Louisiana Purchase

You probably know about "The Louisiana Purchase" made during Thomas Jefferson's presidency. The Purchase was vast, consisting of all the lands drained by all the rivers that flowed into the Mississippi river. France originally claimed the Mississippi River because the upper regions were explored by Father Marquette and Louis Joliet in 1673. At that time, Europeans had this belief that if my countryman saw it first, it was mine. The lower Mississippi was explored and claimed for France by La Salle a little later.

Obviously, the Native Americans had been fishing, traveling and living on the banks of the Mississippi River for eons.

Anyway, prior to the American Revolution, French forts dotted the Great Lakes at Detroit, Duluth, Niagara and Mackinaw to protect the the French fur-trading monopoly.

French voyageurs traveled by canoe as far as the Rockies, naming the Grand Teton range near today’s Yellowstone National Park. The Great Lakes, the St Lawrence, Ottawa and many other rivers became the super highways of the French. Frenchmen paddled 35 foot canoes with almost 2 tons of trade goods into the wilderness. At times, they were able to paddle 70 miles in a day. At other times, they carried (portaged) their large, birch bark canoe and its' cargo from one waterway to another. Their destinations were log cabin trading posts and Native American villages scattered throughout the wilderness. The native peoples trapped and prepared plush wild animal skins which they traded for a variety of French manufactured merchandise.

On their return trips, the voyageurs carried dozens of 80 lb. bundles of valuable furs back to Montreal. The economy of New France depended on these skins arriving each year. Shiploads of furs were shipped from Quebec to France, each year, where most of them were processed into felt and fashioned into stylish, very expensive hats.