The Fur Animals of Louisiana 23 



engaged voyaguers returning to the gulf from the interior 

 to secure more of them so that he could ascertain their 

 possible value in the market of France. For each skin 

 the hunters were to receive seven livres (a livre was ap- 

 proximately 25 cents) and, to secure the skins as rapidly as 

 possible, they were asked to induce the Indians to abandon 

 the beaver for the buffalo. Iberville proposed to construct 

 a fleet of bateaux plats (flat boats) on which considerable 

 quantities of buffalo robes could be floated down the Mis- 

 sissippi, there to be placed on ocean-going ships and sent 

 to France. 4 



It was Iberville's previous knowledge of the fur trade 

 in and around Quebec and Montreal, as well as his fear of 

 the result of the English activities about Hudson Bay, which 

 led him to the belief that the Indians of the central northern 

 regions could be persuaded to sell their peltry to traders 

 from Louisiana, whom he proposed to station on the upper 

 waters of the Mississippi River. He reasoned that with 

 prices the same and with French merchandise as good as 

 that offered by the English, the Indians would prefer to 

 dispose of their pelts in this fashion rather than to carry 

 them miles over a difficult and dangerous country in order 

 to exchange them for English goods. 



Had it worked, the scheme would have completely de- 

 stroyed the fur traffic of the English of that region, and 

 Iberville believed that if he could establish this traffic, in 

 five years it would draw from Fort Nelson annually between 

 60,000 and 80,000 buffalo hides, worth four or five livres 

 each ; 150,000 deer skins, worth 2,500,000 livres ; and other 

 peltry such as that of bear, wolf, otter, lynx, wild cat, fox, 

 and marten, worth at least 200,000 livres. 5 



But this proposal to the French home government seems 

 to have fallen on deaf ears, and the English, undoubtedly 

 hearing of Iberville's intended operation, strengthened their 

 influence over the Indians by having their agents supply 

 them with guns in trade, and by this means of barter, 



'Margry, vol. iv, p. 376. 

 c Margry, vol. [v., pp. 600-601. 



