile attacks, and be on good terms with as many Indians as possible.  During his term of probation, the voyageur was known as a mangeur de lard (pork-eater), a derisive term for a dainty person, unused to wilderness fare and needing to be pampered in food and living - equivalent to the "tenderfoot" of the later American frontier.  After one or two seasons the voyageur became a hivenant (or winterer), able to endure privations and fatigues that would appal (sic)  the inexperienced." 

"Following the text of the journal, are given Malhiot's invoices and memoranda, which throw strong light on the economies of the trade, the goods, the peltries, the methods of credit and recovery, the curious terminology, the manner of accounting, and the numerous presents necessary to hold the good will of savage customers.

One of the interesting features illustrated by Malhiot's Journal is the competition created by the rivalry of the tow great fur-trading companies of his time; and their final coalition into one monopoly.  The heyday of the Northwest fur-trade was the period of the formation  and growth of these organizations, roughly covered by the dates 1778 to 1815. " [ Ruben Gold Thwaites for the Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XIX, 1910, pp xiii - xiv].