Voyageurs

views updated

VOYAGEURS

VOYAGEURS, or engagés, were a class of men employed by fur traders—especially by the North West, the American, and the Hudson's Bay Companies—to paddle their canoes and perform other menial tasks connected with the securing of furs and the maintenance of posts in the interior. The term was first used by French writers around the middle of the seventeenth century, when it became necessary to travel (voyager) long distances into the interior in order to get furs. From that time until the third quarter of the nineteenth century, these men formed a rather distinct class that was recognized as such by their contemporaries. There were on average 5,000 voyageurs in Canada and the United States in any one year of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Voyageurs had distinct dress, customs, and vocabulary, and a whole repertoire of songs. Their unique culture sustained them during long and arduous trips to collect furs from the indigenous people who had trapped and cleaned them. Collectively, voyageurs bore the responsibilities of ensuring safe delivery of valuable furs, and negotiating prices and quantity with Indian suppliers. They also formed crucial alliances with indigenous peoples, helping fur companies obtain furs and European governments to negotiate relations more effectively with Indian leaders. Voyageurs were generally divided by two criteria: (1) according to experience, the pork eaters (mangeurs de lard) and the winterers; and (2) according to skill, the guides, middlemen, and end men (bouts). The pork eaters were the novices; the winterers had spent at least one winter in the interior. The guides were capable of directing the course of a brigade of canoes. The middlemen (milieux) sat in the middle of the canoe and merely propelled it in unison without attempting to guide its course, which was governed by the bouts. The bouts themselves were divided into the avant, standing in the prow, and the steersman (gouvernail) standing in the stern. In the interior the voyageurs helped construct the posts, cut shingles, made canoes, fished and hunted, went out among the natives, and were generally versatile men. They even served their countries during the American Revolution and the War of 1812 as soldiers. Certain companies, especially in the Canadian armies, were composed of and named by them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lavender, David. The Fist in the Wilderness. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.

Nute, Grace Lee. The Voyageur. New York: D. Appleton, 1931.

Ray, Arthur J. Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Trappers, Hunters, and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay, 1660–1870. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974.

Grace LeeNute/t. d.