New Orleans

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 flow into the Mississippi.

France claimed the Mississippi River because the upper regions were first explored by Father Marquette and Louis Joliet in 1673. At that time, Europeans had this agreement that if my countryman sees it first, it is ours! A little later, the lower Mississippi was explored and claimed for France by La Salle.

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

The French wanted title to these lands (and rivers) for two important reasons. . . the first was to continue the expansion of their fur-trading monopoly. The movement of trade goods and furs was dependent on water routes. Second, New France was isolated for six months as the St. Lawrence river froze in November and did not become navigatable until late Spring. A warm water port near the mouth of the Mississippi river could provide year-round water access to the American heartland of the continent. That was the plan!
Long before the American Revolution, French forts dotted the Great Lakes at Detroit, Duluth, Niagara and Mackinaw to protect the French fur-trading monopoly from encroachment.

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. Voyageurs paddled 35 foot Birchbark canoes, filled with almost 2 tons of trade goods, into the wilderness. At times, they might paddle 70 miles or more in a day. At other times, they carried (portaged) their large canoes and 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 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.

As for the French warm-water port at the mouth of the Mississippi River? It is called New Orleans and still has a Canadian (Cajun) flair.